Wounded And Left On Afghanistan's Plains

Ever since the U.S. went into Iraq, the left has been harping on about being bogged down in a bloody quagmire costing countless thousands of lives and billions of dollars without bringing anyone any closer to peace, freedom and prosperity.

Now come warnings from a top Canadian general about our own miniature Canadian quagmire in the making:

Canadian soldiers can expect to be in Afghanistan for the next 20 years, fighting, killing and dying, one of Canada's top generals says.

"Afghanistan is a 20-year venture," Major-Gen.Andrew Leslie told the annual Couchiching Summer Conference yesterday.

Leslie warned that the war-torn country is going to need a long-term commitment from Canada to help it "break out of the cycle of warlords and tribalism."

And the results will be worth the cost, both in blood and time, he promised attendees of the conference in Orillia, on the shore of Lake Couchiching.

"There are things worth fighting for. There are things worth dying for. There are things worth killing for," Leslie told the conference. "Your soldiers have done all three of those activities in the last 50 years."

Do you get the impression that Canada's generals are fed up with the peacekeeping myth? Two active generals have told the Trudeaupian elites to their faces that soldiers are, first, foremost and always, warriors, not aid workers.

Restoring civil society in Iraq is difficult enough, and it is a relatively Westernized and resource-rich country. Restoring it in Afghanistan will be even more so.

The peacekeeping myth has led to the naive and crippling assumption that our military should not, indeed cannot, take casualties. Generals Hillier and Leslie know otherwise.

Carolyn Parrish was unavailable for comment at post time.

Source: Metro News