Three more soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb on Saturday, making the total of Canadians killed in the line of duty 104 (103 servicepersons plus one diplomat).
At this point, words are insufficient to express the helplessness we feel when this happens. But mere press releases from the PM and the opposition leaders are not sufficient to satisfy the anger of a growing number of Canadians who have had enough. War is a bitch and people will die and that's something we just have to deal with on our own.
But when none of the main stated goals have been meet fully seven years into the mission, and when our allies are as much on the run as we are, it makes one wonder what are we doing there. Also, are we really serious about a 2011 end date certain, or will we keep coming up with one excuse after another to stay there? At what point do we say we really have no business fighting a civil war?
We're still in Cyprus, after all. A considerably more peaceful place to be sure, but you'd think after several decades of a UN presence from 1964 and a more or less stable ceasfire since 1974 the two halves of that conflict would have finally gotten their act together and reunited their country -- NOT! Well, maybe not, but there's hope there.
Even a token one or two Canadians doesn't seem to make much difference in 2008. The only thing that may finally push things along there are the facts the south is in the EU and the Eurozone, and that Turkey is desperate to get into the trade block and one of those conditions is pulling out of the north of the island.
It's going to take a lot more than economics to get the Greeks and Turkish people on the island to bury the hatchet.. But at least they have a relatively healthy economy even in these tough times which may be motivation enough. Compared to the rest of the Middle East, Cyprus actually comes off as a halcyon (even with the occasional "incidents" of incursions through the ceasefire line) which is a good place to start from so there's hope the UN mission can finally end sooner rather than later.
What does Afghanistan have to export, other than rugs and opium and rival factions of terrorists? Do we really want to be a part of that much longer?
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