Afghan Mission a Lost Cause: Poll (Canada)

[struggle4progress]

Josh Pringle
Sunday, October 1, 2006

Canadians see this country's mission in Afghanistan as a lost cause.

59 per cent of respondents to a Decima Research poll agreed that Canadian soldiers are "dying for a cause we cannot win."

Just 34 per cent of respondents disagreed with that statement.

An even larger majority of respondents said they would never fight in Afghanistan themselves under any circumstances ..

http://www.cfra.com/headlines/index.asp?cat=2&nid=43210

[tuvor]

1. Posted in the Canada forum, too.

Join us if you're so inclined.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=190x17403

[tocqueville]

2. I am afraid they are right

there was a window of opportunity after 9/11. The Bush administration blew it. It's probably impossible to repair.

Afghanistan: Why NATO cannot win
By M K Bhadrakumar

The fatality rate of the 18,500-strong NATO force averages about five per week, which is roughly equal to the losses suffered by the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Indeed, in withering comments to The Sunday Telegraph newspaper last weekend, Soviet commanders who oversaw Moscow's disastrous campaign have predicted that the NATO forces will ultimately be forced to flee from Afghanistan.

General Boris Gromov, the charismatic Soviet commander who supervised the withdrawal in 1989, warned, "The Afghan resistance is, in my opinion, growing. Such behavior on the part of the intractable Afghans is to my mind understandable. It is conditioned by centuries of tradition, geography, climate and religion.

"We saw over a period of many years how the country was torn apart by civil war ... But in the face of outside aggressions, Afghans have always put aside their differences and united. Evidently, the coalition forces are also being seen as a threat to the nation."

A comparison with the 1980s is in order. The 100,000-strong Soviet army operated alongside a full-fledged Afghan army of equal strength with an officer corps trained in the elite Soviet military academies, and backed by aviation, armored vehicles and artillery, with all the advantages of a functioning, politically motivated government in Kabul. And yet it proved no match for the Afghan resistance.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HI30Df01.html

[Screwfly]

4. Re: I am afraid they are right

Don't forget that the Soviet army in Afghanistan used tactics & weapons of terror a western army would never dream of using--and they still lost. I doubt if even Hitler's Waffen SS could have conquered Afghanistan.

[MrPrax]

5. window of opportunity?

To do what again?

Apprehend the criminals responsible for 9/11, shatter the backbone of global terror, change out the last government in Afghanistan with another figurehead and FIVE years later decide what the mission might be and what Bush 'BLEW'... it was madness from the start.

(on edit - Add more sugar to the kool-aid to next post)

[spag68]

3. I knew

it was a lost cause, when the asshole that shot up the 3000 year old chinese cliff statues got away and the poppie fields were replanted that it was a lost cause.

[pinniped]

6. I knew it was a lost causes when the Russians were there.

John Rambo told that Soviet commander dude Afghanistan was their Vietnam and we already had ours.

These idiots never learn.

Condosleeza was supposedly an expert on Soviet affairs, guess that assclown didn't know the Russians recently vacated the place.

[oblivious]

7. Duh! Can it possibly be more obvious?

What warmongering dimwit can possibly think any good can possibly come out of our murder of people on the other side of the world.

Who are these ignorant, dispicable, insane 34%?

There were supposedly maximum 2500 Alqaeda bad guys there in September 2001. How many tens of thousands have we murdered since then?