Natynczyk 'shocked' by Karzai rhetoric

"General Walt Natynczyk says he is "shocked" by recent anti-Western rhetoric from Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- including a threat to join the Taliban -- but maintains Canadian soldiers are more concerned with improving the lives of Afghan civilians. Our men and women in the Canadian Forces are focused on enabling the peace and security of Afghans where they live," Natynczyk told CTV's Question Period on Sunday.
Natynczyk said one of the biggest challenges in Afghanistan today is governance, from the local level right up to Karzai and his cabinet, "and the sooner we have a strong government right from the district level all the way through, the sooner we'll achieve a faster pace of progress in Afghanistan."

Well it surprises me that Walt is "shocked" by this. Hasn't he done some reading and research on Afghanistan? During the Russian occupation and afterwards, it was a normal occurence when various private armies switched sides. They either would be payed off or realize they were on the losing side and switch over to the winning side. And I've said it many times, that when the US invaded; air power and bags of US greenbacks won the initial fight for them and the overthrow of the Taliban Governement.

Of course our soldiers over there are concerned with improving the lives of the Afghans in their areas. We can't change Governement actions in Afghanistan (or Ottawa) so we do our best to try to help the locals we have contact with. After all, if we can't help someone one on these tours, just what the heck are we doing there?

Walt's comments on the state of governance in Afghanistan are comical. He states that "the sooner we have a strong government from the district all the way to the top the sooner we'll see progress in Afghanistan. Walt will never see a strong government in Afghanistan unless the US take over completely, which I doubt they will. The last strong Afghan government were the Taliban. I wonder if things would have turned out better if we had negotiated with them 9 years ago. Let's see, run your country in Sharia law, which most of the country accepts anyway, but stop supporting extremist Islamic groups.

Now that seems like a good deal. 142 less Canadian deaths, the stop of Afghanistan heroin flooding the market, a stabilized Afghan Goverment to deal with for the pipeline of oil and gas from the Ex Soviet Union Stans in exchange for the odd civilian put to death for breaking the rules. There is much uproar here and in the US to bring back the death penalty, so why should we get carried away with how that government meters out punishment?