When I posted about Afghanistan earlier this morning, I hadn't realized that Pamela Wallin is in today's National Post demonstrating why she was a member of the Manley commission on Afghanistan and why Stephen Harper subsequently rewarded her with an appointment to the senate. I think Wallin manages to pull out just about every cliche there is to convince Canadians that the McChrystal plan to surge in Afghanistan requires our utmost support. That includes false appeals to patriotism, the claim that if you don't support Wallin's vision then you're a coward who's "cutting and running" and the contemptible suggestion that if you don't support the mission as she envisions it then you don't support the troops. And it includes the even more contemptible suggestion that we're sending our fellow Canadians off to foreign lands to kill or be killed because it boosts our international prestige.
What you won't find in Wallin's op-ed is any acknowledgement that even the architects of McChrsytal's plan are talking openly about an investment of another 15 years and almost a trillion dollars with no guarantee of success. And that assumes that everything goes according to their plan. Since the plan calls for a credible local partner — a legitimate and functioning national government — I think it's safe to say that the plan is already in trouble. A counter-insurgency operation without that credible partner isn't a counter-insurgency at all; it's an occupation. And Pamela Wallin's outrage isn't going to boost Hamid Karzai's credibility.
Neither does Wallin acknowledge that people who have been to Afghanistan couldn't find the Afghan army and that those who train the Afghan police are having trouble finding recruits.
Wallin also doesn't mention that a lot of the people who are in the thick of this, cheering McChrystal on and pressuring Obama to get with the program, are the people who thought invading Iraq was a good idea. Now go back and reread the part about everything going to plan and consider that we're being urged to stop questioning people who have already cheered on a screw-up of monumental proportions. People are questioning the mission because somebody really needs to, though apparently not in Pamela Wallin's world. If she gets to call me an intellectual coward, do I get to call her intellectually bankrupt?
Funny how the "liberal media" keep churning out Conservative senators, eh?
How cute. Our very own Sarah Palin.
At least Wallin can write in complete sentences. Also.
Morally bankrupt.
She never has spoken well of you pogge. I wouldn't fret. Having enemies is a sign of character.
She never has spoken well of you pogge.
Yeah, well, she's a big poopy-head.
Morally bankrupt.
That too. Also.
What was that Ghandi saying? First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you...
See the URL I put as mine - it is a Newsweek article I was pointed to by Juan Cole's Informend Comment. I think WE should do business with China. I dont think we should be sending our youth to Afghan graves so that the Chinese can have a free Copper mine worth 3 bill. If the Afghans dont want to do business with us then we shouldnt be there period. GRRRRRRR Even my Afghan neighbours (yes I have a neighbour who is from there) say Canada is insane for being there because we will never get anything from it. Our whole torture scandal takes care of any prestige we would have gotten (not that this sort of prestige is anything we want) and I come back to GRRRRRRR. Oh 1 more thing on this chk out Lt Hoh who resigned from US forces recently over Afghan for more GRRRRRRRR.