Deterrent Presence? Deadly Response
Another Canadian sacrifice to peace, order and good governance. No, not within Canada, we long ago mastered the political-social protocol to ensure that those imperatives were soundly in place. Rather, Canadian troops installed with ISAF, in a NATO enterprise to bring peace order and good governance to a country solidly entrenched in the Middle Ages whose current Western-backed government is heartily averse to governance other than Afghan-style.
Sapper Brian Collier from 1 Combat engineer Regiment in Edmonton, in becoming the 151st Canadian soldier to leave his life in Afghanistan, leaving his family to mourn the fact that they will never again see their boy, the reason for yet another solemn ramp ceremony as he is shipped home to Bradford, Ontario. This was Sapper Collier's second exposure to danger; the first a few months back merely wounded him.
He was on foot patrol in eastern Panjwaii district when he stepped on an improvised explosive device. There are a whole lot more of those IEDs implanted in the area. As a response to the increased Canadian determination to help Afghanistan win the war against its deadly insurgency Canadian troops have been stationed in the area, to live among the villagers. To defend the village people, and to keep the Taliban at bay.
Do the villagers wish to be defended from the presence of their co-religionists and tribal brothers? Do the villagers have any trust in the presence of uniformed military foreigners in their midst, when tradition and tribalism have always violently spurned a foreign presence in their country? Are the villagers themselves involved in assisting the Taliban with the certain knowledge that the foreigners will soon leave and the Taliban will remain?
"We are working so diligently in Panjwaii District so that we can bring about the sort of positive changes that have resulted from our operations over the past year in neighbouring Dand District. Recall the state of Dand District when we started our village operations there last year, and now the district is recovering." (Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance.) Recovering? As soon as the foreign presence has departed the Taliban will return.
This is Islamism, a political ideology, indomitably self-assured and determined to assert its domination wherever it can, and it can because it will. Because the collective will is there to ensure it can. There is nothing more powerful to the human mind than a religious mission with which to entrap people into the ecstatic belief they do the work of God, for there is no higher mission in the minds of the fanatic.
Sapper Brian Collier from 1 Combat engineer Regiment in Edmonton, in becoming the 151st Canadian soldier to leave his life in Afghanistan, leaving his family to mourn the fact that they will never again see their boy, the reason for yet another solemn ramp ceremony as he is shipped home to Bradford, Ontario. This was Sapper Collier's second exposure to danger; the first a few months back merely wounded him.
He was on foot patrol in eastern Panjwaii district when he stepped on an improvised explosive device. There are a whole lot more of those IEDs implanted in the area. As a response to the increased Canadian determination to help Afghanistan win the war against its deadly insurgency Canadian troops have been stationed in the area, to live among the villagers. To defend the village people, and to keep the Taliban at bay.
Do the villagers wish to be defended from the presence of their co-religionists and tribal brothers? Do the villagers have any trust in the presence of uniformed military foreigners in their midst, when tradition and tribalism have always violently spurned a foreign presence in their country? Are the villagers themselves involved in assisting the Taliban with the certain knowledge that the foreigners will soon leave and the Taliban will remain?
"We are working so diligently in Panjwaii District so that we can bring about the sort of positive changes that have resulted from our operations over the past year in neighbouring Dand District. Recall the state of Dand District when we started our village operations there last year, and now the district is recovering." (Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance.) Recovering? As soon as the foreign presence has departed the Taliban will return.
This is Islamism, a political ideology, indomitably self-assured and determined to assert its domination wherever it can, and it can because it will. Because the collective will is there to ensure it can. There is nothing more powerful to the human mind than a religious mission with which to entrap people into the ecstatic belief they do the work of God, for there is no higher mission in the minds of the fanatic.
Labels: Afghanistan, Canada, Traditions
posted by Pieface | 6:11 PM
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