Confident voice of Canadian troops rarely heard in Afghan debate

Canwest News Service via National Post ^ | 2009-09-13 | Matthew Fisher,

[Clive]

Sapper Alexandre Beaudin-D'Anjou, his face still bloodied and badly swollen one day after a homemade landmine had killed two of his colleagues last week, announced he would answer questions about the awful incident, but only after making a statement.

In what was an exceptional "cri de coeur" to his countrymen on the home front, the young combat engineer from Quebec City declared: "I want to say that part of the Canadian population negatively views the work that we do here, above all because they don't understand what we do. In my opinion, the majority of the Afghan population benefits from what we do.

"Sadly, there are dangers in this, as you saw in yesterday's incident. All the soldiers feel deeply that we will finish this work for one another."

With Internet access, and radio and television stations streaming news programs to their forward-operating bases and strongpoints, soldiers are acutely aware that some commentators -- with little or no knowledge of what soldiers confront in Afghanistan -- have given up on them and their mission.

They say they are more than a little bewildered by all the discussion about "wither Afghanistan" and disappointed that the Liberals and Conservatives -- who ordered them to the far side of the world -- have become so terrified about the Afghan file's potential political consequences that they have fallen silent about the current mission and what Canada may do when Parliament's current mandate expires in 2011.

There could not be two more different views of what Canada is achieving in Afghanistan than that of the troops and of the mission's critics at home.

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[Clive]

This aticle must be read in its entirety before commenting, not just the abridged version posted here.

[Clive]

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[Candor7]

God Bless the True North, Strong and Free!

[denydenydeny]

They say they are more than a little bewildered by all the discussion about "wither Afghanistan"

I'm sure they are. I guarantee that the current accepted wisdom that "the Taliban are winning" would be strongly disputed by Coalition forces in theater.

The current higher casualty counts in Afghanistan are due to

1) The Iranians have started to supply the Taliban with their most destructive ordnance for IEDs, and

2) The Obama ROE, which are getting Americans killed on a regular basis.

[ishabibble]

Interesting article, and quite a good thing to hear from the Canadian soldier. He’s right, people here don’t understand...any war. That’s because of men like him and his mates. God bless them all.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

” 2) The Obama ROE, which are getting Americans killed on a regular basis. “

This is probably the most vile and disgusting thing Barry has done to date
and it gets little attention.
Although, to their credit, CNN has run a couple of good pieces on Afghanistan and has actually mentioned that the soldiers and Marines feel they are fighting
“ with one arm tied behind their backs.”
I swear I will spit in the face of the next Democrat who tells me his party
“ always supports the troops.”
But, I wonder , what has happened to the Republicans ?
Are they all going to sit quietly while the death toll
and the mission in Afghanistan spirals out of control ?
Barry is clearly out of his depth ,
he has no desire to win , he has no military background-heck, he wasn’t even a Boy Scout,
he cannot think strategically and most importantly,
his allegiance is not to the West.
I see no good coming out of Afghanistan with Barry at the helm.

[fanfan]