Canada expanding military operations in Afghanistan

[url=http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3665706&c=EUR&s=TOP]Here[/url] is another article that catalogues this. If you look on the Wikipedia page for the Mil-8 helicopters it lists the company as SkyLink Aviation. More information on G&M [url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080807.wcopters0806...

Too bad neither old line party has the courage to say no to Warshington's imperialist ambitions in Afghanistan.

Nothing says "winning hearts and minds" like a Russian helicopter flying over Afghan villages. Well done.

The Mujahadin will be pleased. Now, instead of killing maybe one and wounding a couple more with an IED, a well-placed rocket will kill many crusaders.

It'll be a [url=http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/05/30/afghan.copter/index.html]bumpy ride.[/url]

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A U.S. CH-47 Chinook helicopter went down Wednesday night (30 May 2007) in southern Afghanistan, killing all seven aboard, U.S. and NATO officials said.

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Keep that last bullet handy, boys.

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Glad you picked up on the fact it will be the same type of Russian helicopters that, why, the "Russians" in their Afghanistan occupation. I was wondering if anyone would.

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A number of entities are flying Russian helicopters in Afghanistan, including eastern European NATO allies, private contractors and, ironically, the Afghan army.

The Russian MI8/MI17 Hip will be the helicopter standard for Afghanistan as well as the other countries in the region.

Anticipation of Afghan antipathy to Canadian use of the MI8/17 is certainly misplaced.

Why? The only thing Canada's military and civilian defense bureaucracy is any good at building is a money wasting approval process that keeps changing the goalposts so that the porkbarrelling can continue.

There is nothing better for Canada's useless drones at NDH than a change in government to effect a new round of dithering and money wasting.

How many useless tits are there in the National
Defense Headquarters? How many different platform acquisition processes that go nowhere while the staffers do nothing?

Take the Joint Support Ship proposal. its a huge white elephant designed to do all things for all missions but will be so cumbersome that it will do nothing for anyone and will be scrapped as too expensive to operate.

The JSS is a resupply and refuelling platform, a command platform,an aviation support platform,a rapid reaction army platform and it will also have casualty/refugee care capability.

The result is a 26,000 tonne white elephant too slow to keep up with a flank speed naval group, too flimsy to go into harm's way and too bastardised to have the capacity for rapid reaction.

The obvious solution is two separate ships. A naval supply oiler with the speed and protection to resupply a naval task force in harm's way AND a smaller,affordable platform for rapid reaction/command and control/intervention roles.

The fact is that the Danes,Dutch and Spaniards have excelled at creation of these types of naval platforms and utilising their expertise will be cost effective in the sense that Canada will actually build ships for the funds. The same amount of funds in the hands of Canada's procurement bumblers will only net another failed process.

Can anyone say EH101 or Sikorsky H92 or, CHINOOK?

It is all very well to be opposed to the mission in Afghanistan - as any rational individual should be, imo - but this is the natural consequence of the omnipotent state you have created. You grant the state authority to run roughshod over our economy, to create endless mindless bureaucracies, to grow ever larger year after year, and then say "I am shocked, absolutely shocked to find that war mongering is going on here". Randolph Bourne once said that "war is the health of the state". The state, made powerful by the socialism advocated on these forums, will not shy away from expanding it's power even more so, in the most convenient fashion (war).

Well, first of all under Stephen Harper and George Bush domestic welfare spending has increased as dramatically as under any leftist (size of the U.S. federal budget is now 3 TRILLION DOLLARS and Canadian Federal Government Spending has been growing at a rate of 13%) but you are misunderstanding the point. The point is that socialism makes the government very powerful. The government uses that power to grow even more powerful. The easiest way for the government (esp. once powerful) to grow even more powerful is via war, because war is the health of the state. It is during war that the state comes into it's own - full of pride and prestige, swelling in strength and in power.

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Originally posted by Zak Young:
[b]Well, first of all under Stephen Harper and George Bush domestic welfare spending has increased as dramatically as under any leftist (size of the U.S. federal budget is now 3 TRILLION DOLLARS and Canadian Federal Government Spending has been growing at a rate of 13%) but you are misunderstanding the point. The point is that socialism makes the government very powerful. The government uses that power to grow even more powerful. The easiest way for the government (esp. once powerful) to grow even more powerful is via war, because war is the health of the state. It is during war that the state comes into it's own - full of pride and prestige, swelling in strength and in power.[/b]

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Specious argument. Were you to make a comparison between different countries' military budgets and the politics professed by their political classes you would not find the link you float here, as much as it pleases your ideology.

Now let's consider some illustrations of war-making as a path to consolidating and expanding state power. Iraq proved to be Blair's undoing and will see the end of the Bush cabal in November. Georgia's Prime Minister has some new credibility issues that weren't there till he attacked South Ossetia. Israel's recent war in Lebanon cost Ohlmert his job. Didn't do Saddam much good either.

It could be argued that the Iraq war was simply a way to transfer state money to the private corporations increasingly responsible for the actual warmaking on the ground over there. Blackwater, Haliburton, General Dynamics as socialist enterprises? They'll get a chuckle out of that one.

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Catchfire: Sidescroll is a war crime.

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Sidescroll is actually a method of trolling and disrupting a thread. However, since remind started this thread and also is responsible for the sidescroll, that's probably not the case here. Heh.

"Now let's consider some illustrations of war-making as a path to consolidating and expanding state power. Iraq proved to be Blair's undoing and will see the end of the Bush cabal in November. Georgia's Prime Minister has some new credibility issues that weren't there till he attacked South Ossetia. Israel's recent war in Lebanon cost Ohlmert his job. Didn't do Saddam much good either."

You seem to be missing the point; I am not talking about the individuals who are temporarily in control of the state, but the state itself as a whole.

I don't disagree that the state serves corporate interests - although corporations are far from the most powerful special interest group that loots the public treasury (and a look at the numbers will prove that quickly). Indeed this is the essence of fascism - the merging of state and corporate interests, and is in part what we have today in the west. You seem to be equating the health of the state with the health of society - the typical viewpoint of a statist - but of course nothing could be farther from the truth. The stronger the state the worse off everyone else as, as the state is fundamentally predatory. War is not good for the economy, and anyone who is at all acquainted with the proper economic education understands that. Yes, the merchants of death profit from war, but so does the state itself.

[ 18 August 2008: Message edited by: Zak Young ]

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Originally posted by Jingles:
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I've read there were 70 troops aboard that one.

[ 08 August 2008: Message edited by: Jingles ][/b]

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Where was that?