The Afghan Story — Nothing good will come of this

16 people were left dead after an American soldier went on a house-to-house on a shooting rampage in two villages. We already were on shaking ground in Afghanistan, however I believe that this may cause an earthquake. It’s unfortunate because in Western countries, if something like this happened, we would have sought justice through our judicial system. The Taliban is already calling American’s “savages”. It makes no sense, since they will kill all sorts of innocent people, but its all propaganda. Obviously something cracked in this solider and I think those in power need to find out, as soon as possible, why he did what he did. This incident will place a large amount of people in harm’s way. With an election year coming, I am sure that many will try to find a way to capitalize on this situation. Karzai has already said “this is unforgivable”, in a country where punishment would be met with a death sentence. The Taliban will for sure use it to rally the Afghan people against America and their western allies. I can only hope that reason will prevail, otherwise this story is going to get a lot more complicated.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/12/world/asia/afghanistan-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

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Let the war for Toronto begin!

Well let the war begin in the city of Toronto. In an apparent move to remove all opposition to Mayor Rob Ford’s subway plans a special Toronto Transit Commission meeting called with only one item on the agenda. A vote to remove Gary Webster’s from the Toronto Transit Commission. The nine-person commission voted 5-4 to remove Gary Webster. I am not sure how this will play out for the mayor and his allies, but I do not foresee it going well. Rather than seek an alternative, and work with council, they have decided to attempt to take control. This is not the best way to promote subways and I believe in the end Rob Ford may lose the battle.

The Liberal government originally promised $8.15 billion in 2007 to Transit City. Transit City was almost entirely funded by the province, with the federal Conservatives chipping in $300 million. It was a plan, and we did not have to agree with all aspects of it, but for the first time we had all levels of government in agreement. If Transit City had gone ahead there would have been a renaissance. However, Mayor Rob Ford declared that David Miller’s transit vision was dead. He called the highly advanced trams, seen in Europe, Australia and many cities around the word streetcars. Yes, they operated on portions of the street, however this is not the St. Clair right-away. He should have worked with council and now a full-out war has been declared. The question is, will anything ever get done?

 

 

This campaign is going to the birds

First a puffin, now a Sparrow….CTV says Conservative Party communications director Ryan Sparrow has
been suspended for the duration of the campaign for questioning the motives of a father who lost a son in Afghanistan.

The Tory war room attacked a father of a soldier because he is allegedly a supporter of Michael Ignatieff. Good on the Tories for suspending Sparrow. Bad on the Tories for making him the fall guy when he is only the mouthpiece. At a certain point, a leader needs to take responsibility for what comes out of his war room.

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Jim Davis, who lost a son to the war, openly complained that Stephen Harper’s stance on leaving our troops in the country until 2011 – a commitment he made on Wednesday – is ‘irresponsible.’ Tory communications director Ryan Sparrow wrote an email to a reporter accusing Davis of being a Liberal supporter, the fur began to fly. The inference that the comment may have been politically motivated instead of a grieving father lamenting the worst loss of his life, moved the Conservatives to suspend Sparrow for the rest of the campaign and they’ve ordered him to apologize.

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Putin Accuses U.S. Over Georgia

By Nabi Abdullaev / Staff Writer

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday accused the United States of orchestrating the military conflict in Georgia in order to boost the chances of a U.S. presidential candidate.

In an interview that was to air on CNN late Thursday, Putin said Washington had encouraged Tbilisi to attack South Ossetia to give one presidential candidate an edge in the hotly contested U.S. election, CNN said on its web site.

Republican John McCain, a weathered foreign policy hawk and a staunch critic of Russia, is in a neck-and-neck race with Democrat Barack Obama for the White House.

Putin did not specify a candidate. Reached by telephone, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to say which one he was referring to.

McCain is an ally of outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush. Following Russia’s invasion of Georgia, McCain lashed out at Russia, calling on the Bush administration to pull out from a joint space exploration project with Russia and repeating a demand that Russia be kicked out of the Group of Eight.

The White House press office had no immediate comment on Putin’s statement.

At the onset of the conflict with Georgia earlier this month, Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected spin doctor and United Russia deputy in the State Duma, described the escalation as a strategy by U.S. neo-cons to boost McCain’s popularity. In televised comments, Markov accused U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney of masterminding the strategy. Cheney will visit Georgia next week.

Speaking at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Putin told CNN that Russia had to send its troops into South Ossetia to rebuff Georgian forces in order to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.

He also rebuked the U.S. administration for not having done more to stop Georgia’s attack early Aug. 8. Led by U.S.-educated President Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia is the most enthusiastic U.S. ally among the former Soviet republics.

“In the interview with CNN, there were lots of tough but truthful comments,” Peskov said. “But in the interview, you also can see a desire and readiness to cooperate with all countries.”

Putin has stepped into U.S. elections before. In June 2004, when Bush was struggling for re-election amid criticism for going to war with Iraq without just cause, then-President Vladimir Putin announced that Russian secret services had obtained information that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Putin’s announcement appeared to stun the White House, and analysts at the time dismissed it as a clumsy attempt by Putin to help Bush win re-election.

The formal pretext for the U.S. invasion of Iraq — spelled out by Bush in 2003 — was Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and its refusal to allow United Nations monitors to inspect them. No traces of the weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.

Separately Thursday, Putin announced that 19 U.S. poultry companies would be banned from exporting to Russia after Russian health and agriculture officials randomly tested their products and discovered they were full of antibiotics and arsenic, CNN reported.

The ban is unrelated to the Georgia conflict, Putin said.

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