Layton suggests talks with Taliban

[tuvor]

OTTAWA — Canada should withdraw its troops from the current mission in southern Afghanistan and invite Taliban fighters to peace talks, NDP Leader Jack Layton said yesterday.

"We believe that a comprehensive peace process has to bring all combatants to the table. You don't accomplish peace if those who are fighting are not involved in the peace-based discussion," he said.

After listening to Canadians across the country this summer, Mr. Layton said, he has come to the conclusion that the current mission is too focused on fighting insurgents at the expense of development and diplomacy.

"Prime Minister Harper need only look at the experience in Iraq to conclude that ill-conceived and unbalanced missions do not create the conditions for long-term peace," the New Democratic Party Leader said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060901.wxlayton01/BNStory/National/home

[Spazito]

1. Good for Layton, better late than never....

I started to laugh when I read this:

"Prime Minister Harper need only look at the experience in Iraq to conclude that ill-conceived and unbalanced missions do not create the conditions for long-term peace,"

Given that harper wants to be bush's next poodle boy, this quote hits him in two ways, well done, Mr. Layton.

[Canadian_moderate]

2. Yes, I'm sure the Taliban would love to talk

Are you guys nuts? Why give those stone-age religious freaks any credibility?

They won't be satisfied until they're back in power and subjecting Afghanistan's population to their neanderthal version of Islam. What makes you think they'll be any different from the tyrants who forced women and girls out of schools and the workplace? We should just accept their "culture" of horrific human rights abuses?

BTW, the Taliban is not interested in democracy and secularism. They only follow their interpretation of God's/Allah's laws.

[Spazito]

3. LOL, gosh, why am I not surprised you favour "kill em all" over

diplomacy? Could it be someone is reading the National Post and actually believing it?

:rofl:

[Canadian_moderate]

4. believe it or not

I suscribe to the Toronto Star. I generally tend to read the Globe and Mail on-line.

I'm not saying we need to "kill them all". I just happen to think we should help Afghanistan avoid another Taliban-like regime. The people there have endured some tough times and they need our support, including military support to avoid the toppling of their fragile government. No, I do not think they are puppets. I think they represent what most Afghans want, a more secularist lifestyle while respecting their Islamic beliefs. Empowering the Taliban will only result in more hardship for the people of Afghanistan.

[Spazito]

5. Okay, if you don't subscribe to "kill em all" and you don't subscribe

to diplomacy, what DO you subscribe to? Do you think Karzai is an American puppet or is he an independent leader? Do you believe Afghanistan, outside of the Afghan version of a "green zone" in Kabul, is any different than prior to the attack by the "coalition" in 2001?

How about the biggest poppy crop about to be harvested? What should be done about that and by whom?

It is real simple, imo, to say we should be there to fight the Taliban without any specifics. How about the warlords, what should be done about them?

[Canadian_moderate]

6. Karzai is a temporary president

Like him or not, he is better than Mullah Omar as Afghanistan's head of state.

Of course crime and chaos have filled the vacuum left be the downfall of the Taliban. Criminals tend to thrive in such situations. The Taliban filled the power vacuum in the chaos that resulted after the Soviets packed up a went home. That is why we cannot allow toeh to do so once again. Without our support, the Taliban would simply seize control again. Yes, Canada and allies in Afghanistan have made mistakes, but the main reason we are there is humanitarian. The reason Canada fought in WW2 was also humanitarian, but I'm not so sure many of you would have supported it either.

Diplomacy does not always work. I think the Taliban has proven itself to be barbaric and extremist. Why empower them by giving them credibility? Those wackos wiped out many of Afghanistan's cultural treasures and they subjected the people of Afghanistan to a form of Islam that was brutal and barbaric, not to mention foreign to Afghanistan's way of life.

[Spazito]

7. So, you DO see Karzai as a US puppet but it's okay because he is

only temporary? Do you believe the US won't put in place another puppet? The Russians spent 10 years trying to do what you are now saying Canada should participate in doing. Why do you see the current action being any more "successful" than the last? To be accurate, Canada WAS, not is,primarily involved in peacekeeping and reconstruction, a role I supported, NOW they are in a fully combat mission, quite different and one I DO NOT support. To liken what is happening in Afghanistan to WWII is ludicrous and pure hype, imo. They are fundamentally different.

One has to try diplomacy first and not dismiss it out of hand, you don't know until you try it. I find your thinking to be typical of north american thinking, the old "we know what is good for you and will make you see it too".

Again, what about the poppy crop, it is funding the Taliban and the warlords, what should be done about that? Burn it out? Who compensates the farmers that grow the poppies to scratch a living? Are you prepared to pay more taxes to cover that compensation? If not compensation then what?

[Canadian_moderate]

8. Is there not a legal market for opiates?

or are synthetic versions cheaper to produce.

I don't have answers to many of your questions, but the fact that Afghanistan has asked for our support seems to indicate that they do want to avoid another Taliban regime. Canadian soldiers are not dying in the number the Soviets were. Canada and the allies is not trying to impose a communist (anti-Islamic / anti-religious) regime either. The warlords are also not interested in peace and stability. A strong central government is not in their interests.

Our primary role should be securing some level of stability and security for the people of Afghanistan. That cannot be done unless the Taliban insurgency and the war lords are dealt with. I happen to think that diplomacy will not help. I think they have tried it in the past and they have simply regrouped and rebuilt their strength.

should we simply walk away and leave them to it? Is that really an option?

[IntravenousDemilo]

9. We should just walk away.

It's none of our damn business what the Afghanis do or don't do to themselves. Just because some other countries are busybodies, that doesn't mean we have to meddle. Let's all just stick to our knitting.

And besides, what's the point of painting a target on ourselves? That's all we're doing by being involved in this whole mess. It's obvious the US government doesn't care about bin Laden, so why should we fight their battles for them if they're not even going to bother?

[Canadian_moderate]

18. Not that it's the same

but was is really our business that Hitler wanted to control most of Europe and North Africa? Was it our business that the Hutus wanted to kill the Tutsis in Rwanda? The latter was really an internal issue to a sovereign country and the right thing to do would have been to intervene and help save hundreds of thousands of lives. I also happen to think that the world should intervene in Sudan (Darfur).

I think Canada and NATO and the UN should support democracy in Afghanistan. A return of the Taliban in power would be a disaster for human rights in Afghanistan. It's a difficult task, but we should try to help Afghanistan rebuild and re-establish security for its people. As long as the Taliban continues its armed insurgency, there will be no peace in Afghanistan. Why do some people find it so hard to comprehend that some people are inherently evil and cannot be negotiated with?

[Spazito]

19. Why is it so hard for "some" people to comprehend that the "war" in

Afghanistan will NOT be won militarily, as it was not when Russia did it, as it was not when the British did it. Thankfully, Canadians are not buying what you are trying to sell, take a look at this:

OTTAWA — A fascinating national opinion survey suggests that Stephen Harper and his Conservative government would do well to heed an old political saw about Canada-U.S. relations: Canadians like to see their prime ministers in the White House rose garden, but not in the presidential bedroom.

After seven months of an aggressive Washington courtship, the prime minister has apparently left a significant number of Canadian voters with the impression he is ’twixt the sheets with George W. Bush, and far too close for comfort.

In fact, the poll suggests that Harper’s perceived love-in with the increasingly unpopular U.S. president is the foremost single cause of what ails the minority Conservative government.

snip

First, the war in Afghanistan and, to a lesser degree, Harper’s pro-Israel stance on the conflict in Lebanon, are taking a definitive toll on Conservative popularity, particularly in Quebec where the party has tanked since the spring.

http://torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Weston_Greg/2006/09/02/1797801.html

[Canadian_moderate]

20. I don't advocate following the USA into every conflict

I oppose their invasion of Iraq. I felt they that made a tactical mistake by leaving the mission in Afghanistan incomplete and in a situation of chaos.

We are not there to fight against the people of Afghanistan, we are there to help them. I suspect that Bush is less interested in Afghanistan because it does not contain massive oil reserves the way Iraq does. Unfortunately we are there to finish much of the work the USA left incomplete. That said, I don't think it wrong for Canada military to assist the Afghan gov't in surpressed and defeated the Taliban insurgency.

I am fully aware that the UK and the Soviets both failed previously, that said, I don't think our (NATO's) motives in Afghanistan are imperialistic like those of the UK and the former USSR were.

[Spazito]

21. It doesn't matter what the perceived NATO motive is, the fact is,

as long as there are foreigners fighting Afghans as US proxies, as the NATO troops are seen to be, there will be NO peace in Afghanistan, imo, until NATO becomes more into the diplomacy and re-construction, doing that will be seen by the Afghan people as helpful and they would, therefore, be less likely to help and shelter the Taliban, etc.

[Canadian_moderate]

22. They tried that earlier

but the Taliban kept killing innocent people and causing chaos. The Taliban is not interested in the rebuilding of Afghanistan. Chaos is their only hope to win the hearts of the people of Afghanistan. By blaming westerners (infidels) for killing innocent Afghans their chances of success improve.

[Spazito]

23. "Westerners" ARE killing innocent Iraqi citizens

as are the Taliban. The Taliban IS interested in rebuilding Afghanistan but not as an American colony or based on western ideals, whatever those might be.

Blowing things up, killing innocent civilians certainly isn't going to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people and, at the moment, that is what NATO is doing.

In 5 years, how much progress has been made, in reality? Very little, an election was "held" where a US puppet was installed, Afghan citizens were given ballots where they didn't even know anything about the candidates, etc. Not something to tout as success, imo.

[Canadian_moderate]

25. There is a difference

The Taliban is deliberately killing civilians. The NATO forces and the Afghan army generally do not target civilians.

I would agree that very little progress has been made. The insurgents and the warlords have been very successful in keeping Afghanistan destabilized, especially in the regions outside the central government's control. Democracy would be great, but to me the defence and enforcement human rights, especially the rights of Afghan women, should be the primary goal.

Do you think that the Taliban would be be good for the women of Afghanistan? We've already seen how they treated them while they were in power.

Canada's primary role should be peacekeeping, however, it's hard to keep peace when the insurgents don't respect their presence.

[Spazito]

30. Bringing women's rights into this is spurious, imo...

unless you are also advocating we go to war against Saudi Arabia, etc, because of the lack of women's rights in that country.

To try and say our troops are there fighting and dying for women's rights is ridiculous. They are there because they are ordered to be there, ordered by our government simply because, in the beginning, it was a way to get the bush cabal off their backs re Iraq and, since then, because harper wants to be bush's replacement poodle when blair is no longer lead poodle.

[Bragi]

32. It's beyond spurious

You correctly note that Canada's involvement in Afghanistan serves mostly to free up US troops to continue the occupation of Iraq.

If you look at what has happened to women's rights in Iraq since the occupation, then clearly our involvement is doing nothing to promote the rights of women. Quite the opposite.

- B

[Canadian_moderate]

33. I fully agree with you on Iraq

I was no talking about Iraq. If Iraq becomes a full theocrary, women's rights will continue to erode further. Under Saddam's secularist Ba'athist gov't women were generally not subjected to Islamic laws, though Saddam did commit his share of human rights abuses, which not many people will dispute. That said, I've never supported the invasion of Iraq on the false premise of WMDs or any any other premise for thast matter.

I have stated earlier that Canadian soldiers are indeed cleaning up much of the mess created by the American military in Afghanistan. Unlike Bush, at least we kept our main focus on Afghanistan.

[Canadian_moderate]

34. Maybe not war

but I would hope that Canada and others would call human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia to task at the UN. For some reason we are told we have to accept cultural differences that allow the abuse of women.

In the case of Afghanistan, walking away and allowing the Taliban to regain power would be disastrous.

[Spazito]

35. Ahhh, so we should have a double standard, some countries that

deny women's rights should be attacked militarily while others should not but, instead, have their fingers lightly tapped diplomatically. I suggest: First - stop using women's rights as an excuse for our being in Afghanistan as it does not stand up to scrutiny and second - military actions do not change cultural beliefs, education and diplomatic efforts are more likely to succeed.

[Canadian_moderate]

37. Small difference

The war was not about women's rights.

It was about a cowardly attacks against American civilians on 9/11. OBL and Al-Qaeda took responsibility and they were happily hosted by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, who refused to turn them in.

[Spazito]

39. Hmmm, if OBL took responsibility for 9/11, why doesn't the US have that

listed as one of the crimes he has committed? From the US government site:

USAMA BIN LADEN IS WANTED IN CONNECTION WITH THE AUGUST 7, 1998, BOMBINGS OF THE UNITED STATES EMBASSIES IN DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA, AND NAIROBI, KENYA. THESE ATTACKS KILLED OVER 200 PEOPLE. IN ADDITION, BIN LADEN IS A SUSPECT IN OTHER TERRORIST ATTACKS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

NOTE no mention of 9/11, curious eh.

Edited to add link:

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm

[Canadian_moderate]

41. Indeed

Do you think Bush staged the 9/11 attacks?

I will fault the Bush administration for many things, including losing focus on the war against terrorism by invading Iraq, but I doubt they staged 9/11 or intentionally allowed terrorists to successfully carry out the attacks.

As is the case with Saddam's trial, it's much easier to prosecute based on smaller and simpler events.

In addition, OBL may not have been the actual mastermind of the attacks.

[Spazito]

42. I believe we do NOT have the truth about the events surrounding

9/11, whether it was LIHOP, MIHOP or gross incompetence we have yet to know. Re your comment:

"As is the case with Saddam's trial, it's much easier to prosecute based on smaller and simpler events."

How much simpler can it be if OBL, as you stated in your previous post, took responsibility for 9/11? Certainly you cannot be suggesting the US would offer OBL all the rights due an accused given their opposite actions re Gitmo, secret CIA prisons, extraordinary rendition?

"OBL may not have been the actual mastermind of the attacks"

Hmmm, that is NOT what the bush cabal has espoused and gave as one of the main reasons for going into Afghanistan, it was not to "free" Afghanistan, it was to GET OBL, the "mastermind" of the attacks according to the bush cabal. How quickly this is forgotten.

[V. Kid]

45. The only problem with that...

...is that Afghanistan is ALREADY in a situation of chaos. As was mentioned earlier the militia's control most of the country outside of Kabul. And frankly much of the difference between them, and the Taliban, is insubstantial. It seems as if your rationale for us staying is that it's the moral thing to do, in so far, as we shouldn't let a group (the Taliban) that's rather nasty gain control. But it's not as if the defacto alternative, the average warlord, is any better when it comes to the human rights of the average Afghani citizen, women included. The Karzai government is completely toothless, and they're not particularly great liberal democrats themselves, as they're rather corrupted by fundamentalist extremists too. The Karzai government itself has courted many of these figures, precisely because they need them, to enforce the will of the government. Remember that story about a converted Christian who was going to be put to death? It was government sanctioned. Of course once we heard about that, we put pressure on Karzai to step in and put a stop to it. But nonetheless, these sorts of elements exist in the Afghani government.

Also, while you mention Oil, and Imperialism, and the fact that you don't think that those things are a part of NATO's mission. I'd argue that they do play a part in the mission. The US gov't wants Afghanistan to be a country that's stable enough to build pipelines through, so they can export Oil, and other fossil fuels, from Central Asian countries through to ports in places like Pakistan. In fact various Oil companies were attempting to do business with the Taliban during the late 90's.

Frankly, other than getting the Americans off our backs for not joining in the Iraqi fun, and hoping for a complete change in course, there really isn't much of a moral reason from the standpoint of traditional Canadian peacekeeping values, for us to be there. And I'd say Layton is right to advocate that we change the dynamic and get every player at the table, to try to organize for a more sustainable peace. Like it or not, but the Taliban is a major player in Afghanistan.

[Spazito]

48. Well said! n/t

[Spazito]

10. To be accurate, the puppet government of Afghanistan wants our

help as does the US itself so Canadian soldiers can be replacement fodder for US troops while they become fodder themselves in Iraq and, possibly, Iran.

Who tried it in the past, re diplomacy?

Again, how exactly do you see the warlords and the Taliban dealt with if you don't subscribe to "kill em all" or diplomacy?

As far as Canada's part in this, we should go back to our original role, that of peacekeeping and reconstruction. The US and Britain should be responsible for the rest, they, after all, were in the beginning. If the US had been forced to keep it's troops in Afghanistan maybe they would not have been able to illegally invade and occupy Iraq.

When you take the number of Canadian troops serving in Afghanistan since the mission changed from peacekeeping to one of combat, divide it by months serving under that new mission versus the number of Canadian troops killed prior to the new mission and I think you will find the number of deaths to be quite startling percentage-wise.

I believe it is around 5% and that is after maybe one year, not the 10 years the Russians were in Afghanistan. As to the "allies" not wanting to impose communism, have you not heard that the Afghan government is looking to bring back the department "for the promotion of virtue and the discouragement of vice", a department first put into place by the Taliban. This is the government you think our young people should die defending?

I find it frustrating, to say the least, when I see simplified statements about what should happen in Afghanistan without any attempt to show understanding of the details or the complexity beyond the very basic and propagandized stuff from the headlines.

[MrPrax]

12. Why bother?

Nothing the guy writes is even close to the reality in Afghanistan -- he watches TV, that's all. He's got the depth of ant's bathtub and his propaganda is from last year...he's stupid and an offensive little jerk that seems to think he's a moderate, when polls themselves here show his postion to be extreme and Tory.

Notice he nevers posts up anything other than 'support the troop' shit in these types of threads or moronic shit like " I thought his father was Egyptian?:I'm pretty sure they're not Pakistani, unless they were naturalized citizens." :puke: (They all look the same to him :eyes:)

Reminds me of the line form an old Clash song...

Working for the Clampdown

What are we gonna do now?
Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?
’Cos working for the clampdown
They put up a poster saying we earn more than you!
When we're working for the clampdown
We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers
We will train our blue-eyed men
To be young believers

The judge said five to ten but I say double that again
I'm not working for the clampdown
No man born with a living soul
Can be working for the clampdown
Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall
How can you refuse it?
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
D'you know that you can use it?

The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there's nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing, so boy get runnin'
It's the best years of your life they want to steal

You grow up and you calm down and
You're working for the clampdown
You start wearing the blue and brown and
You're working for the clampdown
So you got someone to boss around
It makes you feel big now
You drift until you brutalize
You made your first kill now

In these days of evil presidentes
Working for the clampdown
But lately one or two has fully paid their due
For working for the clampdown
Ha! Gitalong! Gitalong!
Working for the clampdown
Ha! Gitalong! Gitalong!
Working for the clampdown

Yeah I’m working hard in Harrisburg
Working hard in Petersburg
Working for the clampdown
Working for the clampdown
Ha! Gitalong! Gitalong
Begging to be melted down
Gitalong, gitalong
Work
Work
And I give away no secrets – ha!
Work
More work
Work
Work

[Canadian_moderate]

17. MrPrax get a life

I support abortion rights, I support gay marriage, I believe in public healthcare and education, I was opposed to the USA's invasion of Iraq, but I'm still an extreme right-wing conservative. You seem to have this personal thing against me because I support Canada's mission in Afghanistan and that makes me a right-wing conservative. All right then.

Apparently now I'm also a racist with your ridiculous assumption that I think "they all look alike". When the hell did I ever say that. I simply stated that the Khadrs were of Egyptian descent, not Pakistani. I can tell the different between Arabs and non-Arabs.

MrPrax, you're simply an asshole, typical of the NDP left and that explains why most Canadians shun your party in droves when it comes to election time. Your typical higher-than-thou attitude is offensive to most Canadians. I hate people like you as much as I hate right-wing extremists. You don't support democracy and free speech and you ostricize those who have views that differ from you rather than engage in civilized debate.

I don't consider my self left or rightwing, I simply tend to be moderate on most issues. If that leaves me open to ridiculous insults from people like you, then so be it. I really don't give a fuck what you think of me. In fact, I'm content and happy that an asshole like you dislikes me. Good day!

[daleo]

11. We aren't going to fundamentally change Afghanistan

And we really have no business trying. Afghanistan will have to settle on its own course. For example, the matter of women's rights in Afghanistan will have to be settled there. It makes no sense for us to turn the invasion (rhetorically anyway) into some crusade for modernism or liberal democracy. That sort of thing rarely succeeds and we don't have the troops necessary anyway.

I have come to the conclusion that we should look at this Afghanistan invasion as a punitive measure. The west overturned the government that had (allegedly) supported terrorists that attacked New York and Washington. We have made our point - I don't think there is a whole lot further we can do, like it or not.

[iverglas]

24. sometimes there is no right answer

The "resistance" in Afghanistan right now are the same stinking pigs who "resisted" the elected Marxist government two decades ago -- the government that reformed land holding and thus undermined the feudal lords, and made education mandatory for girls. They can wrap themselves up in national-liberation and self-determination and anti-colonial rhetoric all they like, and they are still stinking pigs.

Briefly:
http://www.canadawebpages.com/pc-editorial.asp?Key=2386&editorPrimeKeyword=ryan&editorType=article

It must be recalled that the mujahedeen had been initially created by the CIA to fight the USSR <which was invited by the Afghan government to help it resist the anti-democratic violence of the religious fundamentalists / warlords>. They were later defeated by the Taliban and were confined to about 10 percent of the country in the north. But in 2001 they were recruited by the USA as allies, and were renamed "the Northern Alliance," and so they came back in the wake of US bombing to take over the country. But these people are basically the same as the Taliban, just a different variety.

These new found "allies" who helped to rout the Taliban are the same forces that had routed the Soviet army in the 1980s. And they are also the forces who, upon defeating the Afghan Marxist government in 1992, launched a campaign of rape and pillage, and the torture and execution of government supporters, then turned their guns on one another. In the ensuing four-year fratricidal war more than 50,000 people were killed and Kabul was reduced to the ruins of a Stalingrad - and it's still largely in that condition.

It was in opposition to these ongoing mujahedeen wars and lawlessness that the Taliban appeared in 1994 - they were a creation of madrasa religious schools in Pakistan, and their creation had the support of the USA. In desperation, Afghan people supported them, hoping for some form of stability, but once in power the Taliban brought in a reign of Islamist terror, especially on women. They imposed an ultra-sectarian version of Islam, closely related to Wahhabism, the ruling creed in Saudi Arabia. And now by a twist of fate, the old mujahedeen are back -- it's one tragedy after another -- and for most Afghans it's just a change of devils.

I think there is a fair bit to be said for the position that we created the fucking mess -- we being the West, of which Canada is a part whether we want to take responsibility for our part or not -- and we have a duty to clean it up. The fact is that if we leave, the stinking pigs will soon be in control again, but of course not before a lot more blood is shed; and a lot more lives, particularly women's and girls', will ruined before they're gone again.

The Afghan people had a chance 20 years ago. The US, without a word of protest from Canada, was more than instrumental in taking that chance away from them.

What I find astounding is that the Western media never mention that for a brief period of time Afghanistan once had a progressive secular government, with broad popular support. It had enacted progressive reforms and gave equal rights to women. It was in the process of dragging the country into the 20th century, and as British political scientist Fred Halliday stated in May 1979, "probably more has changed in the countryside over the last year than in the two centuries since the state was established."4 It would now be the type of government that most people in Afghanistan and the West would probably welcome. What happened to this government? Long before the Soviet Union entered the scene, this government was undermined by the CIA and the mujahedeen, which triggered a series of tragic events that destroyed the country -- and ironically led to the disaster of September 11 in the USA, and to the present chaos and tragedy in Afghanistan.

I'm quoting all this just by way of using someone else's words to say what I have in mind. The article is quite long, and I recommend that anyone who doesn't quite remember history have a read.

The article concludes:

Much of Afghanistan is now in a state of chaos and civil war. There is no such thing as peace-keeping in the country. The war will rage on indefinitely and in time the entire Afghan population will rise up to throw out the foreigners. Rather than wait for that, the Americans and all their supporters should get out, totally - in the way that they should get out of Iraq. Although it's the Americans that created the disaster to begin with - in both countries -- it seems it will have to be the indigenous people to somehow resolve the problems.

And when it comes to Canada, what are the Canadians doing pulling American chestnuts out of the Afghan fire?

I might rather phrase that as: what are the Canadians doing following the US dogs around cleaning up the droppings? What needs doing in Afghanistan is not for the benefit of the US, but for the benefit of Afghanistan.

If I share the conclusion that we should leave, it is only because that is the only rational thing to do, not because it is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, I cannot expect that we are either able or willing to do the right thing.

And frankly, I rather hope that talk of compromise with the Taliban will be regarded by a future generation the way we regard attempts to appease Hitler. It is unconscionable to facilitate any transfer of power to the stinking pigs; they are simply not going to behave rationally and decently if we extract a few promises from them and go home. But do we have a choice? I suppose not.

[MrPrax]

26. Nice words...

but interestingly you provided NO compelling reason for Canada to place troops there.

'stinking pigs' asides...which is stupid racist shit, it's interesting that with all of the 'official' justifications (self-defense, capturing AQ/OBL, reconstruction, opium trade) are never invoked, just some weird shit about womens' rights (whose version ours or Amerika's or Sweden's).

Helen had a face that launched a thousand ships and conquest for 'breeding stock' was a high priority in the old days. In the later Crusades, chivalrous arguments of protecting women was used. Early American puritans also had this obsession about women coming into contact with aborginals and although overtime contact with aboriginals had several penalties for puritans, extra penalties were placed on women for their 'own' protection of course...many still existed far into post-revolutionary. So essetially under the guise of enhancing womens' rights through war and fiat, women generally lose more rights that they get in 'security'.

You are aware that early womens' reformer groups tended to form around 'home and hearth' strategies that emphasized that reform was needed to protect women from the Asiatics (no immigration) in Canada and protection from the Negroes, Irish Catholics (no immigration). In fact Margaret Sanger's first clinic had the motto "More to the Fit, Less to the Unfit" and was caught up in early racial social eugenics.

You must also be aware that every PR firm from Rendon Group to Burston-Marstelier have been contracted to produce 'war' campaigns that specifically were constructed purely to mobilize liberal women (baby incubators to Laura/Cherie Bush's Afghani nail polish episode) to support the war effort. The cleavage they purposely manipulate is historically the same; use of emotional triggers invoking women as the war objects needing protection.

You must remember the old propaganda of the 'cold war', dear? Women in the west were carefree and their daily lives made simple through the advent of modern appliances, the automobile and the modern supermarket, whereas Soviet women could barely make it from factory floor to abortion clinic?

Now while I worry about whether women in politics are 'soccer moms' or 'security moms' and which one is more likely to support national childcare, I will draw the line on the less than noble western practise of killing people who land we want to steal by invoking the 'faer sexe' arg and then hiding behind a skirt.

Yes we know comrade, Afghan women are living under a false consciousness and the best thing we can do is kill them or their family so they can bury their children and think they are one step closer to western freedom.

In other words, I am not convinced by your argument that all the planet must be delivered to our corporate overlords regardless how much you like your cable television, your car and YOUR version of western values...

[iverglas]

28. even more interesting

Interestingly you provided NO compelling reason for Canada to place troops there.

would be the fact that I wasn't arguing that Canada should have troops there. This would mean that I would have little reason to offer compelling reasons for doing so, one might think.

'stinking pigs' asides...which is stupid racist shit,

Ya think, do ya?

Notice how my objection to them was based primarily on the fact that they VIOLENTLY OPPOSED an ELECTED MARXIST GOVERNMENT ... which just happened to be actively promoting the education of girls ... the education of girls being a universally recognized prerequisite for social and economic DEVELOPMENT? I kinda think that the people who elected the government, and the girls who went to its schools, and the people who lived and died in misery when it was overthrown, were brownish-skinned and spoke a strange foreign tongue and worshipped a strange foreign god ... so I'm not taking your point.

it's interesting that with all of the 'official' justifications (self-defense, capturing AQ/OBL, reconstruction, opium trade) are never invoked, just some weird shit about womens' rights (whose version ours or Amerika's or Sweden's).

Never invoked ... by ... ? The right wing? And this would have something to do with me, and with something I said?

Whose version of women's rights (I ask, having NEVER ACTUALLY SAID anyting about "women's rights"? "Weird shit" indeed. Invisible shit. The kind only you can see. The best kind.

Any reason to think that, to the extent that I was referring to "women's rights" as an inherent and essential element of development, *I* was not referring to the AFGHAN version, the one that was being successfully and indigenously implemented a couple of decades ago before ... somebody ... decided it needed to stop, and the stinking pigs who opposed it needed to be given a whole lot of weaponry to make sure it got stopped? In the event that you aren't already aware of the actual history of the matter, maybe you tried READING the brief rundown I linked to?

Hmm. I suppose you could be saying that *I* never invoked the standard justifications ... which I suppose must somehow be surprising, although given that I hadn't made any proposal that called for such justification, I fail to see how.

Helen had a face that launched a thousand ships and conquest for 'breeding stock' was a high priority in the old days. In the later Crusades, chivalrous arguments of protecting women was used. Early American puritans also had this obsession about women coming into contact with aborginals and although overtime contact with aboriginals had several penalties for puritans, extra penalties were placed on women for their 'own' protection of course...many still existed far into post-revolutionary. So essetially under the guise of enhancing womens' rights through war and fiat, women generally lose more rights that they get in 'security'.

Blah de fucking blah. I really haven't a clue what you're getting at, let alone what point you might imagine you're making in response to anything I said.

In fact Margaret Sanger's first clinic had the motto "More to the Fit, Less to the Unfit" and was caught up in early racial social eugenics.

Perhaps you've been up all night. I don't know. But I'd suggest that you learn before opening your mouth, in this case about Margaret Sanger -- and the fact that the "eugenics" she initially espoused had precisely FUCK ALL to do with "racial" anything, and that what you are doing is regurgitating a stinking right-wing lie. How unfortunate that your worldview falls into such close lockstep with that worldview in such especially nasty ways, eh? I still have no clue what you imagine this allegation, even were it not false, would have to do with the topic under discussion.

Let's see whether you can grasp the point if I make it simply.

Perhaps you're familiar with the process by which Cuba implemented its Family Code even longer ago; perhaps not. Whatever. The thing is that even the crudest left-wing philosophies, with the possible exception of yours, whatever it is, acknowledge that equipping women to exercise economic and social and political power, and transferring their share of that power to them, is the most absolutely fundamental key to a society's ability to develop in every way -- economically, socially, politically.

A couple of decades ago, THE AFGHAN PEOPLE embarked on a societal development project that included economic reforms and social reforms, one of which was the integration of women into all facets of society, starting with childhood education and the removal of women from under the thumbs and fists of the men who had theretofore exercised property rights over them.

Shortly thereafter, some scum who opposed the various reforms embarked on a project of their own, to overthrow that government and reverse its policies. The scum were armed by the US. The country's fragile stability and progress -- and its people's budding ability to exercise rights -- were shattered. The rule of law packed up and left, and the vulnerable were more oppressed than ever. The opppressors apparently then decided that exporting their notions would be a good idea too.

WE BROKE IT. Not in the last 5 years -- 2 decades ago. We, the US and the rest of the silent West, shattered the hopes of Afghanis for development. Including, but not limited to, the hopes of Afghan women for rights and freedoms.

Leaving them to the depradations of the same people we handed them over to 2 decades ago is NOT the RIGHT thing to do.

Yes we know comrade, Afghan women are living under a false consciousness and the best thing we can do is kill them or their family so they can bury their children and think they are one step closer to western freedom.

No, sweetheart. In your eagerness to show us all what a big brave anti-feminist you are, YOU are denying both the universal truths of the development process and the specific truths of Afghan modern history.

And you, my friend, are the one promoting false consciousness -- the one attempting to impose a model on Afghan women that THEY DO NOT WANT, asserting that some phoney romanticized idea of the noble savage is the correct paradigm to adopt when examining their status and aspirations. They do not want to be oppressed and brutalized. NO ONE wants to be oppressed and brutalized, hard as that may be for someone desperately trying to twist their oppression and brutalization into something to be promoted, if doing so will serve his ends, to acknowledge. You be the one falling for the bad ideology here ... or trying to persuade someone else to swallow it.

You may not give a shit about women's rights and freedoms, but the plain fact is that unless women have rights and freedoms, a society will not have social and economic development. Quite entirely apart from how a lot of people just think that rights and freedoms really are universal things, and being brownish-skinned and all that doesn't really mean that one doesn't want, or deserve, them -- which would be, in concrete terms, not wanting or deserving not to be brutalized. I can think of no consciousness more false than one that tells you that other human beings want to be brutalized and don't deserve not to be brutalized, myself.

And you may not give a shit about Afghan women, but the plain truth is that Afghan women are actually human beings just like the rest of us, and they wanted the rights and freedoms they were acquiring and enjoying before everything got smashed by the agents of the corporate overlords a generation ago.

In other words, I am not convinced by your argument that all the planet must be delivered to our corporate overlords regardless how much you like your cable television, your car and YOUR version of western values...

And I'm fairly confident that it is perfectly obvious to anyone reading that the transparent deceit of your attempt to ascribe evil motivations to me that you have no basis for alleging is motivated by your irrational animus toward women in general and myself in particular, and based on nothing more real than that.

My point was quite plainly that although we broke Afghanistan some years ago now, and we have a responsibility to RESTORE it, we are probably not capable of doing it -- and even if we are, 'we' are pretty plainly not motivated to do it, and not making a genuine attempt to do it. So I have a Hobson's choice to make: leave broken Afghanistan to have its blood let by its own hand, or use my bullets and bombs to do the job. I don't like those kinds of choices. Strategic voting, writ large. Which option is the least lousy? I believe you'll see that I said, in reference to negotiating an end to the occupation by including the stinking pig brutalizers in the deal transferring power:

But do we have a choice? I suppose not.

Oh dear. If you want to claim to have taken that as me saying that we have no choice but to stay in Afghanistan, I'm afraid I'll have to recommend that you take lessons in how to read for meaning, rather than reading in search of something to portray as nasty and yourself as vastly superior to.

[MrPrax]

29. Crap load...

Firstly being pro- or anti-feminist is pure garbage...it's an ideology and even western women (or anyone else) are NOT OBLIGED in a free society to figure out exactly what each of the self-proclaimed 'womens' groups is pushing at any giving time for the benefit of women.

Funny you didn't get the 'false consciousness' reference as that was standard left feminism deployed against --well women like yourself... So let's drop that nonsense...

MY point was that routinely in the 'western project' the protection of women and their 'sanctity' has been a POWERFUL tool to encourage people to support WAR and draconian policies that support patriarchal power and this is yet another pathetic attempt to 'bait and switch' what was a legitimate mission at one time and now has a Mr Potato head approach to foreign policy where, supporters, grab any thing out of a cultural box and slap on the conflict -- let's put aside the original reasons for war which do have legal weight.

But surely you must see the irony of suggesting that Afghan women are different from yourself -- it is rather doubtful that you or your pals would ever immediately look to the military to safeguard YOUR RIGHTS, preferring instead to have them protected by law, dialogue, education and the human rights charter...which oddly never seems to come up much for those 'stinking pigs'(ours or theres).

But you advocate it as an 'approach' for those women...but have never really bother to ask them. Which is an anti-feminist stand. You must remember from your courses that self-determination is a BIG left womens' issue and cuts down to many of the islands of oppression women still face...but if you figure womens' rights are best secured by turning Afghanistan into one big womens' shelter, fine.

I figure I will leave it up to Afghani women to decide these questions for THEMSELVES and leave the thinly veiled Christian proselytizing to the left warmongers as they pick their favourite war colour.

But on the subject of stinking pigs?? Oh could it be that the same stinking pigs that are fighting those stinking pigs couldn't give two shits about rights, women or others, and are actually cut from the same cloth. One great way of getting rid of all that liberal whiny feministas shit you believe in is to establish a permanent military police state where such banalities as daycare are no longer affordable or wise for a people engaged in war. By 'stinking pigs' I mean the ones that figure rape victims should carry their rapist's children to term -- you know, the one's living right next to you. But you worry more about century old customs and another religion in parts of the world that also happen to have our oil has well. :eyes:

Now as far as Sanger -- I got it from pure left feminist sources. If the RW loves the part about Rockefeller financing it and the fact that only blacks and Catholics were encouraged to abort, while similar pamphlets were printed for the good Protestant white women to tell her about modern contraception...then it's hardly my fault. Take it up with history.

But I am surprised that you don't know much about the 'context' for early social reformers in this country...it makes for an interesting history to see that there was very little in the way of 'left' influence in the history of this country's social reform movement and quite a bit of revisionism of modern left academics desperate to find one. Much of it was conservative based and the 'red' adjective was invented to acknowledge this history. (Personally I think the whole 'red' tory thing is bogus semantics that has more to do with the internal factions of conservatism in Canada and little to do with any ideological outlook fundamentally different from 'blue' Tories)

The rest of what you wrote is simply the small 'l' liberal justifying murder and foolishly believing there are only two choices (kill or be killed) and pretending there must BE some rationale...we broke it? The taliban of course don't think it was broken, but you are willing to kill them off to prove the point I suppose.

The fiction of our culture of course is that there must be 'just' wars and it appears that you are firmly in that camp...unless you are advocating removing the troops, then Harper speaks for you and the 'white man's burden'.

But good luck on squeezing a womens' perspective out a genocidal race war for oil. I am sure it will as successful as Moderate Canadians pathetic attempts to paint the whole affair 'Poppy' red while chortling about 'the Huns'. (you know those evil huns went to an orphanage in Belgium and praticed their bayonet skills on Christian infant babies by throwing them in the air!! I read it in the paper so it MUST be true ;-)

[iverglas]

31. and my point was that I don't give a shit

How could you have missed it?

MY point was that routinely in the 'western project' the protection of women and their 'sanctity' has been a POWERFUL tool to encourage people to support WAR and draconian policies that support patriarchal power and this is yet another pathetic attempt to 'bait and switch' what was a legitimate mission at one time and now has a Mr Potato head approach to foreign policy where, supporters, grab any thing out of a cultural box and slap on the conflict -- let's put aside the original reasons for war which do have legal weight.

If you want to arague with someone who is doing/saying what you take such offence at, go find someone who is doing that, and stop pestering me.

I will tell you one more time -- actually, I'll probably tell you as many times as you might like to keep misrepresenting everything I have said: THE AFGHAN PEOPLE, including AFGHAN WOMEN, were quite happily organizing their OWN society and developing their OWN society and acquring and exercising their OWN rights and freedoms

... when the agents of western imperialism and partriarchy came along and made the AFGHAN PEOPLE and AFGHAN WOMEN pawns in their imperialistic games, by arming the vile scum who were engaged in overthrowing the Soviet-friendly government that the AFGHAN PEOPLE had put in place. And *I* didn't fall for the freedom-fighting lies then, and *I* don't fall for them now. The same vicious scum have NOT become anti-imperialist freedom fighters since the last time around. Their spots are exactly what they were then.

*I* did not suggest that we should "put aside the original reasons" for this war. *I* think that we are sorely in need of a national (not to say international) debate that is fully informed about what those reasons supposedly were and are, and about every other consideration involved.

But there are two points to be made here.

First, it doesn't actually seem to me that the original purposes of the mission have actually been accomplished. If we walk out tomorrow, will some sea change have happened in Afghanistan? I don't think so.

But, second, let us assume that to be so. Let us assume that Afghanistan would no longer present any threat to its neighbours or to ours. Let us assume that the Taliban and its various twins would just settle down to the real business of oppressing and brutalizing Afghanis, and leave the rest of us alone.

Why should there not be a broad debate about the wisdom and merits of doing *that*?

If I am walking down the street and off in the bushes there is a kid bleeding to death and I don't see it, I can just keep on walking. But IF I SEE it, I can't. I didn't cut the kid, the kid isn't mine, taking the kid to hospital isn't going to guarantee that the kid will not be further abused or won't grow up to be a serial killer, but I can not walk on by.

Why would it be right for me to walk on by when I know what will happen in Afghanistan if we leave just as surely as I know what will happen to that kid if I walk on by?

I can't stretch that analogy much farther, but let us imagine that there is some circumstance that means that my intervention is as likely to worsen the kid's situation as it is to save the kid. That's where I am now re Afghanistan. The choices I am presented with are not the choices I want to be presented with. I want to have option 3, in which the AFGHAN PEOPLE have choices and are able to exercise their own option 3, with my help if necessary. I want them NOT to have to choose between brutalization from this direction and brutalization from the other. I don't get that choice, and neither do they, as it now stands.

The rest of what you wrote is simply the small 'l' liberal justifying murder and foolishly believing there are only two choices (kill or be killed) and pretending there must BE some rationale...we broke it? The taliban of course don't think it was broken, but you are willing to kill them off to prove the point I suppose.

You seem to suppose a fair bit. "Suppose" isn't the word I'd use, of course; I used the right one already: misrepresent. Since I have now twice said that I see no real alternative to leaving Afghanistan, and I have made no attempt whatsoever to "justify" the policy currently being executed there, what explanation might you be offering for persisting in attempting to portray me as if I have said the opposite? We're getting beyond any situation that calls for the polite characterization of "misrepresentation" at this point.

Actually, I would be quite willing to kill the Taliban off, if that were possible; if we had a magic Taliban pill. I wouldn't stop with the Taliban, of course.

Where, exactly, are the people of Afghanistan in your agenda-driven maunderings? Whose point are you pretending to think I am trying to prove? What basis do you have for asserting that it is not the point that the people of Afghanistan would make, had they had the chance? The point being: they had a government that was bringing them the benefits that people have governments for, they were satisfied with their government, and it was TAKEN AWAY FROM THEM and they were left without a chance to restore their country, themselves, to what they had plainly expressed their desire for it to be.

The Taliban are NOT the people of Afghanistan, and have never been. I don't give a crap whether the Taliban thought Afghanistan was broken or not, or what their proposal for fixing it might have been, if so. No more than I would have given serious consideration to Hitler's analysis of Germany's problems and proposals for fixing them, or do now to Bush's analysis of his country's problems and proposals for fixing them. The people of Afghanistan had a government, one that they apparently wanted and were happy with, in the majority, and without crushing any minorities. Their opinion is what I find to be worth considering. The west disregarded their opinion and used them for its own ends, and the using of them, on all sides, hasn't stopped yet. And it WILL NOT stop if we leave ... and it apparently will not stop if we stay.

But surely you must see the irony of suggesting that Afghan women are different from yourself -- it is rather doubtful that you or your pals would ever immediately look to the military to safeguard YOUR RIGHTS, preferring instead to have them protected by law, dialogue, education and the human rights charter...which oddly never seems to come up much for those 'stinking pigs'(ours or theres).

Ah yes, irony. It's just everywhere in our post-modern world, isn't it?

Sadly, not in anything I said -- because *I* never suggested that Afghani women were different from me. I have said that they want pretty much what I want: at the most elemental level, not to be brutalized. And if I were being brutalized by some violent minority faction of my society, you can bet your agenda that I would look to my military to protect me, i.e. "safeguard my rights". That's what it's for. Law, dialogue, education and charters are indeed lovely beasties. You noticed many of them kicking around Afghanistan this year?

By the way, I'm not actually such a fool as to think that "law" or "charters" protect my rights. What protects my rights is the goodwill of my neighbours. If my neighbours throw goodwill to the wind, laws and charters go with it. And that is exactly what the west enabled the scum to do in Afghanistan.

I'm sure you don't see any irony in suggesting that law, dialogue, education and charters will protect the rights of the people of Afghanistan WHEN THERE IS NO law, dialogue or education and there are no charters. That's good, because there isn't any there any more than there was in what you made up and pretended I had said.


But I am surprised that you don't know much about the 'context' for early social reformers in this country...it makes for an interesting history to see that there was very little in the way of 'left' influence in the history of this country's social reform movement and quite a bit of revisionism of modern left academics desperate to find one. Much of it was conservative based and the 'red' adjective was invented to acknowledge this history. (Personally I think the whole 'red' tory thing is bogus semantics that has more to do with the internal factions of conservatism in Canada and little to do with any ideological outlook fundamentally different from 'blue' Tories)

Good for you. You seem to be enjoying your undergraduate studies enormoously.

Since nothing in this discussion has had anything at all to do with any of those musings, we'll just leave 'em there. But I'm sure that next time around, you'll be eagerly educating me about the racism of the Famous Five, or some other thing I've managed to spend all these decades knowing nothing about.


Now as far as Sanger -- I got it from pure left feminist sources. If the RW loves the part about Rockefeller financing it and the fact that only blacks and Catholics were encouraged to abort, while similar pamphlets were printed for the good Protestant white women to tell her about modern contraception...then it's hardly my fault. Take it up with history.

No, I'm happy to take it up with you and point out, once again, that you are spewing right-wing lies.

It's really quite entertaining to see, because the watermarks are so visible. You (perhaps unlike the right-wing hatemongers who craft these lies) did know that abortion was illegal throughout Sanger's lifetime, and that she never agitated for legalization. Right? And that Sanger's whole life work was devoted to decriminalizing conraception -- and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger

Sanger died in 1966 in Tucson, Arizona at age 87 only a few months after the landmark Griswold v. Connecticut decision, which legalized birth control for married couples in the US.

So how, exactly, could Sanger have been responsible for any of what your scummy right-wing sources (or perhaps your deluded "feminist" friends) are trying to lay at her doorstep? Encouraging blacks and Catholics to have ILLEGAL abortions?? What Operation Rescue tracts have you been smoking, anyhow?

Now Emma Goldman, she was another story:
http://www.rtis.com/touchstone/summer00/04abort.htm

... Goldman writes about her distress when as a young woman and midwife in the 1890s (before she knew about methods of birth control) she was often witness to the anguish of poor women who had unwanted pregnancies and who often saw their condition as "a curse of God." Many of the women begged her to help them induce an abortion "for the sake of the poor little ones already here," which she refused to do for fear of harming the women: "They knew that some doctors and midwives did such things, but the price was beyond their means... I tried to explain to them that it was not monetary considerations that held me back; it was concern for their life and health." ... She specifically states that her concern was not for the "sanctity of life" of the fetus but for the life and health of the mother: "It was not any moral consideration for the sanctity of life; a life unwanted and forced into abject poverty did not seem sacred to me."

Yikes. Red Emma. Wanting to abort little working-class fetuses. Wot a eugenicist agent of the corporate overlords.


Just a little diversion, to show what little regard you have for facts.


The fiction of our culture of course is that there must be 'just' wars ...

The reality of human life is that there ARE just wars. What this silliness about there having to be just wars that you're babbling about might be, I have no idea. Whether any war is just is a pure matter of opinion.

... and it appears that you are firmly in that camp...

Does it really. To a blind pig?

... unless you are advocating removing the troops, then Harper speaks for you and the 'white man's burden'.

Ah. If I'm not doing "x", then I am necessarily doing "y", the value of "y" being whatever you happen to feel like making it. Well, may I quote you? Fuck off.


By the way ... I've actually read that Kipling stuff (and I must say that when I saw Mr. Caine and Mr. Connery putting it on, they did quite a splendid job of it). I suspect you haven't. Here ya go. Keep that "irony" business in your head.



Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!


For extra points, tell us the circumstances it was written in, and ask yourself whether maybe you've missed the irony in the whole thing. You could always ask Wikipedia if you're not sure.

[MrPrax]

36. Anyway...

You support the troops...it's neither hear or there that you claim you are misrepresented. The only thing you hate is that your support places you with uncomfortable company...debate, debate, debate...whatever...

But on the Sanger thing...um...I did research years ago as part of a project for some woman who was writing a script...it started out as an ambitious movie project, but ended up shelved and parts became a 'fringe play' if I recall. Whatever...pamphlets were written by Sanger herself and are part and parcel of the primary history which is well-documented and you can read at anytime. If Catholics for instance have a problem with Planned Parenthood, then it's natural -- there was definitely a bias (like Prohibition) against the Catholic labouring immigrant classes of the original charter.

But you can find these skeletons in the closets of 'social reformers' allover the place -- whether it be the insipid racism of Woodsworth, Murphy's anti-asiatic rants, Tommy's veiw on homosexuality or dear Margaret's moral campaign.
Check out how the Salvation Army started -- you'd be surprised what the real motives were.
Check out the City Beautiful movement...you'd be surprised.
Check out the what the real motive were of Stanley Ryerson in establishing the first public school system -- you'd be surprised.
Check out why Carnegie funded libraries -- you'd be surprised
Check out Lord Baden Powell's early Scout movement -- you'd be surprised

In fact you'd be surprised at motiviations of many of our current institutions that hail from the latter part of the 19th century and have undergone little change...whether it be law enforcement or Parliament itself.

But anyway...yeah Red Emma...that example is no good.

A better one -- I liked the story about the 17 year in New Jersey whose coronor testimony I read as well...she punctured herself with a knitting needle, so ashamed she hid in a bathroom bleeding to death, her father and brothers finally broke down the door to find out what was wrong -- they didn't buy the heavy flow arg I guess -- so they beat her to death, or the one in I think in Penn state that was dragged out of the charity hospital by nuns to bleed to death in the alley.

Anyway history is full of dead bodies for the living to 'CSI' in order to find the guilty 'perp'.

And Lots of stories about how poor women have been betrayed and abused as well (they are still waiting) -- but luckily for respectable middle class women, they could always get their doctor to order up a DNC, all hush hush.

Poor women = fodder and the object of 'other' womens' moral projections like the ones in Afghanistan where they are merely chess pieces in some game...just like the poor one's in the US facing down Pro-lifers...chess pieces in a moral game. The hypocrisy went on Ireland for decades. Those that could afford to vacation, could grab all the contraceptives they wanted in England; the poor -- the people the religious hypocrites are usually trying to save from sin.

But anyway...you support the troops...'kay...it obvious a difficult stand for you...but we will check back in three weeks to see what the next excuse, the media is 'blue skying' that makes people misrepresent what you say... :eyes:

(oh extra points -- I saw this when it came out and I was 10 or 11...I loved it...does the 'passion fire' of Gods really cause women to burst into flames during intercourse -- I like to think so, metaphorically of course ;-)

BUT...Messr. Huston, Caine and Connery are not as good as Labourite's McNeill's 1899 rebuttle called "The Poor Man’s Burden"...and no I didn't have to do much googling or wiki-ing on Kipling's little taunt to Amerika or any of the Cecil Rhodes imperial 'panic' writers at the time from Jack London to Joseph Conrad...so there.

[iverglas]

38. anyway

You're a slandering liar, so that's as far as I'll need to be reading.

[iverglas]

40. but just a little evidence on my first response

http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DCForumID66/1027.html

I can't permalink because the thread dates from March 03, but pick one of my posts, any of my posts, in that thread.

And don't miss the sig line ... the way Mr. McNeill seems to have missed the point, and you with him. But then USAmericans were never good at grasping self-deprecating humour. One does not usually satirize satire.

[MrPrax]

43. Not sure what the cite proves...

other than the fact you had a moral quandry regarding the Iraq war :eyes: and some bit about 'personal responsibilities' when Mammon comes a calling for his war machine...and in some OP that lays firmly in the general category: The Pain of the 'vietnam war' and what it did to America
(here's hint; Vietnam was an Amerikan war crime and who gives a shit about whether US soldiers are being spit on or not? -- it's a fake debate anyway because it's a myth...fuck'em)

Was it this at the bottom I was suppose to see:

It's the same the whole world over.
It's the poor what gets the blame.
It's the rich what gets the pleasure.
Ain't it all a bleeding shame?

The original was a British soldier drinking song from the First World War that had nothing to do with --wot-- abortion or some powerful truth reminding us that the 'poor will always be with us'?...but good grief...

She was poor but she was honest
Victim of a rich man's game.
First he loved her, than he left her,
And she lost her maiden name.
Save See her on the bridge at midnight,
Saying "Farewell, blighted love."
Then a scream, a splash and goodness,
What is she a-doin' of?

It's the same the whole world over,
It's the poor wot gets the blame,
It's the rich wot gets the gravy.
Ain't it all a bleedin shame?
She was Poor but she was Honest

According to Oxford's Modern Quotations? Take it up with them and their inability to grasp Herstory or other revisionist attempts to re-order history like 're-textualizing' Kipling's racist poetry as fucking satire.

I will leave you to your beautiful mind to weigh the moral issues involved in this or that imperialist adventure...I guess you haven't learned anything from the past three years, huh?

I'll stick with H Rap Brown and the last line in Die Nigger Die:

"Give me Liberty, Give Them Death" no moral quandries needed...right/left...rich/poor...pretty simple distinction with no need to worry about the feelings of the OTHER class...

Oh and don't be angry...the cat likes you

[iverglas]

46. not sure about much, are you?

Not sure what the cite proves...
other than the fact you had a moral quandry regarding the Iraq war :eyes:

You might well roll those eyes ... at your own lie. Not to mention your spelling. (Here's a hint: quandary does not rhyme with laundry.)

"It's the poor what gets the blame" was the point you're working so hard to miss.

And you don't know Kipling like you're pretending to know Kipling, I'm afraid. (Try reading the books rather than just going to the movies.)

Rudyard and I have both bothered our brains a little with the welfare of the people used to fight the imperialist wars. You may not care to; I don't know or care.

(here's hint; Vietnam was an Amerikan war crime and who gives a shit about whether US soldiers are being spit on or not? -- it's a fake debate anyway because it's a myth...fuck'em)

Who needs a hint? It's all right here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=190&topic_id=16805&mesg_id=16857

When I was organizing events in protest of the Vietnam war crime ... I was going to say, based on current impressions: a long time before you were born; but it seems you were maybe in grade one or two, making you not much more than a decade younger than I, all appearances to the contrary ... and doing other things in that regard, and others since, that I don't publish on internet boards and that in some cases only my very best friends know about, some having to do with the people who are used to fight those wars, I wasn't too much worried about the judgment of internet snipes in later years, and I'm still not.

As for all your "you'd be surprised" ... apparently you'll be surprised one day when you realize that there actually are people in the world who know not only as much as you do about everything, but more. "Old news" is the phrase that springs to mind in the case of your silly offerings. Baden Powell indeed; do you really imagine that you're the only one who's ever read a sentence? Some of us have actually read more than just a sentence or two, and that's why we don't go around regurgitating vicious and really very stupid right-wing lies about Margaret Sanger, just f'r instance. Your personal opinion about the social reformers of a century ago is, oddly enough, not a licence to rewrite the facts of that history to better fit your one-dimensional portrait of the people involved in them.

Someday, maybe you'll figure out that there are people in this world not only just as worthy and just as clever as you, but more so. Cleverer, and more worthy at least in part because they do, and don't just snipe.





Tommy
I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o'beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mr. Atkins," when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy how's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

[iverglas]

47. as far as Sanger ...

This is a useful exercise in demonstrating your willingness to bend facts to your agenda, and your selective reading/memory of historical facts, and attacks on people not present to defend themselves (because they're dead) and not privy to the world o' knowledge you have at your fingertips ... and your bizarre swallowing of racist right-wing (never mind misogynist) propaganda.

Here's a handy reference for you, both on the facts and on the considerations that reasonable people might want to apply to them:

http://eileen.250x.com//Main/7_R_Eile/Sanger_Answers.html

Below it, at that site, is reproduced the material that Planned Parenthood in the US has published to rebut the right-wing lies about Sanger -- updated link:

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/margaret-sanger-planned-parenthood-founder.htm

You: In fact Margaret Sanger's first clinic had the motto "More to the Fit, Less to the Unfit" ...

Facts:

"More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief issue in birth control."

A quotation falsely attributed to Margaret Sanger, this statement was made by the editors of American Medicine in a review of an article by Sanger. The editorial from which this appeared, as well as Sanger's article, "Why Not Birth Control Clinics in America?" (1919b), were reprinted side-by-side in the May 1919 Birth Control Review.

Cheeses, you didn't even get the false quotation right; even Wiki could have given you the real dirt, instead of the fake dirt you smear around:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger
Falsely assigning the fake quotation to her clinic, though; that was a nice embellishment. From Wiki, here's what the handbill for her first clinic actually did say:

Mothers! Can you afford to have a large family? Do you want any more children? If not, why do you have them? Do not kill, do not take life, but prevent! Safe, Harmless Information can be obtained of trained Nurses.

You: ... and was caught up in early racial social eugenics.

Facts:

"To create a race of thoroughbreds. . ."

This remark, again attributed originally to Sanger, was made by Dr. Edward A. Kempf and has been cited out of context and with distorted meaning. Dr. Kempf, a progressive physician, was actually arguing for state endowment of maternal and infant care clinics. In her book The Pivot of Civilization, Sanger quoted Dr. Kempf's argument about how environment may improve human excellence:

Society must make life worth the living and the refining for the individual by conditioning him to love and to seek the love-object in a manner that reflects a constructive effect upon his fellow-men and by giving him suitable opportunities. The virility of the automatic apparatus is destroyed by excessive gormandizing or hunger, by excessive wealth or poverty, by excessive work or idleness, by sexual abuse or intolerant prudishness. The noblest and most difficult art of all is the raising of human thoroughbreds (1969).

It was in this spirit that Sanger used the phrase, "Birth Control: To Create a Race of Thoroughbreds," as a banner on the November 1921 issue of the Birth Control Review. (Differing slogans on the theme of voluntary family planning sometimes appeared under the title of The Review, e.g., "Dedicated to the Cause of Voluntary Motherhood," January 1928.)

You: Now as far as Sanger -- I got it from pure left feminist sources. If the RW loves the part about Rockefeller financing it and the fact that only blacks and Catholics were encouraged to abort, while similar pamphlets were printed for the good Protestant white women to tell her about modern contraception...then it's hardly my fault. Take it up with history.

And I did -- long before I'd heard of you. Oh look; been reading anonymous flyers, have you? --

"As early as 1914 Margaret Sanger was promoting abortion, not for white middle-class women, but against 'inferior races' — black people, poor people, Slavs, Latins, and Hebrews were 'human weeds'."

This allegation about Margaret Sanger appears in an anonymous flyer, "Facts About Planned Parenthood," that is circulated by anti-family planning activists. Margaret Sanger, who passionately believed in a woman's right to control her body, never "promoted" abortion because it was illegal and dangerous throughout her lifetime. She urged women to use contraceptives so that they would not be at risk for the dangers of illegal, back-alley abortion. Sanger never described any ethnic community as an 'inferior race' or as 'human weeds.' In her lifetime, Sanger won the respect of international figures of all races, including the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Mahatma Gandhi; Shidzue Kato, the foremost family planning advocate in Japan; and Lady Dhanvanthi Rama Rau of India — all of whom were sensitive to issues of race.

I doubt that old MLKJr will impress you, but:

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/the-reverend-martin-luther-king-jr.htm

There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger's early efforts. She, like we, saw the horrifying conditions of ghetto life. Like we, she knew that all of society is poisoned by cancerous slums. Like we, she was a direct actionist — a nonviolent resister. She was willing to accept scorn and abuse until the truth she saw was revealed to the millions. At the turn of the century she went into the slums and set up a birth control clinic, and for this deed she went to jail because she was violating an unjust law. Yet the years have justified her actions. She launched a movement which is obeying a higher law to preserve human life under humane conditions. Margaret Sanger had to commit what was then called a crime in order to enrich humanity, and today we honor her courage and vision; for without them there would have been no beginning. Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her. Negroes have no mere academic nor ordinary interest in family planning. They have a special and urgent concern.

Sometimes one just swallows the most insane and rotten myths about stuff, doesn't one? Didn'cha wonder at all? Someone here did --
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060713_last_clinic_standing/

The Right, which for years enacted laws (often based on “Biblical authority”) and engineered policies that kept African-Americans “in their place,” has now become, albeit belatedly, a champion of blacks against Planned Parenthood’s “genocidal” campaign. The level of cynicism behind this newly acquired sense of morality is breathtaking.

It can be rather hard to be convinced by the arguments of someone who so obviously delights in swallowing nasty right-wing lies that fit his agenda.

But hey ... maybe you've got a point on those red tories:

http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=555

Any pro-lifer who has read George Grant’s Grand Illusions or other exposés of Planned Parenthood knows that Sanger was an open eugenicist who consorted with German Nazis & advocated a creeping genocide of races she felt to be inferior through promotion of birth control, abortion, and "family planning" by blacks & other races while promoting breeding by superiors.

"The Masses of Negroes… particularly from the south, still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes, even more than among whites is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit."- Margaret Sanger- The Negro Project.

How 'bout: http://www.freebooks.com/docs/2116_47e.htm
-- a review of "Grand Illusions" by "debbie", who I am very sure is the nasty little anti-choicer I knew quite well on line for some time. I'd be embarrassed to be echoing a halfwitted troll like debbie (who was rejected as a candidate for nunhood, if you can believe it), myself. But no, sadly, the George Grant in question appears to be a different George Grant, or you'd be stuck between hating Red Tories and hating Margaret Sanger/feminists. Not that our George Grant might not have agreed with the Sanger haters in principle.

You can find the rebuttal of the stuff from The American View (god family republic)) -- the quotation above is falsely attributed to Sanger there, and misrepresented in any event (it was actually written by W.E.B. DuBois, gasp), and the other quotation at that site is also misrepresented -- in the Planned Parenthood paper. Read, enjoy, learn, shift that paradigm to accommodate reality and the people who live in it.

[MrPrax]

49. Oh knock it off...

First, I checked the Wiki on her earlier...didn't you notice the mistakes?

The following year, she returned to the U.S. and resumed her activities, launching the periodical The Birth Control Review and Birth Control News. She also contributed articles on health for the Socialist Party paper, The Call.

then...

In 1937, Sanger became chairperson of the Birth Control Council of America and launched two publications, The Birth Control Review and The Birth Control News.

:shrug:

Anyway -- the otherwise flattering entry of Sanger has an entire fucking section on her eugenic theories...

EVEN in that Wikipedia entry you have:
Sanger saw birth control as a means to prevent "dysgenic" children from being born into a disadvantaged life, and dismissed "positive eugenics" (which promoted greater fertility for the "fitter" upper classes) as impractical.

Sure it might be semnatics -- but you cited Wiki. Now I am in favour of revolution, but it IS impractical -- doesn't mean I am against it, does it?

Now rookie -- as far as the 'fit' thing I saw a picture of your Brooklyn clinic with motto right above the door...screw you

Now why exactly you feel the need to 'reinvent' history like the rightwing and not accept it warts and all, I don't know...it's 2006 and womens' rights are being threatened right here by those same forces you are so concenred about in Afghanistan. For chrissakes, I was on a email chain for the peace group I was with leading up to the Iraq war. You end up getting a lot of things.

One bulletin I got from the a related group was a plea, from some seat-warmer at the UofT, for women to send, not blankets or medicine or anything, but --get this--they wanted books, specifically womens' books, to set up a womens' centre in Baghdad...and this was two months after the invasion. Are today's feminists little more that grifters or are they that out of touch with reality?

Why would you have a problem with Sanger and many many others from that era who believed in this stuff...it was the fashion, it was popular. If Sanger needed funding or support, then naturally she would have had to follow the fashions of the day. So she took a negative and turned into a positive.

Do yourself a favour and read about 'social darwinism', 'eugenics', 'Victorianism' 'gilded age' etc...modeling social behaviour was standard protocol...everything from the Auburn prison, to Dugdale's landmark Jukes and the later Kallikak 'study', to Davenport and to Clean Living Movements to Grant's The Passing of the Great Race (a book incidentally Hitler cites and considered his Bible)...everyone from Lindburgh to Ford was influenced by it and advocated all sorts of shit. In the UK, it runs from Bentham to Galton to Malthus to Queen fucking Victoria!!! Even Plato talks about selective breeding for god's sakes.

Now as far trying to place all this into some right/left lense, that isn't going to work because the Russian commies themselves loved this racial eugenics through the 'new man' concepts of Lysenko; the belief you could actually breed a socialist!! (crazy shit I know)

Good grief...Sanger was an intelligent well-read women...why wouldn't she be a reflection of the time she lived in and be influenced by all this stuff? Stop looking for ideological purity.

One of the big strikes against Feminism is the tendency towards essentialism. I think you are making this mistake.

Now to clear up one little problem you have...I am not only Pro-Choice; 'I am in your face' Pro-Choice and you can go ask the Pro-Lifer I clocked at a demo once...these pigs show up at a free clinic on Vancouver's Commercial Drive.

Why?

Because the jerks got a rumour that the construction going on there was in preparation of an 'abortuary'; it wasn't of course as the Everywomen Health Collective was set up quietly elsewhere. It was the damn-dest demo I had ever saw...never in my life would I see a hard butch dyke cold-cock a nun in the face...that WAS funny.

Ever walk the walk yourself, dear...so don't lecture me on the Rightwing and the putrid Pro-Life jerks and the Catholic Church OR some feminista-lite bilge...if I still believe everything a feminist every wrote I would still be wandering around saying stupid shit like; "did you know that wo-man is a short form for womb-man" LOL

People like you, are as dangerous with information, as they are...you both only read what you want and ignore everything else. Things you disagree with, you label - get bent.

Your reading assignment:

Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for perspective on 'context'

Stephen Jay Gould Mismeasure of Man

Bad Seed or Bad Science NYTimes

And this will be my last reply on this subject -- you are not worth it

[iverglas]

50. absolutely

It's the exact equivalent of talking to a wall, and I don't plan to progress to banging my head against it.

You really are quite good at "misinterpreting" every single thing that is said to you, to make it suit your own purposes by pretending it means the exact opposite of what it says. No wonder you make such a habit of accusing others, me specifically, of doing the same thing.

Just one more quote of yourself for yourself:

People like you, are as dangerous with information, as they are...you both only read what you want and ignore everything else. Things you disagree with, you label - get bent.

[Canadian_moderate]

27. Well said iverglas

I do agree that Canada needs an exit strategy and the fact that we are doing much of the hard work in cleaning up the mess left by the Americans. My point of view is that we need to help Afghanistan out of the situiation we helped to create.

I also totally agree that transfer of power to the Taliban (stinking pigs, as you call them) is unconscionable. As long as they continue to receive support from neighbouring countries, they will be a major hindrance to stability and peace in Afghanistan.

[CHIMO]

13. Fallen soldier's father slams Layton's call for troop pullout

HALIFAX—An NDP call for Canada's military to pull out of Afghanistan isn't sitting well with the father of a soldier killed there.

On Thursday, Layton said Canada's Afghan mission had gone astray, with no clear goals or exit strategy. "This is not the right mission for Canada. ... In particular, it lacks a comprehensive rebuilding plan and commensurate development assistance," he said.

Davis said statements like that encourage the Taliban to keep fighting. "Playing politics with the lives of our soldiers is despicable," he said. "We made a decision to go after the Taliban, trying to get Afghanistan back on its feet, so it doesn't make sense for us to call it quits."

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1157147419450&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467

RIP

UN says Afghan drug trade 'out of control'
Last Updated Sat, 02 Sep 2006 19:22:01 EDT
CBC News

The United Nations' anti-drugs chief says opium cultivation in Afghanistan soared to never-before-seen levels in 2006, propelled by huge increases in the south, where Canadian troops are battling a Taliban insurgency.

In fact, the country is producing more opium — the raw material of heroin — than is currently used by all of the world's addicts, Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said in a statement on Saturday.

"The political, military and economic investments by coalition countries are not having much visible impact on drug cultivation. As a result, Afghan opium is fuelling insurgency in western Asia, feeding international mafias and causing 100,000 deaths from overdoses every year."

He had little good to say about the shaky Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai, to whom he presented the opium survey in Kabul on Saturday.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/09/02/afghan-opium060902.html

[MrPrax]

14. Jim Davis Has Three More Fathers

that he can talk to about Jack Layton's 'giving comfort to the enemy' and engaging in politics...

3 Canadians killed, 6 injured near Kandahar, official says
CBC

Hot on the heels of Our Dear Defense Minister saying scary things like expanding the committment to Pakistan:

O'Connor denies wanting Cdn. troops in Pakistan


CTV.ca News Staff

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor has denied suggesting Canadian troops should be stationed in Pakistan, claiming his comments were misunderstood.

"Media reports today have misreported comments I made while visiting with the government of Pakistan," said O'Connor in a press release issued Saturday.

....

O'Connor spoke with military officials in Pakistan during a trip to the region, and later summed up the meetings with a reporter from The Associated Press of Pakistan. During the interview, he allegedly said he wanted Canadian soldiers in the country.

"Among other things, I suggested that some Pakistan officers be stationed with our troops in Kandahar and Canadian troops be stationed on the Pakistan side," the Globe and Mail quoted him as saying. "This will assist in information gathering and intelligence sharing on both sides of the border."

CTV

At the link you can read about how O'Conner got misquoted and didn't mean that, thinks the press is attacking him, but he really does understand the situation and we should listen to him, until such time that he is misquoted again...or if they change the rationale for troops in Afghanistan again...

:eyes:

[CHIMO]

15. Not Good

To say the least.

I don't think that the Taliban need any encouragement. Seems like the whole area is becoming inflamed and will be getting much worse.

It seems to me that O'Connor just didn't have the words approved by headquarters.

The knife at Pakistan's throat
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

MIRANSHAH, North Waziristan - "I can see slit throats beneath these turbans and beards" were the words of Hajaj bin Yusuf, an 8th-century tyrant in what is now Iraq, as he witnessed a gathering of leading religious and political figures.

A similar thought occurred to this writer as he attended the largest ever gathering of Pakistani Taliban, tribal elders and politicians in Miranshah, the tribal capital of North Waziristan, on Wednesday. Fire and blood were in the air as momentous events

loomed over the Pakistani tribal areas of North and South Waziristan, where the Taliban are in complete control.

The tribal areas bordering Afghanistan's volatile southern and southwestern provinces are once again a focus of the "war on terror" and are likely to soon become as significant to the United States as Afghanistan itself.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HI02Df02.html



Quite a bit of information out there. Just google NATO Pakistan.

[MrPrax]

16. Lots of information...

too bad it's senseless propaganda...did you miss this line?

"The Americans are pointing directly at the two Waziristans as the primary conduit for the suicide bombers who are currently playing havoc with the US-NATO-led war machine in Afghanistan, and a safe haven for enemy combatants. The US now has come up with a plan to confront the strategic arm of the Taliban based on the Pakistani side of the border"

:puffpiece:

I only read past that paragraph coz you posted it. Or this one...

Certainly, there is no overt connection between the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Pakistani Taliban, yet the new setup in the Waziristans clearly echoes that in Lebanon, where Hezbollah hides itself behind many thick curtains while remaining in a position of power. It was precisely this setup that enabled Lebanon to defend its territorial integrity and political interests during the recent Israeli invasion. :rofl:

No real connection other than the fact the writer wants to promote the global 'war on terror' fantasy make sure the search engines pick up 'Hezollah' and 'Taliban'; one is, of course Shi'ite and the other Sunni and hate each other, but that never stops the propagandists from 'blue skying' the terror threat...

We'll leave the rest to Moderate Canadians to digest...

BUT

O'Connor as well as few here seem to miss part of the real narrative going on:

A rebel's killing roils Pakistan

QUETTA, PAKISTAN – For years, Nawab Mohammed Akbar Khan Bugti battled the Pakistan Army. The 80-year-old renegade hidden in the mountains of Balochistan became a legend in his fight for greater autonomy against what he saw as colonial brutality.

Bugti was both hated and revered. But as a former federal minister and governor, he symbolized a political as well as a violent struggle. And his death this weekend, during a fierce three-day battle that left more than 30 dead, could prove a serious blow to Pakistan's stability.

...

"This is disastrous," says General Masood. "It will divert attention from the war on terror ... by engaging the Pakistan forces in Balochistan in a much bigger way."

The Taliban are said to be growing in influence in Balochistan, allegedly using the province's capital, Quetta, as a base for directing operations in southern Afghanistan.

But the Baloch people are widely recognized as fiercely opposed to the Taliban. With the killing of their most respected leader by government forces, the prospects for peace are dim for the foreseeable future, many here say.
CSMonitor

Note Pakistan is using cluster bombs just after the widely reported use of them by Israel in Lebanon...

Quetta paralysed after Pakistan separatist chief's death

"...Amid escalating tension, the provincial assembly met briefly to offer condolences for Bugti during which MPs accused the army of having used cluster and napalm bombs against Bugti and his commanders.

'The use of cluster and napalm bombs will only reinvigorate the Baloch national movement,' said Kachkol Ali Baloch, MP of the nationalist National Party.

Baloch denied government claims that Bugti died when the roof of his mud cave collapsed. 'It was a target killing and they used all sorts of lethal bombs for the purpose,' Baloch said, before the police took him in custody along with two other nationalist leaders. .."

Monster and Critics

Long War in Waziristan

The Taliban resistance movement in both Pakistan and Afghanistan will continue to gain strength until and unless Islamabad abandons its current policy which actually seeks to keep the Taliban alive in the hope of using them to retrieve its lost influence in Afghanistan.

"...On July 25, 2006, the militants in North Waziristan had announced a ceasefire which they subsequently extended to September 10, 2006, as Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman joined efforts to help clear some obstacles to an agreement for restoring peace in the restive tribal region. Two of the three issues that have bedeviled the peace agreement have already been taken care of: the release of over a dozen militants and the return of seized weaponry. However, the withdrawal of the military from the North Waziristan Agency, one of the key militants’ demands, is yet to be worked out.

...

Currently, the man responsible for launching the Taliban raids into Afghanistan is Maulana Sangeen Khan, an Afghan from the neighboring Khost province. In South Waziristan, Haji Mohammad Omar, a Waziri, is the commander of the resistance movement against the Pakistani security forces, while the Afghan operations run from the area are taken care of by Abdullah Mehsud, the chieftain of the Mehsud tribe. Never before has there been such an arrangement in centuries, where Mehsuds and Wazirs have fought side-by-side, and more, under the command of the Dawars.

....

Before the ceasefire between the military and the militants in Waziristan was announced, ambushes and roadside bomb attacks against the Pakistani security forces had been as frequent as they were across the border, forcing the Army leadership to consider an out-of-the-box solution. Going by Musharraf’s own admission "Extremism in a Talibanised form is what people are now going for. Mullah Omar and the Taliban have influence in Waziristan and it is now spilling over into our settled areas".

Musharraf did not mention the names of the ‘settled areas’ but the districts falling under these areas include Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, Lakki Marwat, Bannu, Hangu and Kohat, all in the southern North West Frontier Province (NWFP), and all very conservative and largely under the political influence of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F), led by the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, Maulana Fazlur Rahman. Yet in the same vein, Musharraf claimed quite amusingly that the war against al Qaeda had ‘almost been won’ in Waziristan. By saying so, the General contradicted none other than himself, because the increase in support for the Taliban and their leader Mullah Omar in Waziristan, as confessed by him, meant that the Osama-led organisation too would benefit from the surge in the Taliban’s popularity. Independent analysts say that al Qaeda may have suffered physical and infrastructural losses in terms of the decimation of its bases in Afghanistan and the killing and capture of its operatives, but there is no evidence to suggest that the ideology it professes has registered a decline.
Outlook India

long article but lots of information about the various factions ACTUALLY involved

OConnor was either floating a trial balloon or completely out of his intellectual depth...yeah Canada supports Pakistan military people in Afghanistan, I am sure Karzai loved that remark. Should make our troops a lot safer... :eyes:

So which side are we supporting again? :shrug:

[CHIMO]

44. Pakistan signs peace deal with pro-Taliban militants

In a move that some say appears 'a total capitulation' to pro-Taliban forces, Pakistan signed a peace deal with tribal leaders in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan Tuesday, and is withdrawing military forces in exchange for promises that militant tribal groups there will not engage in terrorist activities.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0906/dailyUpdate.html

US welcomes peace agreement with Pakistan

WASHINGTON: Cautiously welcoming the peace agreement signed between the Pakistani government and pro-Taliban militants of the areas bordering Afghanistan, the Bush administration has said the pact was in Islamabad's interest but added that it was not aware of the details.

"I haven't seen the news reports that are addressing the agreement... I'll try to check into that ...," was the first response given by the State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack to reporters on Tuesday when queried about it.

However, he said that it was "in the interests" of Pakistan that it exercise "sovereignity throughout the country".

"It is in the interests of Pakistan and the Pakistani people that the government be able to exercise its sovereignty throughout all of Pakistan. This is an area that, traditionally, has not been under the control of a central government. So this is an historical problem ... ," he said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1960630.cms