Why I am Content Being a Hypocrite

Before I move forward, I would like to introduce myself as a hypocrite.
In October 2001 when Canada was deciding to what degree it would aid NATO in the US led invasion of Afghanistan I was among the 17% of those who opposed the mission.

My logic was pretty straight-forward,
The problem with the western world fighting a war in the middle east which is a region the average CNN or CBC Newsworld watcher will only see in news footage is that there is an utter lack of understanding of that part of the world.

Afghanistan has been a nation ripped to pieces by communists and drug lords in recent history and various war mongers for centuries before that.

The Greeks, The Persians, The Mongols have all held a piece of Afghanistan at one point or another and right up to the day before NATO stormed in it was a “country” in the most basic geographical term, but in reality it was a series of tribes and nomads that were loosely controlled by one tyrant or group of tyrants.

Simply said;
Going in an getting rid of the Taliban was going to be easy, the years that would follow of the western world trying to build a unified country in a location where no truly unified country has every stood was going to cause the masses at home to get bored,

Then force us to do just what we damned the US for doing in the 1980’s.

Leaving a population to get slaughtered while we watch at home on our TV’s and then wonder decades later why those children who watched their parents get slaughtered when we left are so intent on destroying us.

I knew our troops would do good work, even though they didn’t have the proper funding or equipment

But at the same time I fear another situation where a bunch of college kids spending their parents money would spit on them upon their return because they felt their textbook knowledge of a situation was enough to entitle them to feel they were “correct”.

When the Liberal Majority Government decided to move in,
I became a hypocrite and supported the mission.

Regardless of my opinion of the long term success or support of this mission the reality is that as messed up as the nation of Afghanistan was, we went in and turned it upside down and the first lesson my parents taught me as a child was that if I made a mess, I need to clean that mess up.

At a minimum we owe it to the people of Afghanistan,
And watching the left try and explain to the Canadian population years later that “It was screwed up already, so there is no point in fixing it”

Is going to lead to those same folks on the left screaming about our terrible domestic policy decades later because we “Abandon” a people and turned them against us…

Same story, just different people telling it at a different time.

In 2006 when the Liberals left office,
All of a sudden there was an interesting shift. As expected the 82% of Canadians in favor of going into Afghanistan in 2001 shrank to around 50%,

Then a strange thing happened.
The Liberals started painting Harper as a “War Monger”.

How dare you spend money to upgrade our military troop carriers that are nearly 40 years old!

How dare you give them the resources to fight a war they should have been given before they started the war!

I recall poor Gordon O'Connor (The then Minister of Defense) trying to justify the purchase of these armoured troop carriers on one of the political talk shows,

I found it iinteresting, because had I been in the seat my answer would have been

“We are replacing troop carriers that were originally procured under the Diefenbaker government which they do not have armour on the underside to protect against roadside bombs, had any government had any commonsense over the last two decades we would have had them already"

However he explained how versatile they were, and how they could be used on any terrain not just deserts.

Which prompted to opposition to demand to know just where the Conservatives were planning to invade next that they needed these “versatile” vehicles.

I will admit it was brilliant, the Liberals were able to deflect what was nothing short of embarrassing cuts to the Military, despite the fact that the Canadians forces were on the ground somewhere dangerous in every year the Liberals were in power over the last two decades.

They attempt was made to make this “Harper’s War”, to make him George W. Bush Lite.
Not a bad political move.

They fought and demanded that no soldiers would stay in Afghanistan beyond 2009, and the Conservatives fought even to get a commitment till 2011, and agreement was reached with the clear understand from the Liberals that 2011 was "The Line"

Yet today, Liberal MP Bob Rae had this to say:

"We have an obligation to see this thing through,"

"The door is open to serious discussion in Canada — and between Canada and NATO — about what the future looks like."

NDP MP Jack Harris said this:

"All Canadians do not want to see the sacrifice that has been made be for naught and we do have obviously a considerable amount of humanitarian concerns and institution-building concerns about Afghanistan,"

Source

What is this crazy talk? It’s Harpers War?
Isn’t that guy supposed to be evil?

While I find it interesting to see the Liberals and the New Democrats admit that they have made a massive error in judgment when it comes to foreign policy over the last four years, I was left to wonder why?

Don’t get me wrong, I will vote either party (by either I mean Liberal or Conservative, the two that may win) depending on what’s in my families best interest, but this Ignatieff guy makes me want to burn my University degrees because he gives the educated such a bad rap.

I just find that this new incarnation of the Liberals don’t do anything unless there is a reason for it,

And how about that, it seems that in the States the approval rating of the Afghan War has gone from the 30’s to the 50’s since Obama took office, and that news came out earlier this week.

Now I get it;
Our mission, our troops, and our commitment to those people meant nothing when it translated to a few votes from burnt out hippies and philosophy majors.

However, now the tide is turning and it seems that every Liberal and New Democrat that voted against increasing funding to the Military, or in the case of 1993 – 2006 voted in favor of decreasing it

Are now running to be able to pose in a photo with our men and women overseas who have been doing great work over there for the entire mission.

Isn’t it amazing that we can go from the leader of the Liberal party saying this in 2007

"A Liberal government led by me will unequivocally commit to ending Canada’s mission in Kandahar in 2009 and we will inform NATO of this deadline right away to ensure they find a replacement for Canada,"

Source

To the defacto leader of the Liberals calling for a potential extension beyond 2011 just a few years later…

I was once asked by a friend who I worked with (for the Liberals Ironically Enough) on a local campaign in 2004 what it would take for me to vote Liberal again,

I think the simple answer for today would be this:

Stop taking both sides of every issue and hoping that the voter is too stupid to realize it.