NATO chief urges Canada to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2011

If other NATO countries would suck it up and contribute....this would be a non-issue!!!! Unfortunately only those who have the balls and political will are doing the "heavy lifting"

Even the Brits are having second thoughts with all the casualties they are now having - primarily because they are assisting the US in their campaign in Helmand. We soon may see more casualties in Kandahar as the fighting intensifies.

From the 2008 numbers,
Canada has 2500 troops and has suffered 128 deaths.
Germany has 3210 troops and has suffered 33 deaths.
France has 1515 troops and has suffered 28 deaths.
Italy has 2880 troops and has suffered 15 deaths.
UK has 7800 troops and has suffered 192 deaths.
US has 15,000 troops and has suffered 772 deaths.

Canada has done more than it's share and NATO officials can get bent.

We can't keep doing all the damn dirty work for everybody else. It's time for everybody else to figure it out on their own, and if they can't do that, then why should we stay?

He can suck hole all he wants, we're gone come 2010.

And if our government backs out of this agreement, the sh*ts gonna hit the fan.

I grew from total resistence to going over, then to support to make sure at least the right thing is done, to support for what our troops want to do, to opposition to this war again but to stay until 2010 and to bring our troops home.

Why should we and a select few others be left to clean up the mess while everybody else prances around with their thumbs up their asses?

There is no way in hell I will ever support our government keeping our troops in Afghanistan longer then already approved. If they can't keep to their own agreements, then the government can not be trusted. I don't care if Osama himself says he'll give himself up if we stay for 6 more months.

This Farce has to end one way or another.

The US can finish wtf they started for once in their lives.

Don't forget that we've been at the front lines since the day our troops put boots on the ground in Afghanistan and nobody wants to take over for us... so no wonder why they want us to stay for longer.... like chumps.

And while we're left trying to reconstruct villiages, train the army, train the police and fight the Taliban, the US is running around like Rambo Cowboy air striking everything in sight, killing civilians, chalking it up to collateral damage and further dividing the support for all of the NATO allies over there trying to fix mess.

How many civilians causalties occured at Canadian hands over there?

Considering we're on the frontlines, not very many compared to the US.

Why?

Priorities and Tactics.

Ours are to win over the people and to reduce civilian casualties..... the US's is about reducing troop deaths in the media so they don't have people giving them sh*t.... and Afghans are perfectly fine to take the deaths.... afterall, they're all evil doer Muslims over there, what do they care?

It's not just the US. This is a NATO mission and all members should be pulling their weight. Canada has definately done it's part and I'm happy to see your support.

.. but then I posted too fast.

Air support and the use of firepower has always had the side effect of unwanted casualties, and it's the same for any nation flying the planes or manning the guns. The US preditor strikes have been a great success and like the artillery interdiction fire against taliban support crossing the Pakistan border, has really crippled their forces.

We need to move away from soldiers and move to police, and taht's what Canada is doing. The Afghan forces, with Canadian and NATO support are the best to root out these terrorists and put an end to this mess once and for all.

Oh I have plenty of support for our troops and every single soldier elsewhere in our military.... and currently I support them by fighting to make sure our government doesn't keep them doing the crap work nobody else wants to do over there and to bring them home.... to only be used to legitimate and justified missions abroad.

Not based on "You're either with us or the Terr'ists" from some fool from another country issuing threats to their allies to do as he wants.

This is a NATO mission, yet looking through the news even just for today there are multiple reports of more Afghan civilians being killed by an air strike conducted by the US Forces.

although 86.34% of all statistics are made up on the spot, 95% of all the civilian casualties you read about in the last few years have all been at the hands of the US.

And they just brush it off and keep doing what they have always been doing, which risks the lives of those I figured we were there to protect.

The weakest link over there is the US and their tactics.

I'm not trying to be anti-US, but their tactics and procedures need a serious overhaul. And if they're not willing to do this and start protecting civilians like we're trying to do, then they're only making the situation worse, last longer, and putting all NATO allies at futher risk over there, while not coming any closer to a logical conclusion to this war.

If they're going to continually undermine everything our troops have been trying to acomplish over there and no other allies are willing to actually back us up better to keep security secure.... then why waste more of our soldier's lives and well being for a lost cause?

Well this might actually be the weakest link.

The very people we put in charge are just as bad as those we kicked out.

But at what cost to the overall mission?

I have cousins who've fought over there and going over for a second tour. I've read the written diaries and emails from soldiers over there who explained in detail their methods of dealing with the Taliban..... very rarely do our troops call in air support or artillery and we go in with our troops and our training.... and very rarely do any of our troops actually get killed in fire fights, but usually from random IED's.

Our successes and actions have proven that these air strikes are not as needed as the US likes to imply. And the risks and sacrafices to our troops are worth it in this manner when compared to how many steps back we take when civilians are killed by air strikes.

Until we can actually prove to the Afghan public in general that we are there to seriously protect them and that we really want to give them their own country with their own responsibilities, this war will never end and the Taliban will always exist.

For every lost civilian, more take up arms against the forigners on their lands to seek revenge for those innocent lost. They relate a lot better to the Taliban then they do us, and if we (NATO) keep blowing them up and shrugging our shoulders afterwards.... how are they ever going to relate to us and trust us?

We are in NATO why again?

I don't like a job left unfinished but it's been nearly a decade and NATO is a bunch of fair weather friends. I think we should seriously review our commitment to NATO itself after this.

We are in NATO to defend against the USSR. Everybody had a clear goal and good reasons to work together. Beyond that things are murky. This never should have been a NATO thing.

Well this might actually be the weakest link.

The very people we put in charge are just as bad as those we kicked out.

Indeed, yet another big problem is the corruption in many of the police forces, who have had a bad history of being paid very little, thus more prone to accepting bribes and corruption.

The fact that the police forces wern't even screened or properly assessed in regards to their connections to various drug lords is icing on the cake.

As your report says, the afghans have zero trust in most places towards their own police forces..... and if that's the case, we stand very little chance in gaining any further support ourselves.

Modern warfare trades overwhelming firepower for soldiers lives, and whenever one is dealing with firepower, the cost of mistakes is huge. If we're taking enemy fire from a house or farm, I'd much rather send in an artillery round than a Canadian soldier.

We all agree that civilian casualties are tragic and coulter-productive, expecially when their fed back to us ad-nasium by the Canadian media. One casualty undoes a lot of the good work we are doing there. That's why it's critical to speed up the Afghan police so they can identify and remove these terrorists before it gets to open war.

I'm quite happy to discuss this matter but I'm pretty sure his is just another topic that you don't care about and only want to use to beat the Tory government with.

NATO should have been disbanded after the Cold War ended.

Because it wasn't, we were stuck in a contract that dictates other nations can determine when and where we goto war..... thus here we are in Afghanistan in the situation we're in today.

Our leaders should have showed a pair of ballz and left the NATO pact the moment it was approved that we'd be going over to clean up the US's mess, giving them the opportunity to shift their troops to an even more pointless Iraq War.

If other problems arise in the future, make a new group of allies to fight that force, but don't hang onto an old organization to hold other nations to do another country's bidding.

Sure our mission was approved by the UN.... but I even think the UN is a load of crap.

How balanced can the UN be when a select few nations hold Veto power over everyone else who's a member? If all nations in the United Nations are not equal and hold the same power to prevent one or two nations from abusing their power.... then it's not balanced.... it's not equal.... it's not United, except through force.

(Yeah I know.... my flack guns are pointed in all directions in this thread in regards to the various groups )