Canada enlists in America’s war for peace

Gerald Caplan, The Globe and Mail:

American and NATO troops, including Canadians, will pull out of Afghanistan in 2014 at the latest, unless they don’t. It depends on something but no one knows what that something might be. In his new book Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward quotes General David Petraeus, the senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan: “I don’t think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. … This is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives, and probably our kids’ lives.” Dear me, how do I break this to our granddaughter?

Luckily for the general he’s getting full co-operation from his peacenik President. Having campaigned against the Iraq war and promised not to get mired in Afghanistan, Barack Obama recently sent Congress the largest defence budget since the Second World War: $708-billion for the fiscal year 2011, $82-billion more than for 2010. The total then grew by $33-billion for the 30,000 additional troops Mr. Obama dispatched to Afghanistan.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China’s 2009 military expenditures were $99-billion, Britan’s $67-billion, Russia’s $61-billion and Canada’s $20-billion. As usual, the U.S. military budget is more or less equal to that of the entire rest of the world combined.

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