Longer Afghan missions eyed

The cumbersome logistics of maintaining an army in Afghanistan is self-defeating. Canada's armed forces has established a world-wide reputation as peacekeepers,capable of defending the defenceless with force when required, while the people sorted out their political problems. Our participation in Afghanistan changed when Harper obeyed the orders of his friends Dick Cheney and George Bush. Remember, Sept. 11 was not an attack on the people of the United States. The perpetrators stated clearly they attacked the Trade Centre and the Penetagon because of what American corporations, the Pentagon, and the CIA have done in their countries over the past 50 years. The Canadian Senate Report of Sept. 2005 lays out a future path for revitalizing our armed forces, but we should not be wasting our soldiers precious lives and experience in the service of the most hated U.S. sdministration in history, the current Bush/Cheney family and friends, who are reaping enormous profits from the current wars. Don't trade Canadian blood for American bucks! Our currrent soldiers joined the Canadian tradition of peace-keepers, not the American tradition of executioners, assassins and torturers. If you don't think this is an American tradition, see SOAW.org.

You do know that Chretien put us in Afghanistan, and martin put us in the south, don't you? We were heavy into the fighting before Harper took over so blaming him just makes you look stupid. Would this mean that it was the Liberals who were sucking up to the Americans?

Canada's peace-keeping missions were a sideline from our strong and valiant participation in both world wars and Korea. To deny that heritage is ignorant. Peace-keeping was seen as a way to keep Canada on the world stage at a budget price and more often resulted in poor results and stalemate than effective results. Can anyone look at Rwanda and proudly say that was a good Canadian mission and that we did all we could do? I definitely don't think so.

This is just a echo of the same BS mantra the far left is chanting.

ridenrain ...your full of crap.... you blame chretien for everything..
we were not in combat when he was PM... get over it..

We were in combat though. We even asked for the tough assignments.

That doesn't mean Harper wouldn't have done exactly the same thing. The worst of it is he would have sent us to Iraq as well.

Then what the hell were we doing in Afghanistan?

A lie repeated is still a lie.

Troops from 3 PPCLI deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan in Feb 2002 as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. We worked with elements of the 101st Airborne on combat missions until we left in July 2002.

The last time I checked Stephen Harper was not yet the PM, but I'll let you guess who was.

To all of you who have convinced yoursleves that Harper is to blame for the mission, go get a f***ing clue.

As for the actual topic of the article, they need to be very careful with this. This could look really bad to the public and see support drop even more. Plus it could affect the morale fo some of the troops. If its necessary do it, but if there are other options they should look into them very closely.

Does Operation Anaconda ring a bell. Operation Anaconda is the code name for an operation in early March 2002 in which the United States military, along with allied Afghan military forces, attempted to destroy al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the Shahi-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains southeast of Zormat.

PPCLI Canadian Soldier Corporal Rob Furlong (Operation Anaconda) - holds the record for the longest-ever recorded and confirmed sniper kill at 2,430 metres (1.509 miles) using a .50 caliber McMillan TAC-50 rifle. In support of U.S. troops from the 101st Airborne division.

Sounds like combat operations too me.