Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
shakes hands with an unidentified Afghan
National commander during a tour of a
Canadian forward operation base in
Ma'Sum Ghar, Kandahar province Afghanistan,
Wednesday.
(CP/Tom Hanson)
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Thanks Canada!
After meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Harper gave Karzai an baby-sized Ottawa Senators jersey for the president's 4-month-old son. "These are not members of the upper house," Harper said. "They are admired hockey players."
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The monkeys of the left chatter...
"The Prime Minister is on a smoke and mirrors tour," said NDP defence critic Dawn Black. "He knows full well we spend millions more on search and destroy missions than we do on building schools. The Prime Minister has travelled halfway across the world to con Canadians. His tricks won't work."
Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh said: "Harper and his government have long neglected and downplayed the reconstruction and development aspects of the mission by highlighting the combat aspect. The reality and the perception of the mission have been distorted by this government's handling of it — so much so that he now has to visit Afghanistan just to rebalance it in Canadians' eyes." On the sprawling air base — home to more than 10,000 troops from a more than a dozen nations — calibrating the right balance between combat operations and reconstruction seems a faraway and largely academic debate.
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“With their selfless efforts and accomplishments in Afghanistan as our proof, we will let no one diminish all that Canada has achieved here,” the Prime Minister added. “And such achievements come only through the secure environment our troops are building here, and from the training and mentoring they are providing the Afghanistan coalition, through this mission.”
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"You know that we can't just put down our weapons and hope for peace. You know that we can't set arbitrary deadlines and simply wish for the best," Harper said, deflecting critics who want the mission to end immediately or at least in two years.
"Thank you for proving to Canadians and to people around the world that when Canada makes a commitment, Canada follows through."
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"We are not daunted by shadows because we carry the light that defines them - the light of freedom and democracy, of human rights and the rule of law, the light of this country's tangible progress to date, and its determination and hope for the future,"
