Taliban Jack is mulling over a trip to Afghanistan...
I hope he does go and meet up with those lovey-dovey Taliban critters...His yellow,running dog head would look in place on the end of a Taliban stick...
Layton mulls trip to Afghanistan
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"I don't think credibility on the question of whether the mission is working depends on whether a person has the opportunity to be there," said Jack Layton, who's mulling a trip to Afghanistan.
Photograph by : CP Photo
Ian Bailey, CanWest News Service
Published: Sunday, October 01, 2006 Article tools
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VANCOUVER -- Federal NDP Leader Jack Layton, who wants Canada to pull its troops from Afghanistan, says he wants to visit the war-torn country to get a sense of the situation there.
But Layton told The Province during a trip to Vancouver that he does not need to have been to Afghanistan to be a credible critic of Canada's role there.
"I don't think credibility on the question of whether the mission is working depends on whether a person has the opportunity to be there," Layton said.
"If that was the case, then most Canadians would have to be absent themselves for the debate, and I don't accept that proposition."
Two of four federal party leaders in the House of Commons have been to Afghanistan where 2,200 Canadian soldiers are posted.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been. Bill Graham, interim leader for the Liberals, went twice while foreign affairs and defence minister in the former Liberal government.
Layton and Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Quebecois, have yet to visit.
Layton has called for Canadian troops to leave Afghanistan by next February, slamming the mission there as improperly planned to achieve peace.
The position, strongly endorsed by rank-and-file NDP members at the party's national convention early in September, has put the New Democrats odds with the other three parties in Parliament.
Thirty-seven soldiers and one Canadian diplomat have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002 the latest being Pte. Josh Klukie, from an Ontario-based regiment killed by an explosive device Friday while on patrol near Kandahar. Canada has been involved in reconstruction in Afghanistan and battling remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida.
Layton said he was invited to Afghanistan by that country's president, Hamid Karzai, when the pair met during Karzai's recent trip to Canada.
"The timing of such a visit is something I'd like to discuss further with the Afghanistan officials and, of course, with our own Foreign Affairs officials here," he said.
Layton said, at this point, his office was working through logistics on the issue, but that he would, among other things, like to talk to elected officials in the country, aid groups, and Canadian troops.
Asked whether he was concerned about his own security, he replied: "Not any more than anybody else would be."
Layton has condemned the effort as a "George Bush-style counter-insurgency war" and called on Canada to pursue humanitarian aid, reconstruction and peace.
He called on Canada to declare it won't abandon Afghanistan, but will stop what isn't working.
"The goal of trying to help resolve conflicts in other than war fighting approaches is, I think, a uniquely Canadian goal in the world," he said.
ibailey@png.canwest.com
© CanWest News Service 2006