Dion: NATO could help Pakistan bring peace to Afghanistan

[calculoso]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...118?hub=Canada

Dion and Deputy Leader Michael Ignatieff made a brief visit to Afghanistan last week, meeting with President Hamid Karzai. Upon their return, Dion said NATO will never bring peace to Afghanistan so long as the Taliban can escape across the border into Pakistan.

"If they (Pakistani leaders) are not able to do it on their own, it is something we could consider with NATO, how to help Pakistan help us bring peace to Afghanistan,'' Dion said Wednesday during a press conference in Quebec City.

I don't get Dion's statement. He doesn't want any kind of military involvement for Canada in Afghanistan, but then suggests that NATO help Pakistan. How else would NATO help, other than providing force? "Hey Pakistan... here's how you do it. Put your soldiers in harm's way"? Cuz that'll work...

During a press conference in Saskatchewan on Thursday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper took the opportunity to mock Dion for suggesting Canada abandon its combat mission in Afghanistan in favour of a Pakistan invasion.

Obviously this was said mostly in jest, but there is an inkling of truth to it.

"Mr. Dion obviously did not propose any sort of military intervention. Mr. Dion believes that Canada must focus our diplomatic efforts on Pakistan in order to secure the border with Afghanistan," a statement on Liberal party's website reads.

Diplomatic efforts... as in putting pressure on them to do the work? Sure sounds like it'll help to me.



I like the fact that Dion is trying to help the area, but does he really think that removing troops from one area and putting pressure on another one will do any good at all?

[ricosuave]

[flip]

i heard this earlier and to the guy on the radio had several interesting things to say.

1) NATO doesn't have peacekeeping troups they are for armed conflicts that is the UN Dion is thinking of

2) so we are just going to send our army into Pakistan an already volatile country and they are going to what??? accept us with open arms??

[CaptainCrunch]

Dion is completely clueless when it comes to the NATO mission in Afghanistan period.

He talks about ending Canada's combat role in Southern Afghanistan and focusing on humanitarian work, and training. Thats admirable, but stupid and naive. It takes more then a few months or a year to train and build a army and a police force, and even though Canada is working hard through their training units and the RCMP, right now if you deployed the Afghan army without Nato support, half would die and the other half would desert. If Dion had an actual strategy that would force other NATO nations to step up their efforts in the Southern wild regions, then you could look at Reducing Canada's combat strength there, but since NATO can't or won't do it, we're stuck.

We can't pull our troops out until there are either replacement troops or the Afghan army. If you do then you doom those people to a strong and vicious push by the Taliban and Al Queda elements.

If we focus on humanitarian work without a strong offensive presence to keep the insurgents on the run then every damn, well, school road and food supply effort will be blown up, shot up, murdered and destroyed.

The Pakistan comments are laughable, someone mentioned it earlier. NATO focuses around Military enforcement not peacekeeping, they are assault formations, artillery, air strikes and others. I'm pretty sure that Pakistan made a show of announcing that they don't want foreign troops on their soil and would view that kind of insertion as a attack on their sovereignty. You could ask UN peacekeeping troops to deploy but its doubtful that Pakistan would give the UN permission, and a lightly armed UN contingent would get torn to peaces by the territorial tribes in Pakistan, or by the very tough Pakistan army.

Its nice that Dion is positioning himself for an election with an ignorant and stupid foreign policy statement, but I really hope that he doesn't ever get elected because his strategy would kill Canadian troops, Afghanistan civilians, and probably UN troops. Conversely between chortles of laughter Afghan government officials are probably gravely concerned about Dion throwing their country to the wolves, and the Pakistan government is probably extremely pissed at his off the cuff stupidity.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by ricosuave

The guy in the picture might be struggling on the ice, but I think he's smarter and has more credibility then his namesake.