Poll: Liberals Vote on Afghanistan
A K-Dough Poll: Do you think it was politically intelligent for a few prominent Liberal leadership candidates to vote to extend the Afghanistan mission? I mean it was a free vote and all, but holy fucking duhhhhhhhh!!! I hate to say it, because I love the fact that he is an intellectual, but if I was voting at the convention in the fall, Ignatieff would be searching for my X up his ass.
I'm starting to believe there is no room for higher thinking (read: academia) in politics, because in the interest of seeming objective it appears to short-circuit common sense.
I'm starting to believe there is no room for higher thinking (read: academia) in politics, because in the interest of seeming objective it appears to short-circuit common sense.
Labels: Foreign Affairs, Red Scared, War
posted by K-Dough at 10:30 PM
50 Comments:
Agreed. In the 45 polysyllabic minutes it would take Ignatieff to articulate his vote, Harper spin doctors will run verbal circles around him and the public will have moved onto the next topic -- or gone to bed.
Bob Rae, on the other hand, seems to combine academic with the dark art of communications. Now if only his sorcery of spin were strong enough to make his NDP past go up in smoke.
Politically intelligent? It was a free vote and it was their decision. Ignatieff has always stood by his beliefs in support of the invasion into Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm sure comparing academia and political intelligence are two seperate entities. 'Common sense' is different for every person and you can't make a judgement call on another person's (non)sensical action/belief.
Peter: I disagree. You can do whatever the hell you want. Judgement calls are a reality we all face and participate in everyday.
K: Yes, judgement calls are made every day but to judge one's actions/decisions under the pretense of common sense is improper. What is common sense to me might not be common sense to you (clearly and thankfully!)
And when it comes to the vote, they were all voting for various reasons (some for their political careers, some for their constituents, some for their morals).
Like the result or not, it's their decisions and we're committed to 2 more years (unless there's an election in the meantime).
I second your "no!".
Peter: D'you wanna go to war d'you cock-a-roach? I take you to war.
Does your war involve rastamen singing like Liam Gallagher?
Last night, Ignatieff had his John Kerry Moment.
He stood up when the votes were being counted on the extension of the Afghanistan mission of Canada, and voted yes, conditionally .... He said he was voting yes on condition that the mission was not changed during the two year extension which Harper was seeking.
Some years back, John Kerry stood up to vote for war in Iraq, and made his support of Bush conditional. Later on, when it became apparent that Bush – who clearly was not to be trusted when the vote was called, based on his past actions – had misled the Senate, Congress and the American voters, Kerry opposed the war, saying that "I was for it before I was against it."
In a year or so, when it becomes apparent that Harper has changed the mission in Afghanistan, Ignatieff will face the same dilemma, and will most likely say the same thing Kerry did.
The pity about Ignatieff's vote last night was that he should have learned from Kerry, Bush and Harper that his conditional vote would not cut it. He wanted his cake and wanted to eat it as well. Kerry found out to his cost that this did not work with people like Bush.
Ignatieff should have listened to Harper, when he spoke about his views on Canada and military force, in 2003. Perhaps he was out of the country at the time and missed the speech. Harper made his intentions very clear. In his article headed Rediscovering The Right Agenda, written in June 2003, Harper wrote in Report Magazine: "Conservatives must take the moral stand, with our allies, in favour of the fundamental values of our society, including democracy, free enterprise and individual freedom. This moral stand should not just give us the right to stand with our allies, but the duty to do so and the responsibility to put "hard power" behind our international commitments."
In order to understand Harper, you need to read his own words, and apply them to his current actions. He has not changed his core beliefs, he admitted during the election. Ignatieff showed that he is failing to measure the man who whipped the Liberals in January 2006.
Can the Liberal Party afford to have as its own leader a man who does not learn from history?
I think not.
Curiosity: Nicely said.
The whole thing was weird; the ramming down the throats of the quick vote, the posturing and wagon-jumping for the cameras and polls, the general cynicism that will undoubtedly be generated by the political circus. Disgusting.
Very poignant that the first female soldier gave up her life for us dweebs on the same day.
The whole process has put me in a very, very dark mood.
My flag is at half-mast.
(BTW, did you know that we flew in some Heinekens for the troops to help with their morale on a day of live entertainment...they relaxed the no liquor ruules for one day, and the troops were allowed a maximum of two beers each....and they had to PAY $2 a pop for them???)
Oh yeah, sorry....No.
Leatherhands- that's what they call cross-marketing.
I'm surprised they didn't film it and use it for a commercial, with shots fading in and out of bloody death, the flag and soldiers sitting around pissed, laughing their heads off watching the Royal Canadian Air Farce.
Since we're dredging up old quotes (curiousity), here's one for you:
I really think Canada should get over to Iraq as quickly as possible.
Paul Martin
Of course just before he said that he said:
"There's a huge need for front-line medical professionals. There's a huge need for policing. And there's a huge need for infrastructure rebuilding."
Ahh anonymous trolling rocks.
Gotta do it k-Dough, the credability of the nation internationally is in terrible shape. If we can actually pull off a fix in Afghanistan, we regain some serious international dick-swinging ability.
We ain't gettin no respect out there across the big pond. We've been too busy being all talk and no action.
Our peace-keeping missions have been total cockwashes for the last 20 years, and we need a win.
Darfur is an embarassment waiting for us to step into, and we have an absolutely miserable record on Peacekeeping in nations embroiled in civil war. Let them straighten their shit out and then ask us to help after they've finished killing each other.
Meanwhile, we kick some Taliban ass, build a few dozen schools and hospitals. Lay a road or two, and show that arid piece of moonrock on earth how to put a well or few hundred wells in.
2 years hence, we've succeeded where everyone else failed, and who cares about George anyways... he's only got a couple of years left, and then it's "Hello Mrs. President".
Hillary won't send men and women into combat... she's smart, she'll use cruise missles. No muss, no fuss.
Yeah those tough guy anonymous commentors...
All of the Tory bloggers who throw that HALF Martin quote out are really quite uninformed LOL!
In respect to the leadership candidates voting yes? I agree that it was bad and my answer is also NO.
Hell no. Given Harper's announcement that there'd be a one year extension in any event, Iggy had an easy (and principled?) out: I support the goals of the mission but oppose the resolution because I want more frequent reviews of the committment.
Or am I just remembering a draft of K-dough's ideal wedding vows?
Dammit, were we allowed to do that??? Noone tells me nuthin'!
I already have dick swinging respect. I don't need gun slinging respect. We are generally loved and envied around the world.
This is not a peace keeping mission. It's an occupation.
Well said, k-dough.
Why thank you sweet pants.
Ummm, I meant sweet Pam.
Sweet pants.Well, that's a first.
I don't have a dick to swing and if I did,I wouldn't need dick swinging respect,anyway. That is the worst reason for this occupation. Is that really worth any loss of life? The loss of say, your brother? Your son?
You gots dat right sista.
Yeah, we're respected and loved all right, like the 80 year great aunt that chucks you $20 bucks for junk food every time she sees you.
Thats not respect, that benign amusement.
It's not about shooting people Pam, it's about achieving results which have eluded Canada despite it's making broad commitments internationally.
We are well known for cheap talk internationally. Not to mention typically poor results when we attempt to aid others.
I think Afghanistan is the place to stand up and say there is a better way to do things besides just killing each other.
Course, we could just send aid money I suppose. Lord knows it always gets to the ones who need it most.
so glyn (zaphod)evans, what did martin say about iraq? the quote in its entirety that is.
I'm sorry- but all this talk about us being a laughing stock sounds like high school insecurity.
If you know you can back your shit up and you are happy in your own skin you don't need to prove shit to anyone.
Living well is the best revenge.
Abe Lincoln said, "If you want to build a log cabin, you have to let the chips fly". In the case of Afghanistan, the chips will be the lives of some of our troops who go there to do the building. Don't dishonor the builders by aiding and abbetting fucked up politicans who would never put themselves in harms way.
Squid: dishonour? how?
I've heard Lincoln was a log-cabin republican.
CC: I think Squid implicitly meant Harper likes chips with his pop.
but that's not half as gossipy as what Abe Lincoln liked!
Forget Abe Lincoln. I prefer Gabe Caplan.
JC: Like the others here, I'd disagree with your hypothesis that Canada isn't well-respected abroad. Who doesn't respect us? George Bush doesn't respect us? Fabulous! John Howard didn't respect us until Harper was elected? Even better.
Further, we're not rebuilding Afghanistan, we're waging an offensive war.
A little tidbit for the masses: On the topic of image abroad, did you know that the majority of Republican voters believe that the U.S. image has improved in the years following Afghanistan and the war in Iraq? What misguided little lemmings.... they've succumbed to the same spin that would have us believe that Canada isn't well-respected.
Exactly right diku.
My opinion is that although Ignatieff may have shot himself in the foot, he hadn't a hope in hell of winning the Liberal leadership anyway.
I put him in the same category as Bob Rae. They're both outside the mainstream of the Liberal Party and have too much baggage to become leader. Perhaps I'll be proved wrong, we'll see.
As for K-dough's comment about academics in politics, though, look at both Bill Graham (who is my MP and who, regrettably also voted for this extension) and Stephane Dion. Both were academics and both have been generally quite successful, so I wouldn't rule out the academics altogether K-Dough.
But then, none of this will matter once we have PEI, will it diku?
I just noticed this headline and glanced at the article to see what hot guy Nicole Kidman's getting hitched too now.
http://entertainment.sympatico.msn.ca/movies/articles/1372315.armx
However, I can't tell which one's Nicole and which one's her fiance, as they look so much alike. Any guesses?
Those in Canada who say we are a laughing stock abroad are republican groupies. Unempowered white males with latent homoerotic fantasies about their grumpy bosses, based on experiences they had as children with overly dominant gym teachers who also taught Sunday school.
homo,
Do you think Keith Urban is too pretty? I think he's quite hot, even if he is a blonde (liar).
Pam and Homo,
How do you categorize natural blondes who dye their hair Matrix black, and grow it past their shoulders? (Just asking for a friend...)
leather: psychologically?
K-Dough, just the blonde/liar thing they've been on for a while.
I'm not....er...my friend's not ready for a full psychological profile yet...
Drummers have their own category altogether.
I went out with a blonde drummer years ago and he was a great guy. His OTHER girlfriend thought so, too. But I'm sure he is an exception.
Pam,
uuhhhh....how MANY years ago?
This was in the 80's. I think he's a graphic designer these days, so you are safe.
It's good to see so many people who are confident of Canada's image abroad... as one who spends about 4 months of the year traveling to all the little shitholes of the globe, I'll feel much better knowing that those people who are pointing their guns at me like me because I'm Canadian...
You people are incredibly naive... but hey, that's okay. We all pay tax's so that you can continue in your ignorance.
Just remember this, the nice people you meet as you travel to European cities, vacation spots in the Carribean, and the wonderful beaches of Australia, are not the people who deal with the reality of the world as a general rule.
So by that reasoning you think someone WON'T point a gun at you because we are fighting in Afghanistan?
I'm got getting where you're giong with this Joe.
Hey Joe, where ya gion' with that gun in your hand??
I certainly hope it's not to Veradero. I'd hate to see any blood on those lovely white beaches.
Hey Pam, no I don't think that Urban guy is hot. He looks too feminine. Maybe it's the hair. I am not so attracted to long hair on men. Short is generally best.
Leatherhands, I'm sure your "friend" is a cool guy. That's all I can say.
Joe Calgary, if you travel so much, then surely you've noticed that when people realize you are not an American, but rather a Canadian, they are almost invariably a lot friendlier (except in Amsterdam, where absolutely everyone I met was a completely miserable fucker -- unfriendliest city I've ever had the misfortune of being in! I know, I know, K-dough, let's just respectfully disagree on that point.)
I have mixed feelings about the long hair, too. I think it's really hot on some men but if my husband's hair gets too long I hate it. Keith Urban is hot, even if he is a country singer.
I have "been around" a little in my day (travelling, K-dough, you pervert) and spent a year out of the country and people are much friendlier when they find out you are Canadian. Spending time out of Canada made me truly appreciate my country.
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