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News

Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper visits the troops in Afghanistan

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Harper: Not a primping peacock bitterly clinging to his teleprompter
Harper: Not a primping peacock bitterly clinging to his teleprompter

Joanne over at Blue Like You has the story. (Photo credit:THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)

Here are some of the best bits from the official government press release:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today travelled to Afghanistan, where he visited with Canadian Forces and civilian personnel stationed in Kandahar.

“From the very first day of the Afghan mission the men and women of the Canadian Forces and civilian officials, have served courageously and selflessly to help the people of Afghanistan build a better future,” said the Prime Minister. “Over the course of this mission our men and women in Afghanistan have made incredible sacrifices to defend our values and our interests. It is an honour for me to meet with them, to thank them, and to let them know that their country supports them. They make us very proud.”

Look, the Canadian general even put him to work as a field artillery spotter. (Photo credit:THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)

Harper calls in fire mission on Taliban: "Right 1 degree. Fire for effect!"
Harper (not effeminate) calls in his third fire mission on Taliban forces: "Right 1 degree. Fire for effect!"

While Barack Obama drags 25 teleprompters with him when he travels overseas, Harper didn’t bring any teleprompters with him, and he travels into a warzone.

Here is the description of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan from the Canadian forces web site:

Canada’s efforts in Afghanistan are guided by the Afghanistan Compact, which includes a five-year framework for coordinating the work of the Afghan government and its international partners, outlining specific outcomes related to security, governance and development with benchmarks and delivery schedules.

For example, a new Afghan constitution has restored the rule of law and respect for the human rights of all Afghan citizens, including women and children. The Afghan people now vote, women and girls have rights, and children are going to school.

The biggest threat to rebuilding is continued violence and threats from the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In fact, terrorism is a clear and present threat to global peace and security, and terrorists used Afghanistan as a base of operations during the seven-year Taliban regime. In the interest of collective security, Canada and its international partners share a duty to help ensure that terrorism cannot take root again in Afghanistan.

And Canada is busy spending money on things like this:

The Prime Minister announced that the Government of Canada is deepening its partnership with UNICEF and the Afghan Ministry of Education to invest in improved learning centres, construct new schools for 18,000 children in Kandahar, and provide funding for a 10-month literacy course for 2,500 women in the region.

“Investing in education is vital to improving human rights and, in particular, the rights of women in Afghanistan,” said the Prime Minister. “My message to the people of Afghanistan, and to our international partners is clear. Canada will do its part.”

The Prime Minister also visited Kandahar’s Dahla Dam project on the Arghandab River. Eighty percent of Kandahar’s population lives along the Dahla irrigation system. The Government of Canada is investing up to $50 million over three years to repair the dam and improve its surrounding irrigation system while helping train local farmers in new water management and crop production techniques.

“Canada’s Afghan mission is more than just a security operation. It is also about making a real difference in the quality of life for thousands of Afghan families,” said the Prime Minister. “I am delighted to have had the opportunity to see, first hand, the kind of meaningful contribution Canadians are making to Afghanistan’s future.”

Hmmmn. Obama is spending a lot of money, too. I wonder what the trillions of dollars he spent on his special interest groups is accomplishing? Well, Warner Todd Huston at Stop the ACLU managed to track down some of it.

If we need no other example of why government can’t “stimulate” an economy, we have but to look at the use to which the city of Akron, Ohio wants to put some of its “stimulus” money. Akron, it seems, wants to spend some of that money for suicide prevention. Oh, not a general suicide prevention program that might at least employ people. No, Akron wants to build a fence on a bridge that seems to emit a siren call for jumpers to prevent them from killing themselves.

Akron’s All-American Bridge, a “Y” shaped structure that serves as a main artery into the city, has been a platform for suicide jumpers for so long now that area residents have nicknamed it the suicide bridge. Consequently, city officials have proposed using more than one million dollars of the city’s “stimulus” money to erect a fence that will help prevent people from being able to use the span as a means to an end.

There’s other stuff we could do with that money you know. Like making the rest of the world freer and reducing threats from terrorists to the homeland.

News

Female legislator killed in Afghanistan, pro-jihad woman kidnapped in Pakistan

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These two stories create an interesting contrast to say the least. First of all, a female legislator is killed by terrorists in Afghanistan.

Excerpt:

A female provincial government official in Afghanistan who worked hard for women’s rights was gunned down on Sunday during a weekend of violence that has rocked the south of the country.

Sitara Achakzai died when gunmen ambushed her outside her home in Kandahar city before driving away, according to Matiullah Khan Qateh, Kandahar province’s chief of police.

Four men on motorcycles drove up to the house and shot Achakzai as she exited her car, Qateh said.

Qari Yousef Ahmedi, a Taliban spokesperson, claimed responsibility for the killing.

Achakzai spent the years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan living outside the country. She lived in Germany for at least 20 years and was a dual Afghan-German citizen.

She returned to Afghanistan to work for women’s rights, according to Shahida Bibi of the Kandahar Women’s Association.

Achakzai was a member of Kandahar’s provincial council and was a vocal proponent of women working outside the home, Bibi said.

And here is an interesting contrast. According to this Fox News article (H/T Small Dead Animals), a Canadian female journalist who advocated in favor of terrorism has now been kidnapped and is being held for ransom by the terrorists that she’d been supporting.

Excerpt:

Soon after Al Qaeda terrorists killed 3,000 people in the U.S., Giesebrecht converted to Islam, adopted a new name — Khadija Abdul Qahaar — and spent the next two years studying the Koran in Egypt.

She created a pro-Jihadi Web site, Jihad Unspun, and she developed a network of contacts, contributors and translators, some of whom introduced her to the Taliban in Pakistan.

But then her new allies turned on her:

And then last November, the Taliban, the group she had befriended, kidnapped her while she was chasing a story in the Bannu region of northern Pakistan. In a video released after her capture, Qahaar says she’s being held by the Taliban…

In the most recent video, released to the Miranshah Press Club on March 18, Qahaar says her captors demand ransom payment of 2 million Rupees — about $25,000 — by the end of March. On earlier tapes, she said her captors were demanding $375,000.

“I’m pleading with you, save my life. Spare me,” she says. “We have a very short time now, I’ll probably be beheaded.”

The article concludes with this:

“I need somebody to help me,” Qaahar pleaded on the most recent video. “My government — the Canadian government, the Pakistan government — I want to go home.”

It’s certainly ironic.