NDP Raises White Flag

Some people appear to be going around surprised that the NDP has just officially called for an immediate withdrawal of all Canadian forces from Afghanistan at its policy convention in Quebec City.

The greater surprise is that there are actually senior NDP members who dissent:

Manitoba's NDP Premier Gary Doer, who addressed delegates on Friday, told CTV Newsnet he supported the mission in Afghanistan five years ago and remains committed to it today.

"This is a UN exercise. The Taliban that we're fighting basically protected the terrorists that were involved five years ago in the 9-11 attack -- which included the killing of innocent victims from Manitoba -- and so I don't like any anti-military talk," he said.

Doer's comments come just two days after soldiers at Canadian Forces Base Shilo, Man., paid tribute to Cpl. David Braun, who was killed Aug. 22 by a suicide bomber outside Kandahar.

Nova Scotia MP Peter Stoffer, whose riding holds a large military constituency, also spoke out against the proposal. He called it "premature."

"What (the troops) are doing is right," he said. "We need to send the message that we love them, we care about them, and that we hope for their speedy return.

Further, he said the position fails to address what happens to Afghanistan on March 1, when there would be no Canadian troops left under an NDP plan.

Let this NDP policy convention delegate address the matter for you, Mr. Stoffer:

"We don't need more consultation. We need to curtail expenditures which are aiding the war contractors and which are supporting a government of warlords and drug lords in Afghanistan, a government orchestrated and hand-picked by the U.S. empire ..."

Shorter form: we don't care.

Despite all the pious platitudes about achieving a peaceful solution to the Afghanistan crisis, Iraq, and all the other fronts of the war against Islamic terror, the NDP wants to pretend that Canada doesn't have to worry about the rest of the world.

Something more malign than naivety or timdity underlies the NDP's isolationism.

You'll know what that is, by the company they keep at anti-war protest rallies.

Source: CTV