Bizud

Yeah, alright. I don't know anyone who would see a Conservative government as a problem that isn't already troubled by this minority government.

I don't know what that had to do with closed-mindedness, but the Conservatives have been effectively able to govern as though they had a majority, because on just about every initiative one of the parties supports them even if they don't want to, because nobody wants another election.

Turns out that you can ignore what I said about them not being racist, because they apparently were somewhat genocidal. My bad!

The comparison to the Nazis is ridiculous. The Taliban are very oppressive, but they aren't totalitarian in the way the Nazis were. There's no cult of personality around the Taliban leadership. Afghanistan is a patchwork of ethnicities; intolerant of ethnic minorities isn't a criticism you can make of them, nor is militarism. They didn't win their popularity by branding a group as enemies and vowing to do away with them. They didn't even start out as enemies of the US - as late as 2001 they were being praised by the Bush administration for helping to reduce opium cultivation. They're theocratic, not fascist. These are poor priests from the backwaters of Afghanistan imposing the only kind of law and order they understand. I'm not defending the Taliban, but people seem to have absolutely no understanding of what makes these people tick and who they are.

You tell me how the Taliban compares to Nazi Germany. Are they intolerant of ethnic minorities? No. Are they militaristic and fascist? No. Do they rule by fear? No.

Witness the National Security State.

They do slave work in the home, not in the fields. Matt, as usual, doesn't know what he's talking about. Have the Taliban ever acted to extend their power beyond afghanistan? Uh, no. They're ugly and oppressive, but not expansionist or even militaristic. Get a clue.

I'm pretty sure the reason Harper "changed his mind" about Iraq is that he went from being leader of a far-right neoconservative party to a leader of a supposedly "centre-right" party that claims to be moderate, and is now trying to win over centrist voters to win a majority in the next election. I don't believe for a second that Stephen Harper's real political beliefs have changed since he was Canadian Alliance leader. He's a warhawk. http://www.torontoalliance.ca/MISWAA_Report.pdf That's a report detailing how the social safety net is in worse condition than many people think. For example, in 1990, 80% of workers who lost their jobs were elligible for EI. Today not even half of those who lose their jobs are elligible for EI, even though we all pay into it. This is not that big a deal when the economy is strong and jobs are everywhere, but if a big recession comes we are going to have a major crisis in this country. "Choice" in child-care is a lie. The money being given to parents is not enough to pay for private day-care. 100 measly bucks a month, and taxable at that. That means that a stay at home parent keeps the whole thing, and a single working parent gets much less. Single working parents are the people who need a day-care program the most. Not everybody has someone they can turn to to look after their kids while they work. The result is that many can't work, they have to stay home and care for the kids while collecting welfare. I agree that parents should have choice in child-care - let's at least increase the child tax benefit to give parents money tax-free so all can enjoy it equally. We also have to create actual affordable day-care spaces in the first place, and the Conservatives won't do that. As for any government-run program being wasteful, Quebec's child-care program is a perfect model for the rest of the country to follow. Many Christian social values are hateful and bigoted.

How would I go about improving the situation in Afghanistan? I would pursue diplomatic means. We are not making the situation any better in Afghanistan. And I think you know that the second we leave (and we will have to leave someday), the government we are backing will not last a week. Again, I have no idea what Matt is talking about. The Taliban were a repressive regime, but not the worst in the world, and not a threat to world peace. There are plenty of other repressive regimes out there, some of which are threats to world peace. Like the one in Washington. I would wager most people believe the regime in Washington is a threat to world peace (most people in Afghanistan certainly do). Pretty sure not even George W. Moron himself believed the Taliban were.

So you advocate us returning to the theiving lying liberal goverment of the days of yore? I don't vote Liberal. Since I became aware of politics, around the time of the 1993 election, I have opposed the Liberals from the left. The sponsorship scandal, while not indicative of institutionalized corruption within the party per se (those responsible have been expelled), was the predictable consequence of Chretien's authoritarian, patriarchic, "I know best," power-centralizing tendencies (incidently, I see these tendencies in Stephen Harper too). The Liberals, as well as certain provincial governments, are responsible for the evaporation of the social safety net. They're reckless tax cutters, they took their time implimenting a child-care strategy, they did next to nothing to impliment the Kyoto protocol and they sent us to Afghanistan in the first place - But I'd take them in a heartbeat over this bunch. The Conservatives are simply wrong. On the war, on Kyoto, on child-care, and on fiscal matters, the Conservatives are far, far worse than the Liberals. Oh yeah, and did I mention the party is full of hateful bigoted troglodytes all too eager to roll back the clock on same-sex marriage and even abortion. Their "tough on crime" policies will do nothing to lower crime rates and will cost us a fortune. Yeah, I miss the Liberals.

I'll ignore the completely assinine comparison of the Taliban to the Nazis. The more relevant question is what is the difference between the current German government and Hamid Karzai's government. The answer is that the German government is not being propped up by foreign troops. I am completely, 100% in favour of helping the Afghan people govern themselves without religious fundamentalists. I am in favour of helping free the women of Afghanistan from what is essentially slavery. But what do we do with Afghans who have more loyalty to these fundamentalists than to the government we're intervening on the side of? What do we do when even Afghans who don't have any particular loyalty to the Taliban want us to leave? Get this into your head - we are at war against the Afghan people, and no matter how much we tell ourselves it's for their own good, I can guarantee you they won't see it that way. Afghans know occupation when they see it, and they know they don't like it, and they have the right to resist occupation.

We all know there are terrorists in Afghanistan. The problem is that they may not be distinguishable from ordinary Afghans who train with paramilitary groups to fight occupiers with kalashnikovs and guerilla tactics. Remember what country this is. This is Afghanistan we're talking about. When you think of countries that have been used as spaces on a chess board by the great powers, Afghanistan is the country that should come to mind. Resisting occupation has become part of Pashtu culture. When General Rick Hillier talks about the "terrorists" we're fighting, he doesn't just mean those who use terror tactics against civilians. "Terrorist" has become the term used to describe the guerillas we are fighting. What our soldiers are doing over there is conquering the country for the Karzai government, itself a puppet of US interests. mself084, the neocons are in power in Canada. Stephen Harper is an unrepentant Calgary-school neoconservative who supported the war in Iraq and supports the idea of the so-called "national security state." Canadas values are under attack, but not from Afghanistan.

And he said that those nations are targets because? Do you think that 9/11 happened because the US is full of Christians, or did it happen as retribution against perceived injustices committed by the US against the muslim world?

The government of Afghanistan would not be the government of Afghanistan if it weren't being propped up by NATO troops. The "President of Afghanistan" is basically just the mayor of Kabul. Yes, in a legal sense Canadian soldiers have been invited by the internationally recognized government of Afghanistan, but that doesn't make it less of an occupation, and that doesn't remove the rights of Afghans to resist occupation by killing occupiers. Why do the Taliban hate Americans? For the same reason they hate the British and the Russians. Because Americans have been meddling in Afghan affairs. There is no other reason. And we all know the Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11.

Because many seem to think that terrorism against the west stems from hatred of "freedom, democracy, and the rule of law," and this guy is explaining where it really comes from. Is what he's saying incorrect?

Who are "the Taliban," and how do you distinguish them from the average Afghani shepherd or farmer, who owns an assault rifle, has trained in a training camp (which may or may not have been run by those who call themselves Al-Qaida) and sends his sons to be trained in such camps because he feels they should learn to defend themselves from invaders, be they British, American, Soviet or Canadian? I sure couldn't tell the difference, and I don't trust that our armed forces are able to tell the difference...or care to. In fact, in many cases there may not be a difference. To the average Afghan outside of metropolitan areas, we are invaders. Afghanis have a very long history of resisting occupation. As for fighting terrorists, there are plenty of terrorists we should be worried about, like the ones in Washington. Or Moscow. Or Jerusalem. Or even Ottawa - I've heard reports that the forces we sent to Haiti were assisting the military regime that ousted Aristide in repressing the population. But I assume what you're talking about is preventing 9/11-style terrorist attacks on Canada. If this is the case, why, in your opinion, might Canada be a target for such attacks? As for "letting al-Qaida run around the middle east," you can thank the US invasion of Iraq for that, as it has resulted in a dramatic increase in terrorism in the region, as was predictable.

Taliban warns Cdn. troops to leave Afghanistan http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...s_name=&no_ads= Hands up - who believes terrorists hate us because we value freedom, democracy and the rule of law?

The diplomatic option exists, but it can't get us everything that force can. For example we can't get the Afghans to bargain away the right to grow opium poppies, so if this is something we want to achieve we're going to have to occupy Afghanistan to achieve it. If we want to help Americans build an oil pipeline and help them dictate the terms under which it will be built to the Afghans, then diplomacy can't help us do that either. None of this has anything to do with making Canada safer, though. There is an implicit argument in Ecnarf's last post - that the people we are fighting are all terrorists who target civilians, and thus they are the "bad guys" and our forces the "good guys."

Sorry man, dunno how I missed that. I live in Kamloops, in the BC interior, the chance of a terrorist attack here is exactly nil. Toronto is the most likely target of a 9/11 style terrorist attack if you believe that the 9/11 attack will be copied - what are your thoughts on how to prevent terrorist attacks on Canada? I think that the first thing we have to do is is ensure that Canada is not a target. Now, these people are all Canadians, right? And may not actually be guilty of anything? Even though my initial reaction was praise for the RCMP, I don't think I have that much trust in the federal government upon reflection, I really think we are buying in to the US's "war on terror" framework too much. This government, like the last, has done nothing to ensure the release and return of Omar Khadr, the Canadian being held in the illegal American prison Guantanamo Bay. Khadr is being held for "murdering" an American soldier in Afghanistan (I believe during an escape from a detention facility). If that same American soldier had shot and killed him, would that soldier be on trial for murder? Khadr was 15 when this happened. He is a victim of war in every sense. American soldiers have no rights in Afghanistan, no matter what Hamid Karzai says. Most Afghans do not recognize his government. Now people are talking about new measures to help the police crack down on this terrorist scourge. Meanwhile, the Washington Post just broke the story that the US government is keeping a genetic database of Americans. The right-wing neocon fringe wants to give the police unprecedented security powers to appease the Americans, whose government is run by their own right-wing neocons. It looks to me like the police more than had a handle on things with the powers they have now.

I wouldn't be so quick to assume that the militias our forces are fighting in Afghanistan target civilians. As for charging them for their actions, isn't it a bit fucked up that if a Canadian soldier shoots an Afghani militant, and he shoots back and kills the Canadian, he could be charged with murder? That's not murder, that's war. Afghanis have every right to kill Canadian soldiers on their soil. We have no rights in Afghanistan.

Funny how nobody mentioned yesterday that this was in fact a police sting operation.

He's not, Warren Jeffs is. For like the tenth time, reread the original post. I don't think it's in the best interests of Canadian children to have one of their parents deported just because our government doesn't recognize their kind of spousal arrangement. I'm not defending polygamy, but the way we're deporting them, on a technicality, even though polygamy has been effectively decriminalized for years and will undoubtedly be legalized one day as many other countries have (because criminalization isn't the best way to deal with the problems of polygamy). Immigration must have something important to worry about.

Except that this is not in Utah, this is in British Columbia. Different mormon sect, and yes, we have to be wary and act to protect children, but there have been no accusations that these children are suffering abuse, the father isn't being charged with anything and the children aren't being taken away from him. What the mothers are being deported for is not being Canadian - their application to stay in Canada on compassionate grounds has been rejected. I would have assumed that having Canadian children would be enough.

Well, the biggest contributor to capitalist pollution is "dirty" subsidy.

What pedophiles? They're not pedophiles! There's no accusation of them being pedophiles or assisting pedophiles! Everyone needs to forget what they think they know about this case and reacquaint themselves with the details. Ecnarf, good call on the polygamy statute, but Canada still doesn't prosecute polygamy anymore - many other western democracies have legalized it and Canada probably will someday, but in the meantime we've all but given up on prosecuting it, and rightfully so - whatever one thinks of polygamists, criminalization isn't a solution unless child abuse or pedophilia are involved. What Canada is going to do is send these women back to the United States where they will not be charged with anything (they haven't done anything wrong) but will have to live without their children, and their children without them. That is wrong.