NDP says Canadian military wrote Afghan president's speech

[Bograt]

There have been a couple of recent stories both have lead me disheartened.

Last week the CBC's National had a piece that examined Gen Hillier's 'information war.' The story suggested that DND had 500 PAOs who's job it was to promote the CF version of the war. This was of course part of Hillier's plan to 'use the war' to buy more equipment for the CF.
The story also insinuated the the Wear Red campaign was being used by the CF to usurp the power of the Parliament.

Next is this little piece of litter. The NDP whispers military propaganda in the ears of Canadians hoping to frighten those in the 416 are code.

Who do these people think we are? Do they think we are thugs or blood thirsty killers? Do they think we are people who were not good enough to get a real job? Do they realize that we are their neighbors, brothers, and sisters who volunteered to do our Country's dangerous work?

I have a couple of questions of my own.

1. What do they (Dion and Layton) think would realistically happen if Canada withdraws? Are they willing to take personal responsibility for the aftermath?

2. What the heck does 'non combat role' mean in Afghanistan Mr Dion? Does it mean that we would no longer try and secure parts of the country? Does it mean we move to 'safer' parts of the country? Does it mean we abandon the positions we currently hold? Does it mean that our ROEs will change to reflect a kinder CF? Does it mean that we choose to do the 'easier load' because 'that what Canadian's want"?

3. Why don't the Canadian Forces deserve the best equipment to do the job that is asked of them?


edited for typoes

 

[Shec]

Much ado over nothing.  As previously observed public servants crafting a politician's speech is SOP.  However the questions begs to be asked - does Mullah Mohammed Omar's Director-General of Strategic Communications oversee the drafting of Taliban Jack's talking points??

 

[TCBF]

Who do these people think we are? Do they think we are thugs or blood thirsty killers? Do they think we are people who were not good enough to get a real job? Do they realize that we are their neighbors, brothers, and sisters who volunteered to do our Country's dangerous work?

- They are afraid of us because they cannot do what we do.  They see us as anachronisms.  they believe there is no need for reactionary miitary forces, only "revolutionaries."

3. Why don't the Canadian Forces deserve the best equipment to do the job that is asked of them?

- Their Canada is the Canada of 1965 to now - un-Brit flag and medicare.  Ergo, all of our conflicts and accomplishments from the first 65% of the twentieth century are moot.  Gen Currie and Gen Crerar might as well be space marines for all they care.

 

[Petard]

Lets see, why would the CF have a communication plan.... 


Like, duuh!  That is one of the dumbest accusations I have heard...

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that comment above was not directed at me, because if it was then you are definitely preaching to the choir

I don't see this just about the CF having an effective communication plan (when hitherto we were accused and hammered over the head many times for not being transparent enough), there is something nastier behind these stories. The gist I'm getting is that certain political groups are implying Canada is involved the way we are in Afghanistan because the military steered the gov't that way, through force of the CDS personality according to some. There is also implied in these messages that if it weren't for the war mongers we would be involved in our comfort zone of peace makers, or better yet, go back to that time when the military was so transparent we were virtually invisible. I think the part in Brian Stewart's piece about how it used to be, when the military could be ignored, is what these people grousing lately would really like. it seems more than anything they are seeking political maneuvering room to distance anybody from why we are in Afghanistan by somewhat setting the CDS up as a fall guy.
But they are having a tough time with the CF's communication plan that bursts that bubble of ignorance with a prick pin of reality.

 

[Flip]

1. What do they (Dion and Layton) think would realistically happen if Canada withdraws? Are they willing to take personal responsibility for the aftermath?

They might think that Americans will step into the current Canadian positions.

Personally, I don't think they know or care what happens next, so long as they
can be the morons guys who brought peace to Canada.

No one in media has considered out loud what the aftermath would be,
to my knowledge anyway.  If Canadians were presented with two
realistically described alternatives ie. Stay the course until it quiets down or
retreat from Afghanistan and cause a **** storm. Canadians would choose the
correct and moral first option.
Edit to add:

But they are having a tough time with the CF's communication plan that bursts that bubble of ignorance with a prick pin of reality.

Bingo! right on the head with that one!
The lefties are P.O.d that we are living in war-time and they all want to close their eyes and have it all just go away.  They are lashing out at anything they can, hoping to roll back the clock to before 9-11.

The big whine is, "why can't we just have peace"?
The real answer is, that the west did not start or want this war - just like the world wars.

 

[x-grunt]

Now we wait and see which headline gets the most exposure:

Afghan officials deny DND wrote speech

or

NDP says Canadian military wrote Afghan president's speech

This will be a fair indicator of which "set of facts" is going to lead public opinion.

Bah. People love scandal. Anytime anyone has to deny some allegation the masses are disposed to assume they are as guilty as sin, and facts be damned.
The NDP picked a tried and true tactic: Make a wild-a** allegation and make the other guy work to prove innocence.

A politician I once knew told me that politics is the art intelligent people use to sway the mob-and mobs are stupid. The NDP is not going for people's brains but emotional reactions. And that's not stupid of them at all.

They are afraid of us because they cannot do what we do.  They see us as anachronisms.  they believe there is no need for reactionary miitary forces, only "revolutionaries."

I disagree, they don't fear the CF. They see it as counter-progressive, as you say an anachronism, and therefore kind of stupid. This has been true throughout the ages whenever a people are not directly threatened.

Why don't the Canadian Forces deserve the best equipment to do the job that is asked of them?

Equipment issues aside, the general public still doesn't really understand or agree with what is being asked of you. This is not the war of their fathers or grandfathers, where collective sacrifice is demanded in the service of a just world conflict. This is (to them) a small, far away problem just like about 50 others in the world and the only thing the general public knows is what is told to them in sound bites - if they even care. Most people don't think about this war, they largely just ignore it. Hearing of a death of a member simply causes a gut emo reaction about how stupid this is (to them).

make no mistake though - many people may not see need or relevance in what the CF does, and many may feel CF members are dumb lackeys to the govt will, but I have found they DO appreciate the fact you are willing to sacrifice for them.

 

[a_majoor]

The truth laid bare:

http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/09/28/charles-adler-the-ndp-values-ideology-above-truth-even-in-afghanistan.aspx

Charles Adler: The NDP values ideology above truth, even in Afghanistan

She wore a long black veil to cover her mind by Charles Adler Sept 27/07 “That’s over the top Charles. We never said Karzai was a puppet of the Canadian military,” said the NDP’s Alexa McDonough. Over the top?

Alexa McDonough in a radio interview on Adler on Line, was delivering the “scoop” that much of the messaging in a speech delivered by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the Canadian House of Commons last year, was prepped for him by Canadian military officials. She insisted that the messages we got weren’t necessarily those that the people of Afghanistan would want us to have. By any objective standard, the NDP is calling Karzai a puppet. What’s over the top is not my characterization of the NDP position. What’s completely out of bounds and over the line is patently false charge that Afghanistan’s first democratically elected leader is a puppet of Canada’s Department of National Defense.

When I asked McDonough to name one single fact in the Karzai speech that was untrue, she said this issue wasn’t about the truth. The former boss of the New Democratic Party spoke volumes with that little chestnut. Ideologues care little about the truth. It’s all about ideology. Karzai,in the Canadian Parliament, simply delivered his boiler plate speech to the West. He talked about an Afghanistan where instead of schools being burned to the ground, they were being rebuilt, and instead of girls being denied the right to go to school, there were now two million of them attending. He talked about an Afghanistan where 20% of the members of their parliament were women, and where per capita incomes were going up instead of down.

Yes he was grateful to our military for helping to create a better life for many Afghans. The NDP could learn a lot from the graciousness of the Afghan leader. He has far more respect for our military than the NDP does. And it isn’t because military communications people laid down a few words on a piece of paper to help him get his message across. It’s because they laid down their lives to give his people an opporunity to have a life.

I gave Alexa McDonough three chances to come up with a single fact stated by the President of Aghanistan that wasn’t accurate. Three times she swung her propaganda bat and missed. The NDP’s issue, in their own words, isn’t about the truth. It is a remarkable confession from a Canadian political party which continues to offer feint praise for the bravery of our troops but consistently fails to admit that they have made a difference for the people who inhabit one of the poorest countries in the world.

When McDonough was asked if she could admit that our troops were doing some good down there, she would not do so. I offered her the litmus test of honesty by asking her to tell me how many of the 2 million girls now going to schools in Afghanistan would be attending school if our troops and other NATO forces had not been sacrificing their lives? “Charles you know that is a question that is impossible to answer.” “How about zero, Ms McDonough? That would be a truthful answer.”

She then called my arithmetic ridiculous. What requires public ridicule is the idea that the NDP has even a shred of moral authority on issues involving our military. What’s clear as a bell is that the party has no respect for the military because of their inability to distance themselves for their core pacifist ideology. The NDP refuses to acknowledge that sometimes when bad things happen to people, the only way to stop it is to kill the bad guys, or as General Hillier once called them, the scumbags.

The NDP refuses to acknowledge that there are times when the only way to help people is through armed force. It is not NDP rhetoric that opened up the schools of Afghanistan and converted the soccer stadium in Kabul from a place to execute “disobedient” women to a place where teams now play soccer. It is not NDP rhetoric that has created better health care for many Afghans and freedom from the Taliban barbarians that the NDP seem to prefer.

At least those headchopping, women hating Taliban types aren’t reading speeches that have been vetted by the Canadian military. Isn’t that something Canadians should respect? When given a choice between condemning the democratically elected leader of Afghanistan or the thugs that who would condemn that country to the dark ages, the NDP position is now crystal clear. And while Alexa McDonough did not have to wear a head covering to do an interview in Canada, a country kept free by the military she tries to diminish, the objective truth was concealed by her prepared talking points. For my part, I am eternally grateful to the Canadian military for keeping me free enough to have the opporunity to unmask the dishonesty of the party that some stooges of the left continue to call the conscience of parliament.

adleronline@gmail.com


Charles Adler hosts Adler On Line weekday afternoons between 2 and 6 pm EST on the Corus Radio Network.

 

[McG]

she said this issue wasn’t about the truth

Where have I seen this before?

... oh, yes!  Here:

Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true.

 

[Brad Sallows]

"It is a remarkable confession from a Canadian political party which continues to offer feint praise for the bravery of our troops but consistently fails to admit that they have made a difference for the people who inhabit one of the poorest countries in the world."

That works so well I must wonder whether it was done intentionally.

 

[The Bread Guy]

The latest, from the Ambassador, shared with the usual disclaimer....

Apology sought over NDP comment on Karzai speech
CBC.ca, 30 Sept 07, 5:01 PM ET
Article link

Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada says his country wants an apology from the NDP for alleging that Canada's defence staff essentially wrote Afghan President Hamid Karzai's speech to Parliament last year.

Omar Samad told CBC Newsworld on Sunday that one of his colleagues has demanded the NDP retract the accusation and apologize, because Afghan officials found it "insulting."

"We wrote the speech as Afghans and the president of Afghanistan delivered it to the Canadian people in Parliament, and that's where we stand," Samad said.

"It's an outrage that a political party here would not do its homework properly, would not go far enough into looking into this matter, would not understand how diplomatic relations, bilateral relations and arrangements for a visit work and would make such an allegation," he told Newsworld.

Last Tuesday, NDP defence critic Dawn Black showed a government document suggesting a team of Canadian military advisers provided "key statistics, messages, themes, as well as overall structure" of Karzai's speech, given on Sept. 22, 2006.

Black said the document, obtained through an Access to Information request, shows that the initial draft of the president's speech was prepared by the Strategic Advisory Team, described in media reports as a group of mostly Canadian officers acting as advisers to the Karzai government.

"What Canadians heard was not the voice of the Afghan people, but the talking points of the Department of National Defence," said Black, whose party has called for the immediate withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan.

NDP Leader Jack Layton said Sunday he met with Karzai last year and was told by the Afghan president that there had to be a negotiated settlement in his country, and yet there was no mention of it in his speech to Parliament.

"Why not?" Layton asked. "Was he being told by Canadian officials and [Prime Minister] Stephen Harper's office that he shouldn't mention that a negotiation was a better way to go? He told me that in person virtually days from the date he made that speech.

"The evidence that we unearthed shows that Mr. Harper, through the officials, was trying to influence what Mr. Karzai said," Layton said. "We should be very concerned about that."

(Poster's comment:  So, Taliban Jack wants the AFG President to write what HE thinks should be there, not what the President thinks.....)

Last week, the ambassador said he and several other Afghan advisers prepared their own versions of the remarks and the final speech went through several drafts, which Karzai edited himself.

 

[Haggis]

Apology sought over NDP comment on Karzai speech
CBC.ca, 30 Sept 07, 5:01 PM ET
Article link

NDP Leader Jack Layton said Sunday he met with Karzai last year and was told by the Afghan president that there had to be a negotiated settlement in his country, and yet there was no mention of it in his speech to Parliament.

He tried that, Jack.  Wanna see how it worked out?

Shared with the usual disclaimer: Taliban refuse Karzai peace talks

 

[Shamrock]

He tried that, Jack.  Wanna see how it worked out?

Shared with the usual disclaimer: Taliban refuse Karzai peace talks

Don't try to confuse the issue with facts.

 

[Greymatters]

The truth laid bare:

Great article!