Aghan War to Cost Canadians $22 Billion

[Toppy Vann]

What started as the hunt for Osama Bin Laden morphed into full fighting Afghans with many soldiers losing their lives and tax payers getting ripped off for a lot of money. The irony is that the poppy crops that come back to Canada as heroin are left by the soldiers as this was just creating more Taliban. The numbers of Taliban go upwards once the crop is in each year. Even Rick Hillier, head of the Canadian Armed Forces who morphed the mandate singlehandedly while Parliament was hanging on by a thread in minority government has long since abandoned his post. Here is the guy who wanted to fight but didn't have the stomach to see the mission through.

That country was able to toss out the Russians as it is not a kind place for soldiers from another country and I wonder why we are still losing soldiers when the original approval by Jean Chretien was to find Osama. If that part of the world cared about Osama being caught, he'd be in irons in weeks not missing for 7 years. The US is really turning on heat but without countries in that area and their governments behind this, Osama won't be caught.

Oh well it could be worse. The US are spending $2billion US monthly just to fight in Iraq. It too like the Canadian figure doesn't include other costs like aid.

Read all about here:

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news ... 3cb66b3721

Interesting that when that war started the Canadian gov't funded 85% of the cost of the Afghan War and the current government has reduced that to 29% but this will have repercussions later on. Funny, it was this same Gov't who in Opposition screamed that the Liberals won't funding our military properly and now this independent study turns this gem up. Hmmm.

Canada could sure use some of that money back in the cities and towns to fight crime, drugs and ensure health and education. Canada is no longer a nice, safe country. Hong Kong is a safe place like Vancouver used to be in the 1960s but here there are police everywhere walking the streets. Canada has not enough police nor enough resources to fight drug addiction and investigate crime. There is not enough money to fund aging infrastructure in Canada or to build modern transport systems or just add buses. Our priorities are wacked out.

[MacNews]

What started as the hunt for Osama Bin Laden morphed into full fighting Afghans with many soldiers losing their lives and tax payers getting ripped off for a lot of money.

Canada could sure use some of that money back in the cities and towns to fight crime, drugs and ensure health and education. Canada is no longer a nice, safe country.

This war is about more then just the Taliban, it is about re-building a country that has been ravaged by war. We are making big improvements like introducing democracy, building infrastructure such as schools and sewers, and introducing huge societal changes like allowing women to go to school and not allowing corruption or nepotism.

I think they are worthy goals and they are achievable if we stick to it, and not leave as soon as it gets tough.

Toppy you know as well as I do that re-building Afghanistan into a safe, secure and free country will take time. But would you rather we focus on one country..or go region to region and demolish as many regimes as possible?

It's time we focus on one country and stick to it until the job is done. Otherwise the Taliban or whomever will just take over again, and then all those lives and all those dollars were for naught.

One last thing, we haven't lost that many soldiers, as compared to previous wars. 97 casualties for over 2,000 troops stationed there. That is not even mentioning all the troops that have rotated in and out. I don't know where people are getting this notion that we have lost a lot of troops...if your military can't withstand 97 casualties over 7 years of combat then you don't have much of a military.

And if you want to be an isolationist that's fine, but just don't complain when the next 9/11 happens.

[Soundy]

Is that in addition to the $22B for the Afghan war?

[TheLionKing]

Didn't Harper said that Canada will withdraw it's troops when the current deploymnet ends ?

[DJeffery]

...too bad 'bout Pat Tillman

[West Coast Blue Fan]

One last thing, we haven't lost that many soldiers, as compared to previous wars. 97 casualties for over 2,000 troops stationed there. That is not even mentioning all the troops that have rotated in and out. I don't know where people are getting this notion that we have lost a lot of troops...if your military can't withstand 97 casualties over 7 years of combat then you don't have much of a military.

And if you want to be an isolationist that's fine, but just don't complain when the next 9/11 happens.

Funny thing is I don't recall the last terrorist attack in Canada, let alone the first.

Pretty cold quote about the loss of life over there Mac. Losing one soldier is too many. I guarantee if it was a family member or friend of yours, you would certainly feel differently.

[Toppy Vann]

One last thing, we haven't lost that many soldiers, as compared to previous wars. 97 casualties for over 2,000 troops stationed there. That is not even mentioning all the troops that have rotated in and out. I don't know where people are getting this notion that we have lost a lot of troops...if your military can't withstand 97 casualties over 7 years of combat then you don't have much of a military.

And if you want to be an isolationist that's fine, but just don't complain when the next 9/11 happens.

Funny thing is I don't recall the last terrorist attack in Canada, let alone the first.

Pretty cold quote about the loss of life over there Mac. Losing one soldier is too many. I guarantee if it was a family member or friend of yours, you would certainly feel differently.

Agreed. I can't and don't forgot the horror of war nor the fact that Afghanistan is the source of the heroin that is destroying lives here in Canada and making our streets and homes less safe.

Oh, and the Canadian military no longer destroy their crops as it was creating more fierce Taliban fighters. As it is if they leave the crops, the Taliban grows only after the crop is in and the drugs are on the way to Canada and other places.

The sewer that is the downtown eastside and all that drug related crime is fueled by Afghan crops.

[Blue In BC]

One last thing, we haven't lost that many soldiers, as compared to previous wars. 97 casualties for over 2,000 troops stationed there. That is not even mentioning all the troops that have rotated in and out. I don't know where people are getting this notion that we have lost a lot of troops...if your military can't withstand 97 casualties over 7 years of combat then you don't have much of a military.

And if you want to be an isolationist that's fine, but just don't complain when the next 9/11 happens.

Funny thing is I don't recall the last terrorist attack in Canada, let alone the first.

Pretty cold quote about the loss of life over there Mac. Losing one soldier is too many. I guarantee if it was a family member or friend of yours, you would certainly feel differently.

How many Canadians died in the Word Trade Center attack? People from many countries were killed on that day.

How many attacks that might have happened in Canada have been prevented because of Canadian troops in Afghanistan?

[West Coast Blue Fan]

24 died.....24 too many.

Can't answer the second part as it hasn't happened.

[MacNews]

Funny thing is I don't recall the last terrorist attack in Canada, let alone the first.

Pretty cold quote about the loss of life over there Mac. Losing one soldier is too many. I guarantee if it was a family member or friend of yours, you would certainly feel differently.

As I said above, isolationism is fine but you pay for it in the end. The problem is not every country plays 'nice' and if you let them, they'll be a bully. Pearl Harbour comes to mind, to name one.

I did not mean it to be a callous quote, just that we have to be realistic. When you are in combat, you are going to lose troops. Ideally you don't want to lose any, and I can certainly say I wish we never had any casualties. When my friend was in Afghanistan, I held my breath every time they announced we had lost a soldier.

However, fatalities do occur. And I do not think that the amount of casualties is so high as to overshadow the work we are doing in Afghanistan, or Cyprus, or Palestine, or the Persian Gulf, or Haiti or the many other operations worldwide.

[Toppy Vann]

MacNews, to suggest that not fighting in Afghanistan is isolationism is naive at best and nonsensical if you have any sense of what Canada has done to assist nations under attack in two World Wars and in the pursuit of peace with peace keeping missions around the world. Canada has never shrunk from the call to serve. What is occurring with the Afghans is not in pursuit of any strategic objectives or interests of Canadians.

If you strongly believe in the cause and you are the right age, why not sign up if you believe that strongly in it. That is what Canadians your age are doing these days and what has been done before.

What started as legitimate contribution to hunting down Osama Bin Laden and his key cronies shifted to fighting Taliban and that was all due to General Rick Hillier who has cut and run without seeing his mission through.

Canada does not have the resources to be like the rogue US state just below the 49th who are now spending $2 billion US a month just in the fighting part.

Canadians deserve better than to have troops dying fighting in Afghanistan and sadly 97 good soldiers are fighting a battle that cannot ever be won.

Nations have to learn that sometimes not fighting for the sake of fighting makes more sense.

[Blue In BC]

So what's the answer. Pretend that bad things going on around the world don't exist just because they don't happen in our backyard?

[Toppy Vann]

So what's the answer. Pretend that bad things going on around the world don't exist just because they don't happen in our backyard?

I just think that the rogue behaviour of the USA aided by Britain in the Iraq war is not a way to make the world safer. Iraq had nothing to do with 911 but Bush and cronies wanted that war and fudged the evidence to suggest they had weapons of mass destruction. Even Colin Powell who made that ridiculous UN presentation now recanted that evidence even though he originally suggested not to go to war.

If you think that the world is safer from terrorists today since the Iraq War you are wrong. They are creating terrorists daily by their war. The UK had best address its internal issues as all those immigrants they let in who are not sufficiently mainstream are having babies and downstream there could be huge issues. France similarly has to address itself to these issues.

George Bush, Sr, wrote a book that his son if not so dumb should have read. He said that he refused to let the troops chase the Iraqis to Baghdad in the Gulf War was because he knew this one thing that the USA is learning now: There is no exit strategy! You are stuck there. Not to mention the annihilation of the Republican Guard by the USA was also a stupid move if they wanted to carry out the illegal toppling of Saddam. If they kept that group together they would have had a better chance to get some other leader in power capable of leading that well trained but ill equipped unit.

Look at all the bad things in countries in Africa? Why isn't everyone rushing in there?

I was watching You Tube and the Daily Show with Tony Blair looking stupid with the discussion with John Stewart. It is ironic that comedians like Stewart and David Lettermen understand the stupidity of their own country better than most of their leaders and Tony Blair also. Blair in part two looked pretty weak. I used to think he was not a bad PM til the decision to go to war.

I also think that spending priorities of government should be more focused on doing positive things for the people and also aid to other countries. People in Canada are struggling to get good jobs these days and higher education costs these young people more today than it did when their leaders grew up - all of whom had opportunities for summer work in high paid jobs that simply don't exist today. We have huge transportation infrastructure needs, health care, poverty in our first nations groups... address these first.

By the way, if they really wanted to fight Afghans then destroy the crops that come to Canada as heroin. If you think Vancouver is the safe, wonderful city it used to be, come here to Hong Kong where I'd be more worried that my wife would get lost in the streets at night than victimized by criminals. There are not enough police, not enough treatment programs for drugs which is all fueling the crime. Spend that 22 billion at home first and not piss it away in Afghanistan when you don't have the balls to destroy the crops that are bringing harm to Canadians. The reality is that Afghanistan is not a nice place for foreign fighters. Ask the Russians who at their zenith of power got their arses handed to them.

[Blue In BC]

So what's the answer. Pretend that bad things going on around the world don't exist just because they don't happen in our backyard?

I just think that the rogue behaviour of the USA aided by Britain in the Iraq war is not a way to make the world safer. Iraq had nothing to do with 911 but Bush and cronies wanted that war and fudged the evidence to suggest they had weapons of mass destruction. Even Colin Powell who made that ridiculous UN presentation now recanted that evidence even though he originally suggested not to go to war.

If you think that the world is safer from terrorists today since the Iraq War you are wrong. They are creating terrorists daily by their war. The UK had best address its internal issues as all those immigrants they let in who are not sufficiently mainstream are having babies and downstream there could be huge issues. France similarly has to address itself to these issues.

George Bush, Sr, wrote a book that his son if not so dumb should have read. He said that he refused to let the troops chase the Iraqis to Baghdad in the Gulf War was because he knew this one thing that the USA is learning now: There is no exit strategy! You are stuck there. Not to mention the annihilation of the Republican Guard by the USA was also a stupid move if they wanted to carry out the illegal toppling of Saddam. If they kept that group together they would have had a better chance to get some other leader in power capable of leading that well trained but ill equipped unit.

Look at all the bad things in countries in Africa? Why isn't everyone rushing in there?

I was watching You Tube and the Daily Show with Tony Blair looking stupid with the discussion with John Stewart. It is ironic that comedians like Stewart and David Lettermen understand the stupidity of their own country better than most of their leaders and Tony Blair also. Blair in part two looked pretty weak. I used to think he was not a bad PM til the decision to go to war.

I also think that spending priorities of government should be more focused on doing positive things for the people and also aid to other countries. People in Canada are struggling to get good jobs these days and higher education costs these young people more today than it did when their leaders grew up - all of whom had opportunities for summer work in high paid jobs that simply don't exist today. We have huge transportation infrastructure needs, health care, poverty in our first nations groups... address these first.

By the way, if they really wanted to fight Afghans then destroy the crops that come to Canada as heroin. If you think Vancouver is the safe, wonderful city it used to be, come here to Hong Kong where I'd be more worried that my wife would get lost in the streets at night than victimized by criminals. There are not enough police, not enough treatment programs for drugs which is all fueling the crime. Spend that 22 billion at home first and not piss it away in Afghanistan when you don't have the balls to destroy the crops that are bringing harm to Canadians. The reality is that Afghanistan is not a nice place for foreign fighters. Ask the Russians who at their zenith of power got their arses handed to them.

I'm not suggesting I'm in agreement with the USA or Britain with the entire Iraq issue. OTOH, it was a dictatorship that used poison gas to kill it's own citizens and would torture and kill political opponents.

All I'm saying is that isn't a good thing and yes, those problems exist in may places around the world where the " good guys " don't intervene.

I don't know whether there are more terrorists in Iraq now or not. These guys have had suicide bombers for decades. It may never stop but I do believe that the majority of the population is safer now than before.

Those that hate the west, will always hate the west. The west has prosperity.