On Thursday, President Barack Obama stated that he will not make a decision on Afghan troop levels until after the Thanksgiving holiday. This development came at the end of President Obama’s eight-day Asia tour, where he took time to stop at Osan Air Force Base in South Korea. While there, he remarked to 1,500 troops, “You guys make a pretty good photo op.”

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That says a lot, doesn’t it? Upon examination, photo-ops certainly seem to be President Obama’s main concern. If you will recall, just a few weeks ago, Obama visited Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as some of our fallen servicemen were brought home to rest. For reasons unbeknownst to many, the president thought it would be appropriate to allow cameras at the event. Most families were made uneasy by this, and in fact, only one family allowed cameras to follow their proceedings.

Because of that, his visit came off as self-serving, especially when contrasted with former President George W. Bush’s visit to Fort Hood, where he insisted that no press be permitted.

The underlying point of all this, is that President Obama only seems interested in our armed servicemen and women when he can use them as a prop to get his picture taken or to get himself on television.

It has been weeks since General Stanley McChrystal requested an additional 40,000 troops for the effort in Afghanistan, and in the process making it emphatically clear that this was indeed necessary, claiming that the effort was not sustainable with current resources. On top of that, General McChrystal was only able to secure a 25-minute meeting to make the request in the first place.

Something is desperately wrong here.

Does anybody remember the campaign, where Obama insisted that Afghanistan was a top priority? The war we should be most focused on, if you will? What happened to that?

The answer to that is simple. It was nothing more than a campaign promise. It has become quite clear that our Commander-in-Chief clearly has no interest in our effort there, and by extension, it shows exactly what he actually thinks of our troops, which is, not much.

You have to pay attention to what Obama is saying here, and the words that he uses. He is saying he will not make a decision until after Thanksgiving. He’s not saying he won’t commit more troops until after then. This is nothing short of him saying “Yeah, I’m going to continue to put this off until at least after turkey is served.”

Brave sons and daughters dying over there on a daily basis, and our president is content to dither and play games with American lives and American security. This is clearly a tactic he is using in an effort to placate his left wing base, military advisors and cost to America be damned.

This man has already made his decision, and deep down we all know what it is. He may finally be forced at some point to send additional resources at some point, but he clearly has no real interest in doing so.

The only future Barack Obama is interested in is his own.

I have heard reports from Kandahar that there is a sign on the Tim Hortons trailer saying that there is a supply issue. No doughnuts.

At the present time, there is no word on availability of coffee supply. No one has yet been denied any coffee.

You may guffaw that what I’ve told you here isn’t important. You are an asshole for that.

In WWII, women powdered their legs and drew lines up the back of their calves, all because our men serving overseas needed stocking silk for their parachutes.

It’s bad enough that Canada has to rent planes from the Russians to get our stuff overseas to those serving in Afghanistan. It’s also bad enough that if we need to get something there quickly, we send it via the Americans (that’s what I do).

The idea of our soldiers going without the coffee and doughnuts we all rallied to send over there - you may remember Tim’s was initially reluctant to open up shop in a war zone, those pussies - is distasteful. Let’s get ‘em their goddam Timbits.

Who can we call about this?

Tim Hortons Head Office

874 Sinclair Road
Oakville, ON L6K 2Y1
Tel: (905) 845-6511
Fax: (905) 845-0265

Defence Minister Peter Mackay

509s Center Block
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

Mackap@parl.gc.ca
613-992-6022

Do what you can. It may seem unimportant to you & I, but it’s important to them. Thanks.

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Got this from a friend of mine stationed in Af’stan. Have a laugh - or a cringe!

1. You run in terror from a controlled detonation your first week, then
stand in the open to watch real mortars landing, a month later.

2. The most intimate contact you’ve had in months is with the shower
curtain.

3. Your most successful pick-up line is “I’ve got a vehicle”.

4. All the Air Force people look like glow-in-the-dark Power Rangers and
you can’t see the Army Folks.

5. Your 6:00 am wake-up call is “BOOM” Alarm Red, Alarm Red, Alarm Red”.

6. They actually give weapons to the Air Force personnel.

7. You give directions using T-Wall & Bunker murals.

8. You realize AAFES is their own country, and can print their own
money.

9. The amount of sand in your boots is only surpassed by the amount in
your nose.

10. Something as simple as taking a shower or going to the bathroom at
2:00 in the morning requires preparation equal to the Apollo moon
landing.

11. The Texas Style Brisket is not from Texas, is not brisket, and has
no style.

12. You are watching a “chick-flick” with 300 guys with machine guns.

13. Your internet connection is twice as slow as your old dial-up
connection back home, and you’re paying twice as much.

14. Your lying under your bed in your IBA writing to your spouse, “No,
nothing exciting happened today” and you mean it.

15. You can buy a car or truck from the on post AAFES, but paper towels
are nowhere to be found.

16. You live in a gated community, but your home is still a trailer.

17. You are caught way over the speed limit and you are only going 22
MPH.

18. During Alarm Red someone jumps out of the bunker to tell you to get
your hands out of your pockets.

19. Your idea of a night on the town is going to another DFAC.

20. The grass is greener on the other side of the fence, but you still
wouldn’t want to be on that side of the fence.

21. Dusting the furniture has a whole new meaning.

22. “Pimp my Ride” means putting doors on your Hummer.

23. U2 is hitting the charts again.

24. The local community holds fireworks displays every night in your
honor.

25. Driving over the curb seems totally natural.

26. The outcome of the war hinges on how you wear your reflective belt.

27. You see a guy in full battle rattle driving a Humvee trying not to
spill his latte’.

28. It feels normal to dry your hands at the DFAC with toilet paper.

29. Your idea of a clear day is when you can see the perimeter of the
base from where you’re at.

30. The dust on the dashboard of your vehicle is an inch think, but you
don’t even notice it.

31. You don’t even notice T-walls anymore.

32. Cold water from the shower is only possible after 1 Oct.

33. Getting your laundry back from the contractor is a big deal.

34. A 105-degree day in the summer actually feels cool.

35. You don’t even notice an F-16 taking off anymore.

36. You don’t stop what you’re doing anymore, when you hear automatic
gun fire coming from the perimeter.

37. You used to think that F-16’s, doing afterburner take-offs, were
cool. Now it just pisses you off.

38. Without even looking outside, you know that the weather sucks,
because you weren’t woke up all night from the roar of the F-16’s.

This is a big deal! Damian Brooks will be the first Canadian blogger officially embedded with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan! I know he’s been working on this for a while - ages, in fact - and it has finally come to fruition. He will be leaving Canada “shortly” and needs a hand to cover some of his expenses.

From his email:

It’s going to be a couple thousand bucks: insurance so my family’s covered if something goes wrong, some travel costs, special inoculations, visas, some kit, etc. It really adds up.

You all know I don’t have much, but I just kicked in $20. Can you help?

As usual most of the world shows such a blatant double standard with respect to Israel and frankly, everyone else that we tend not to even notice it and on occasion, like Hitler’s ‘big lie’ tend to think there must be something to it for so many to buy into it. In a way I suppose there is. Oil money and fear of terrorism by immigrants to western nations. But here are a few links which offer some clear as day thought on the matter. Of course, when the UN passed a resolution against Israel as the worlds worst actor in terms of women’s rights it was so laughable that most ignored it. But now we are down to the existential.

First, from www.thereligionofpeace.com 9 questions that should be answered before anyone can criticize the Israeli actions in Gaza. I could add quite a few myself but this is a nice list.

Next an op ed from the National Post on same subject. Pithy and spot on. It’s not that this is profound or hugely insightful. It’s that a Canadian national newspaper has the courage to make a clear moral stand. I wonder if we could find this in a British major paper or any other European one. It is worth reading even if most of us already know these facts.

As an aside,
there was an attack on an American Jewish center. I doubt this will be an isolated event. Look for more in Montreal.

Meanwhile the religion of peace advances it’s cause for world domination while nobody much notices.

The Swat Valley in Pakistan has been pretty much taken over by Taliban/Al Queda. A close look at a map and some thinking about US Canadian operations in Afghanistan plus rapidly rising tensions between nuclear neighbors Pakistan and India will show why this story deserves attention. Pakistan is losing a lot of territory to the Islamists. They are moving troops away from the allied areas and re enforcing borders with India. This creates opportunity for Islamist expansion on that front. I recently spent close to a hundred dollars I really do not have to buy a decent world map. It may have been the worlds first sub prime map loan actually. Who knew in high school physical geography would actually matter.

Also Stratfor reports more deadly mortar attacks by Islamist forces in Somalia killing ten people today alone. The amusingly named MILF continues to attack bomb and spread hatred and fear in the Philippines and the western media either ignores it or claims its a separatist group. It is not. It is a group of Islamic supremacy.

This article about Russia’s approach to Islam is quite good as well. It explains the little known use by Russia of Islamic proxy’s. The US likely did this as well during the cold war. Chechen’s where most likely funded by the US to annoy and distract resources of the Soviets during the cold war and we all know about Afghanistan and the Mujahadeen proxies for the US. However what should be evident by now to all of us is that this backfires. Not just sometimes but all the time to most of the world. Even Pakistan and Iran have used Islam as the tie that binds disparate tribes to try and create a national identity. We see how well that works in both places. Well, I suppose in a way you can say it does.

Here is an article albeit an older one from Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe on UN hypocrisy with respect to Israel. Lots of links as well and a good read. Perhaps the fact that this was written before even rumors of a retaliatory strike on Gaza makes it more meaningful.

This to paraphrase Dr. Wafa Sultan, is not a war of civilizations. Civilizations compete. This is a war of civilization against barbarism.

James Cohen for Girl on the right.

Before I post the article it might be worth mentioning a few things as preface to those not as obsessed as I on watching groups like Taliban etc. The Taliban have had a campaign on as long as they have existed to maintain the Islamic idea that women should never be taught anything other than Koran and have in fact already blown up a large number of schools which dared teach females. As recently the Taliban issued a warning about the non playing or performing of music and shortly thereafter murdered 7 musicians, this is no idle threat. They have already murdered women who go to schools as we have seen also in Algeria and other nations under siege by Islamics or in already Islamic states. For those of you interested in the subject of women and Islam here is a truly excellent video by women who are dealing with the subject.

The video linked to above contains no graphic images whatsoever. It is just a set of short speeches by various activists including the most excellent Dr. Wafa Sultan. However I find it very disturbing and difficult to watch because of the information revealed so be warned. This video about women in Afghanistan however does contain graphic images. Also I have talked with a number of soldiers who have done tours in Afghanistan and I can assure all of you what is revealed in these two videos falls far far short of the horrors done to people in general by Taliban and women in particular. Most of what was reported to me, was beyond my own imagination for cruelty.

James Cohen

Taliban threaten to kill Pakistani schoolgirls: Officials

ISLAMABAD:Taliban extremists in Pakistan’s troubled northwest Swat valley have banned girls from attending school, threatening to kill any female students, officials said Thursday.

The threat was delivered this week by local Taliban commander Shah Durran in an address carried on an illegally-run radio station in the area, local officials told AFP.

“You have until January 15 to stop sending your girls to schools. If you do not pay any heed to this warning, we will kill such girls,” one official quoted the commander as saying.

“We also warn schools not to enrol any female students; otherwise, their buildings will be blown up.”

The mountainous Swat valley was until last year a popular tourist destination featuring Pakistan’s only ski resort.

But the region has been turned into a battleground since radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who has links to Pakistan’s Taliban movement, launched a violent campaign for the introduction of Islamic Sharia law in the valley.

Durran said local Taliban leaders were determined not to allow girls to attend school, saying: “We want to enforce the true Sharia in the area — for this, we are fighting and laying down our lives.”

Swat residents said Taliban fighters had already destroyed scores of government-run schools, leading some to set up private schools in their homes to educate girls.

An official at the Pakistani education ministry said there are about 1,580 schools registered in Swat — once known for its top-flight schools.

But the official, Naeem Khan, said: “Already Taliban militants have destroyed 252 schools, mainly those where girls and boys were studying together.”

Education has suffered badly in Swat as a result of the ongoing fighting between Taliban-linked militants and security forces, with only a handful of schools still open in the region’s main city Mingora, Khan said.

The government had reached a deal with the rebels in May to gradually pull out troops and introduce an Islamic justice system in exchange for an end to rebel attacks, but the violence eventually resumed.

This post from vladtepesblog.com. It really is worth having a good long think about what culture really means. It runs a lot deeper than just what key you play a Beatles tune in. It has more to do with weather or not you get killed for playing music at all than it does if you’re ‘Strat’ is Mexican made or American.
(posted by James Cohen for Right Girl)

More on Islam and the arts. Taliban murders musicians for making music
By Eeyore | December 15, 2008

I have done several articles recently detailing the attitude of Islam and the arts. I tend to focus on this a bit because the artistic community seems determined to ally itself with the left and the multi cultural. I would hope they would reconsider and instead choose an ideology of individualism and liberty which is what the arts have always thrived in as opposed to theocratic or totalitarian regimes. Islam by the way is both.

GHAZNI(Afghanistan): Armed Taliban militants abducted six musicians and an election worker in eastern Afghanistan, one of whom was later found dead, a local official said.

The body of one musician was found today, one day after the group was kidnapped in Paktika province, provincial spokesman Hameedullah Jowak said.

“One of the six musicians abducted on Saturday by Taliban was found dead in the district. We have no information on the fate of the other five,” he said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying the hostages had flouted a ban on music, but denied killing the victim.

“We abducted them after they continued to sing and play music despite a recent ban on music announced by Taliban. One of them died of a heart attack,” said Abdul Wakil Mubariz, who claims to be the provincial Taliban commander.

Jowak said armed militants had snatched the election worker from his house in the same province on Thursday.

On Sunday, militants attacked a convoy en route to a coalition base in southern Ghazni province, sparking a gun battle in which three Taliban were killed, provincial spokesman Ismail Jahangir said.

Sometimes, the media doesn’t suck. Bravo to Fox News cameraman Chris Jackson.

A FOX News cameraman helped save the life of an injured Marine in Afghanistan — and was injured himself — when the armored Humvee convoy he was traveling in was struck by a roadside bomb Sunday night in the Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold.

Two U.S. Marines were badly injured when the improvised explosive device detonated near their convoy. Though FOX News cameraman Chris Jackson was injured in the blast, he went back to the burning vehicle to rescue one of the Marines.

Lots of people must have been lined up for the opportunity to waterboard Hitchens. Or at least watch.

While I’m sure that it’s not really the greatest way to spend an afternoon, I can’t imagine it could be much worse than actually having to read Vanity Fair. In fact, I will be having this done to me (the waterboarding, not reading VF - that would be inhumane!) next summer. Next year, I will (most likely) have the chance to embed in Af’stan with the cool kids, and I wish to have certain things done for shits and giggles. I wish to be waterboarded. And tasered (though not at the same time, because holy crap! just think of the current!). Wet t-shirt contest in the desert!!

Why?

Because if a soft wussy Canadian chick can have it done and survive, then a blood-thirsty terrorist who trained in the barren mountains of Pakistan can bloody well handle it.

Like Hitch himself, I imagine there would be quite a lineup of people wanting to do this to me. If they’re willing to travel to a war zone to do, they are more than welcome.

Now that Sharia law seems to be influencing what our “free” press can and can’t say about Islam, this is something future Ezra Levants and Mark Steyns can look forward to:

Afghan journalist sentenced to death

An Afghan court on Tuesday sentenced a 23-year-old journalism student to death for distributing a paper he printed off the Internet that three judges said violated the tenets of Islam, an official said.

The three-judge panel sentenced Sayad Parwez Kambaksh to death for distributing a paper that humiliated Islam

Don’t think it could happen in Canada?

What if I’d asked you twenty years ago whether you thought journalists in the country my grandfathers went to war for would ever have to sit in front of “human rights” interrogators? What would you have said then?

Here are but a few stories from Afghanistan that you won’t have read in the past couple of months:

New bridge built over the Kokcha River, connecting the only major road in Badakshan.

Dozens of injured civilians transferred by NATO helicopters to military hospitals after a massive suicide bombing in Spin Boldak.

Senior Taliban commander captured in Gereshk.

An orphanage for 200 children, boasting the luxury of running water, opened in Farah province.

Ribbons cut on three skills development centres in Khak-e Jabbar and Bagrami.

Raid of a massive weapons and drugs cache in Uruzgan.

Insurgent mortar position destroyed in Kunar province.

New hospital and separate health clinic completed in Tarin Kowt.

Village medical outreach services provided to civilians by the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Qalat.

Press releases of this nature, from the International Security Assistance Force, drop into my email basket every few days. They never make it into print. But accounts of Western soldiers killed, and most especially our own, are given elegiac cover, understandably so.

A demonstration has been held in south- east Afghanistan accusing US troops of insulting Islam after they distributed footballs bearing the name of Allah.

The balls showed the Saudi Arabian flag which features the Koranic declaration of faith.

Methinks the Mullahs are little testy because this hearts & minds stuff actually works. These Afghan kids, living the closest to normal as they ever have, going to school, getting candy bars and soccer balls from the Americans, are less likely to sit around listening to Uncle Ahmed tell the story (for the zillionth) of how he lost his eye fighting the Infidel swine in the mountains. No, they will be outside playing like kids are supposed to, instead of learning how to wire themselves with explosives and hate Jews just because they’re Jews. And that, ladies, gentlemen and Jihadis, is how America is going to win the war.

I’ll bet you ten Yankee greenbacks that they’ll even manage to win over old Uncle Ahmed, by giving him a new eye…

She has had the rare honour of serving her country at the same time as serving those who serve.

And Julie Brown, amongst many other brave civilians who have done a tour in Afghanistan, is a special kind of war veteran.

“It was life changing,” said Brown, who has been back from Kandahar just one week after six months of working in the famous Tim Hortons franchise at the Kandahar Airfield. “I was so proud to be able to do my part to help these fine men and women who sacrifice so much.”

The 34-year-old Cookstown mother of two sacrificed as well.

For six months she put herself in harm’s way to take the job at the Tim’s in a war zone.

I would love to do something like this. This heavy, broken body of mine would be virtually useless in the army, but I’d gladly serve up double-doubles for the men and women doing the hard work. I would consider it an honor.

Every Canadian fatality in Afghanistan has an addendum, a pro forma epitaph:

“They died doing what they believed in …”

Rosie Dimmano has a fine column today.

[Padre] Varga told the mourners. “A war took Patrick; evil in the world took Patrick. God caught him when he fell and now God carries him safely into eternal life.”

Pentland died when the light-armoured vehicle he was driving hit a roadside bomb near Kandahar.

What a lovely way to eulogize someone.

Ok, I know I’m going to get into trouble on all sides with this, but thankfully I’m used to that. I’ll try to be delicate, given my own grave feelings on the subject.

Canada should not be televising the Repatriation Ceremonies of our brave dead. It’s gruesome, and it’s bad for the group morale of the country. Perhaps more Canadians would back our troops if they didn’t have to see the parade of flag-draped coffins go by on our official Death TV station, WDED. Oops, I mean CTV.

Every Canadian has the right (almost the obligation) to mourn for those who gave their lives. But there is something truly unsettling about watching the caskets come off the planes. The Americans don’t do this. Do the British? I’m not sure, but I don’t think so (someone step up if I’m wrong). There is a certain anti-war “I told you so” feeling to these ceremonies, and I think it’s inappropriate.

Please, if there are any families of lost soldiers out there who agree or disagree, I would love to hear from you. Maybe it’s just me. Or maybe you feel it too. Let me know.

What an awesome idea, with hat tip to Halls of Macadamia.

The Royal Canadian Legion has initiated a support program called The RCL Troop Morale Fund.

They hope to raise funds to treat our troops regularly to a coffee and doughnut from the Tim Hortons in Afghanistan. A donation container is set up in the lounge here at Branch 99; loonies, toonies and the folding paper stuff would be most welcome.

…

To get things started, Dominion Command has donated $6,000 to buy the first round of coffee and doughnut certificates and, with the help of legion branches across Canada, they are hoping to be able to do this on a weekly basis.

It is not so much the coffee and doughnut, but the message behind it to the troops, to show them we care. Please help make this program a success by coming in and making your donation at Branch 99. You don’t have to be a legion member to donate everyone’s money is appreciated.

Branch 99 details are here.

Canada lost six today.

Six Canadian soldiers died Easter Sunday in southern Afghanistan in the worst attack on Canadian soldiers since Canada joined the conflict there.

The soldiers died and four others were wounded when the vehicle they were riding in came into contact with an explosive device.

Names have not yet been released, but that doesn’t stop us from keeping them and their families in our thoughts and prayers.

I haven’t read LaShawn in a few weeks, so I missed this when she posted it last week. It is the story of Phyllis Chesler, a former professor of (what else?) Women’s Studies who married a Muslim and moved to Afghanistan. What she found there challenged her liberal thinking, to say the least.

Long before the rise of the Taleban, I learnt not to romanticise Third World countries or to confuse their hideous tyrants with liberators. I also learnt that sexual and religious apartheid in Muslim countries is indigenous and not the result of Western crimes — and that such “colourful tribal customs” are absolutely, not relatively, evil.

Indeed.