Perhaps I was trolled, but I responded to Liblogger CastorRouge's blog post "By The Numbers: Afghanistan" .
I started to respond as a comment and soon realized it had ballooned out way to big, so I shall respond with my own blog post.
The point of my comment was to highlight the your ability to use statistics to make the Conservatives look bad and ignore reality.
It is Liberal propaganda that the mission was changed by the Conservatives. No one forced the Conservatives to send them there, they were already there!
Paul Martin's government sent them to the south. Bill Graham the then Defence Minister went on his "Pre-body tag tour".
FACT: Paul Martin's Liberals sent the CF to the south. Check the dates, do you really think the Conservatives were able to change the mission and deploy thousands of troops in region within weeks of being elected? Crap, they were not sworn in until 6 Feb 06.
FACT: Parliament voted to extend the mission in 2006. Even after it was quote/unquote changed to be more aggressive.
FACT: The Liberals supported the second extension.
FACT: The Conservatives purchased additional RG-31s to protect our troops.
FACT: The Conservatives sent Leopard tanks in region to help protect our troops.
FACT: The Conservatives leased additional Leopards to protect our our troops and fix a deficiency.
FACT: The Conservatives have purchased C-17s to move our equipment and people around. Oh, and to help deliver humanitarian aid.
I think I destroyed your point about the Government sitting on their hands about troop safety. And I think I countered your points on the allegation of the Conservative Government "changing the honourable peacekeeping mission the Liberals had in mind".
Don't support the mission if you don't want to, its your right. Just don't bury you hand in the sand.
3 comments:
I remember Bill Graham saying that we would have a high death toll in Afganistan.
I often wonder what the Libs would be saying if they were in power during this time.
I am getting sick and tired of "polls" that are manipulated to provide the partisan answer then paraded throughout the papers as being how Canadians think.
For example - the following two questions would garner different answers from me.
With the death toll approaching 100 Canadian soldier's deaths, do you want our troops to come home.
Well - yes, of course I want them to come home.
or
Do you believe it is time the Canadian Government called our troops home from Afganistan.
No.
You make a detailed and passionate arguement, cudos to that. I have to confess I find all this backtracking to the dying days of the Martin government amusing. Granted you had a new gov., but one that boasted military know how, planning and an agenda to match. If you get your way and get a majority gov and decades of tory rule ensue I can still see pundits blaming Martin for all their problems in Afghanistan. Harper's had two and a half years to affect change, I think you'll have a hard sell trying to pin it back to pre'06 without sounding just a little pathetic on the campaign trail.
As for the military purchases you mention, I wish there were more of them. As I noted in my blog the Chinooks, purchased in '06, are still being waited on and some of the equipment you mention isn't exactly being fast tracked. The tendency to lease, such as with the Leopards you note and much of our air transport these days suggests band-aid management. With the cancellation of more ships for the navy and arctic defences still premised on theoretical spending I only worry that the military isn't going to get the windfall everyone, including myself, assumed would be automatic with a Conservative government. Partisanship aside, this should have been a slam dunk for Harper.
castor rouge, I am not pinning this on the Liberals, I was countering the assertions that Conservatives changed the mission and they haven't been working at providing the military with that they need.
But I am a realist, the Conservatives cannot undo 20-30 years of defence cuts in 2.5 years.
We bought the Chinooks, but have to wait for delivery. Unfortunately the manufacture doesn't keep an inventory.
We lease short term until we can buy longer term. It takes time to purchase these things if we follow the rules.
When the Conservatives have sole-sourced the Liberals were upset with them.
Hopefully the Navy and Coast Guard will get the ships they need soon, but I don't want to spend good money on bad equipment, or equipment that doesn't deliver value.
Capital purchases take a long time, hopefully we can speed this up.
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