Karzai Crazy?

So Afghan President Karzai has threaten to quit and join the Taliban. Big news. Big shock to the White House. Why is he acting so strange? Why would he do stuff to under mind NATO efforts and play right into the hands of the Taliban.

It couldn't possibly be that the US has given a date for when its leaving. At date after which he'll be on his own, surrounded by war lords, Taliban and the business as usual Afghan way.

I would assume that when NATO leaves they won't be taking him with them. So who can blame him. He's not in danger of being kicked out of office. He's in danger of being horribly maimed and killed.

So why is anyone surprised at how he's acting?

But What About Tim Hortons?

I'm sure this will tip the balance of the war effort against the Taliban. The US Commander is banning junk food in Afghanistan.

Burgers go way of booze as US general Stanley McChrystal bans junk food

First he banned booze in his Kabul headquarters. Now the notoriously austere commander of US and Nato forces has a new target in his war on terror: ice cream and fast food.

General Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of Special Forces in Iraq, who runs eight miles a day, eats one meal and sleeps for only four hours a night, has given orders to close the junk food concessions on Nato bases.

Will this affect the Tim Hortons outlets that serve the Canadian Troops?

I would hope not. Tim Hortons has proven to be a great supporter of the Canadian efforts in the region. It would be a shame to have that taken just because some American General thinks junk food is bad.

Shut Up and Bring Tanks

These are not American Soldiers

A few thoughts on both Obama's speech and Hillary's comments about "all nations" getting involved in the Afghan mission.

A whole bunch are. Already. In fact several of these countries, the ones actually fighting not just hiding in their bases, have been asking for MORE troops for several years.

So perhaps Hillary should tell her boss to send as many troops as possible and shut about about withdrawal dates. Outside of the US Military Canada's work, sacrifice and commitment has been largely ignored.

As for all nations... This sort of retarded League of Nonsense Teach the World to Sing crap reveals how naive Team Obama are. There are an awful lot of nations who shouldn't be there. Who you don't want there because they'd side with the bad guys. The Taliban are bad guys. Not just people we don't agree with. They are folk who are evil, believe evil things and have no problem killing anyone who disagrees with them. So instead of all this dancing around the Barney tree holding hands and singing Michael Row Your Boat Ashore, Hillary snap out of it and take the gloves off.

What Obama should have said was "We are going to win. The Taliban are evil and we will kick their asses into the vortex of history and we will take as long as it takes". But that would take a real leader to say. Not just some commie meat puppet.

By the way. Bring lots of tanks. The Taliban don't have any and we do. They are very afraid of them.

Now I need a morning coffee.

Taliban Bobi Dead

Generally when Canadians are killed the international press uses the term "NATO Soldiers" to describe them. I hope that this also applies below in the use of the term "NATO".

NATO kills Taliban commander in targeted operation

KABUL, Afghanistan – NATO and Afghan forces killed a Taliban commander during a targeted operation just south of Kabul in a province militant fighters have poured into this year, the NATO-led force said Tuesday.

The commander, Mohammad Bobi, had facilitated suicide bombings and had a history of torturing and kidnapping Afghan civilians in the province of Logar, NATO said.

Bobi was given the option of surrendering, but he instead attacked the combined force and was killed during an overnight raid, NATO said. His death was confirmed Tuesday.

Logar province, which is directly south of Kabul province, has seen an influx of Taliban militants this year. Residents there say the government has little or no control in the province outside the provincial capital.

Between 3,000 and 3,500 additional U.S. troops scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan in January will be sent to Logar and Wardak provinces, two regions adjoining Kabul that have seen an influx of militant fighters over the last year.

U.S. commanders say the troops will aggressively attack militants in those regions and that they expect violence there to spike over the coming months as the number of clashes increases.

The main highways that run through Wardak and Logar are extremely dangerous. Convoys of supply trucks are regularly attacked and militants set up temporary checkpoints in search of government employees and foreigners to kidnap or kill.

Martin Regg Cohn makes a good point in The Toronto Star. Something the pea-brains in Parliament need to think about.

Afghan attention deficit disorder

Anyone who doubts the importance of Canada's mission in Afghanistan should consider the eight schoolgirls who were sprayed with acid in Kandahar last month, a reminder of the old Taliban ban on female education. Their injuries put the lie to the fantasy that education and reconstruction are possible without security.

Afghans are looking to the West for a signal that we won't abandon them again. Staying the course in Afghanistan doesn't mean sticking to outdated tactics or a discredited strategy. There is every reason for Canada and its allies to reassess where we have gone wrong, where the Taliban have succeeded, and what the Afghans themselves must to do set things right.

Hippy Report Says "Taliban Everywhere, Man"

I have my doubts about this "thinktank".

Taliban Expanding Foothold in Afghanistan, Report Finds

The Taliban have expanded their footprint in Afghanistan and now have a permanent presence in nearly three-quarters of the country, according to a new report.

The Paris-based International Council on Security and Development, a think tank that maintains full-time offices in Afghanistan, said the Taliban have spread across much of the country and are beginning to encircle the capital, Kabul.

The group said Taliban fighters have advanced out of southern Afghanistan, a region where they often hold de facto governing power, and carry out regular attacks in western and northwestern Afghanistan as well as in and around Kabul. Taliban forces can be found in 72% of Afghanistan, up from 54% a year earlier.

"While the international community's prospects in Afghanistan have never been bleaker, the Taliban has been experiencing a renaissance that has gained momentum since 2005," the report said. "The West is in genuine danger of losing Afghanistan."

Afghanistan has seen a sharp spike in violence this year, with U.S. fatalities and civilian casualties hitting records. Some American commanders fear the Taliban will start an offensive this winter. President-elect Barack Obama has said he will deploy tens of thousands of new troops to Afghanistan, shifting resources from Iraq.

There are currently about 34,000 American troops in Afghanistan, and the Pentagon has announced plans to send at least 20,000 reinforcements in 2009. Obama aides have said the new administration also will work to strengthen Afghanistan's central government, judiciary and national police force.

The think tank mapped recent attacks in Afghanistan and said provinces with at least one strike per month had a "permanent Taliban presence."

Norine MacDonald, the think tank's president and lead researcher, said the Taliban, following the strategy of earlier Afghan insurgents, are slowly encircling Kabul by establishing bases close to the city and regularly attacking three of the four major roads leading out of the capital.

Ms. MacDonald said the number of attacks inside the city, including assassinations and kidnappings of Westerners and Afghans, has also increased sharply.

The group recommends that U.S. and NATO commanders minimize their use of military power, recruit troops from Muslim nations into the current American- and European-dominated multinational force and expand economic assistance.

So the Taliban are expanding and NATO should not use military power? Huh? If you had any doubt this "Thinktank" was in Paris...

There is one central problem with this report. Even if the Taliban were every where and ready to pounce... They can't fight our troops beyond the road-side bomb method.

For every "attack" they try they lose 10 men to NATO's one. In some cases NATO hasn't lost any men while killing dozens of these idiots. So if the Taliban is indeed in 72 percent of the country all that really means they're just that much closer to being killed.

Three Canadians Killed Return Home

Bodies of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan due to arrive home today

TORONTO — Canadians will salute and wage flags from overpasses above the "Highway of Heroes" again Monday in honour of three young soldiers.

Cpl. Mark McLaren, Pvt. Demetrios Diplaros, and Warrant Officer Robert Wilson died Friday by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. The military flight carrying their caskets home is scheduled to arrive CFB Trenton in eastern Ontario at about 2 p.m. ET.

The bodies will then be taken to the coroner's building in Toronto along a 172-kilometre stretch of Highway 401 called the "Highway of Heroes."

The public outpouring of respect and affection along the highway has become familiar, yet the poignancy of the ritual seems to grow each time.

The deaths of McLaren, Diplaros and Wilson brought the military toll on the Afghan mission to 100.

Tens of thousands are expected to line Canada's Highway of Heroes today to pay tribute to the three soldiers killed in Afghanistan, marking both their sacrifice and the grim milestone of 100 Canadian soldiers killed on active duty there.

The bodies of Warrant Officer Robert John Wilson, Pte. Demetrios Diplaros and Cpl. Mark Robert McLaren – victims Friday of an explosive device near Kandahar – will make the now-familiar journey from CFB Trenton to a coroner's morgue in downtown Toronto.

Expected at the repatriation ceremony at Trenton are Governor General Michaëlle Jean, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Chief of Defence Staff Gen. W.J. Natynczk.

The military plane carrying the bodies is to land at Trenton at 2 p.m. The motorcade is expected to leave the base at around 3 p.m. and depending on traffic variables, reach Oshawa at 4:15 p.m., Scarborough at about 4:45 p.m. and the coroner's building in Toronto at about 5:15 p.m.

A Toronto traffic officer cautioned that the motorcades from Trenton usually travel 30 minutes to an hour behind schedule.

The public tributes for Canada's fallen along the 172-kilometre route have caused commentators in other countries, including Britain, to take note and wonder why its own military victims aren't similarly honoured.

Canucks Remember in Kandahar

Canadian veterans honoured in Kandahar

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The dark sunglasses worn by some family members of fallen soldiers yesterday to block out the unfailingly bright desert sun could not hide the flow of tears that streamed steadily throughout the bagpiper's mournful song.

For nearly half an hour, families of six slain soldiers had held back, looking pained but stoic during a Remembrance Day ceremony as Brigadier-General Denis Thompson, the commander of military troops in Kandahar province, outlined the specific gains that each soldier's death helped the military enable.

“They need to be reassured that everything that they put into this country, their blood, their family, is not a waste,” Gen. Thompson said.

The parents of Private Mark Graham, a former Olympic sprinter who was killed horrifically by friendly fire – an American fighter jet bombed a Canadian camp they mistook for insurgents – during the infamous Operation Medusa in September, 2006, were told that the place their son died has been rehabilitated into a wellspring of life.

“Mark lost his life in an area absolutely infested with insurgents who had forcibly evicted thousands of local villagers for the sake of their philosophy,” Gen. Thompson said. “Today, two years later, Mark would not recognize his battlefield. Schools are operating, local governance is prospering, and infrastructure is being built …A major coalition forward operating base has been constructed on the very spot that Mark lost his life.”

The family of Private Blake Williamson, killed in October, 2006 in the volatile Zhari district, was assured by the General their son died in what was then “without a doubt the most dangerous part of Afghanistan.” Today, the region is a “stability box”, he said.

The area of northern Kandahar province where Cpl. Randy Payne lost his life in April, 2006, is now secured and serves as a key access route linking Kandahar province to Uruzgan; nearly 1,000 troops were recently anchored in dangerous Maiwand district, the wild-west of Kandahar province where Private David Greenslate fell in April, 2007. They are disrupting the insurgent supply lines emanating from nearby Helmand province, the General said.

After he extended similar assurances to the families of Cpt. Matthew Dawe, killed in July of 2007, and Pte. Michel Levesque, who died in April, 2006, each family was invited to lay wreaths at the airfield's Canadian war memorial, a marble-tiled structure carved with the names and faces of all 97 soldiers our country has lost so far here.

With the bagpiper playing, they rose from their seats family by family, some clutching hands for support, most looking as if the act of placing their wreath deepened the ache of their loss rather than easing it. That is when tears began to flow.

Still, the families – flown to Afghanistan by the military as part of Remembrance Day tradition – said spending the day close to the spots where their sons breathed their last breaths was somewhat cathartic.

“Being here and just feeling the air … hearing from the Afghan people and hearing what has happened here since Mark has passed away has made a huge difference,” said Linda Learn, Pte. Graham's stepmother. “It really puts a different picture in my mind about Afghanistan. We had a picture of where he died. Now we know that there's roads and marketplaces and bazaars and schools,” she said. “It doesn't bring him back … but it does bring some comfort.”

Peter and Reine Dawe, parents of Capt. Matthew Dawe, took their visit one step further – the pair asked to see and sit in the actual vehicle their son was killed in. Mr. Dawe called the process “traumatic”, although his wife said it helped her feel closer to her son.