Setting aside all questions of whether we (Canadians, Westerners, NATO, etc.) should be there or are actually doing any real good there, the problem Harper faces is that the Afghanistan mission is not popular in Canada and there is an election in the air.
On those other pesky questions, I know something has to be done in Afghanistan, and I think that the developed nations bear some responsibility for making it happen because over the past 30 years we (and thanks to the shifts of international politics, that we now supposedly includes russia) have either done things directly to totally destabilise Afghanistan, or sat by while others did. Or both.
I'm just not sure what should be done, or who should be doing it, in order to make some sort of success in getting a country that's almost been destroyed back in some kind of working order. I do believe that the West should be paying for it, but I'm not sure the West should be carrying it out - whatever it is.
I do suspect that what we're doing isn't working very well. I think part of the problem is that not much has been done to deal with Pakistan, which is where much of the Taliban strength seems to be based. I have no idea what's going to happen in Monday's election - the People's Party is supposedly polling ahead of all the others, but what happens if the military and/or the fundamentalists don't like the election results? As I write this, there's just been an explosion near the People's Party offices.
I don't know the politics well enough to know - but I don't trust most of the people who are currently running the show to actually care whether Afghanistan is rebuilt in the way that is best for its own people.
So I think it's important to listen to what those people are saying about what thye think of what we're doing. This is one of those voices.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-02-17 01:06 am (UTC)On those other pesky questions, I know something has to be done in Afghanistan, and I think that the developed nations bear some responsibility for making it happen because over the past 30 years we (and thanks to the shifts of international politics, that we now supposedly includes russia) have either done things directly to totally destabilise Afghanistan, or sat by while others did. Or both.
I'm just not sure what should be done, or who should be doing it, in order to make some sort of success in getting a country that's almost been destroyed back in some kind of working order. I do believe that the West should be paying for it, but I'm not sure the West should be carrying it out - whatever it is.
I do suspect that what we're doing isn't working very well. I think part of the problem is that not much has been done to deal with Pakistan, which is where much of the Taliban strength seems to be based. I have no idea what's going to happen in Monday's election - the People's Party is supposedly polling ahead of all the others, but what happens if the military and/or the fundamentalists don't like the election results? As I write this, there's just been an explosion near the People's Party offices.
I don't know the politics well enough to know - but I don't trust most of the people who are currently running the show to actually care whether Afghanistan is rebuilt in the way that is best for its own people.
So I think it's important to listen to what those people are saying about what thye think of what we're doing. This is one of those voices.