Time To Get Out Of Afghanistan

Monday, April 06, 2009 03:44 AM

If I were a Canadian soldier serving in Afghanistan and I had an opportunity to watch the Government of that country proposing new laws that go against the very principles I was brought up under, I wouldn’t feel too much like strapping on a gun and going out to seek the enemy today.

Under the proposed law in Afghanistan to cover the countries 15% Shiite population, women will not be allowed to go out of the house other than for legitimate purposes, they must be accompanied by a relative of the husband, they are banned from working, or receiving an education, unless with the husband's permission, and must consent to sex no matter what the circumstances. In other words, legalized rape.

There are principles engrained in the way we live, we do not treat women as cattle, nor should we. In Afghanistan women will be required to wear ,”Burkas”, on head gear that covers their face and head all times except before their husband.

Now if that is what we had had our soldiers fighting in that country for, it is time to pack up the gear and come home because there are a lot of mums who’s kids had died defending the Afghanistan people who must be shattered by the thought of what their young sons died for.

The Canadian government says it is hoping to have the proposed law changed. Sorree, the damage is done, if it takes political pressure to change this law then it is only a matter of time following our departure from the country before the idea re surfaces.

These kinds of laws existed during the reign of the Taliban during 1996-2001, if the reason we placed our soldiers in the country was to change all that we have failed to change anything and in particular the thinking of the people.

The Canadian soldiers may be losing their appetite to be in the country, the Canadian public needs to fall into step behind them.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion

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Posted on Monday, April 06, 2009 03:44 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

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Comments

Posted by: diplomat on April 6 2009 7:52 AM

We as Westerners can not (and apparently will not) grasp how overpowering a role religion and religious dogma have in that country. It's been like that since the founding of Islam - about one and a half millennia.

A society does not throw out its ancient customs and religious beliefs and doctrines just because some outsiders insist that it must be done, and the sooner the better.

Europe evolved through the Dark Ages of absolute dominance by church rule and the feudalism of the Middle Ages to the period of Enlightenment and ultimately democracy.

It took hundreds of years of revolution and rebellion and countless wars to arrive at where the Western world is at present and even then democracy is still not seen by everyone as the perfect system.

We must give other countries time to evolve (if that is what they choose to do) into societies which are less bound by strict religious dogma and more by the principles of equality and tolerance.

Only if they are allowed to choose their own progress and their own pace will the result be meaningful and lasting.

Occupying their country, killing (even if it is accidentally) their women and children will not coerce them into accepting what we are ordering them to do.

It accomplishes very little and as soon as the outsiders leave it will be business as usual again.

Posted by: yellow shovel on April 6 2009 8:13 AM

Bring em home!!....President Hamid Karzai suddenly decides to revoke this law? What a joke...he's gonna say anything to keep from losing the billions $$$ of aid being dropped in his lap. Soon as the troops roll out an the door closes.....back to normal like its always been...wake up Harper!

Posted by: Lewis Prothero on April 6 2009 8:22 AM

We went to Afghanistan to give its people a democracy. Now that they have that democracy, we can't dictate what laws they pass using it - that would defeat the purpose of having given it to them in the first place.

At some point in the history of Canada, the Governor General began the tradition of allowing all of the legislation passed by the House of Commons to take effect, for better or for worse, because it was created by a democratically elected government. It is time for the world to allow the people of Afghanistan the same freedom to either improve their situation or to make mistakes while trying to do so.

The answer is not for us to get upset or threaten to stop aiding them just because we don't like what they're doing. The answer is to educate the people of Afghanistan so that one day they can become a better society of their own volition. That will work far better than trying to drag them kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.

Posted by: diplomat on April 6 2009 10:56 AM

Karzai recently said that he would welcome Taliban participation in the government.

If the Taliban are acceptable to him (being the President and all) why do we persist in hunting them down and killing them, at great cost to us and the lives of our soldiers?

Additionally, Prime Minister Harper said emphatically that the conflict will never be won by military means.

The combat troops can therefore come home.

The very presence of foreign armies on their soil, something they have never tolerated and always fought against for centuries feeds the insurgency and it will keep doing so.

Posted by: Truth on April 6 2009 2:35 PM

Every Summer, the Taliban recruits jihadis, at the end of the Opium harvest. They pay them out of the 15% cut they take of the Eurasian Heroin industry.

Every Summer, NATO beats back the Taliban. And every Winter, Afghanistan's Pashtun leadership gives back all captured land to the Taliban. The brother of President Karzai (a Pashtun) is a member of the drug cartel.

Taliban in Pakistan holds power in Waziristan, based on the ability to pay terrorists out of the Heroin cut funds.

Canadian troops are doing nothing but spinning wheels in that territorial-demographic gutter. They are subsidizing the Heroin Industry, notwithstanding the fact that our soldiers are killed by arms purchased from the Taliban's $650,000,000 in drug profits.

Posted by: Lamb on April 6 2009 7:30 PM

It is a complicated situation.
I watched a young girl being publicly flogged this evening on television. She was only 15.
For each one of our boys who died I could never answer for them. We will be pulling out and I will be happy but I think their lives have not been in vain. They believed in what they were doing. I can only support them.
I just don't have any answers.

Posted by: yellow shovel on April 7 2009 8:40 AM

Lewis Prothero writes....We went to Afghanistan to give its people a democracy. Now that they have that democracy, we can't dictate what laws they pass using it - that would defeat the purpose of having given it to them in the first place.

I don't believe what I'm reading here Lewis....what I see is the Afghanistan government not willing to make changes towards basic human rights...somethings are just wrong! I've been behind our troops every inch of the way in any battle Canadian troops have been sent to. When our kids start to wonder what purpose they serve in a country that isn't making any attempt to change for the better of its own people...its time to leave and let them figure it out for themselves.