We Need To Export MAGA to Canada.

[TheReal_ND]

Why can't we have free healthcare like Canada so we can have grown folk day care?

No, it's not for retards. It's for accountants.
http://globalnews.ca/news/3527271/montr ... t-to-open/

[Smitty-48]

Have fun in the mujahadeen.

Mujahideen. America's stalwart allies against the Communists, funded to the tune of $8 billion, wot?

[Smitty-48]

Why can't we have free healthcare like Canada so we can have grown folk day care?

No, it's not for retards. It's for accountants.
http://globalnews.ca/news/3527271/montr ... t-to-open/

"iChild"; founded by Joni Lapidos of Brooklyn, New York, USA; charges $640/week.

Imported from America, as private enterprize. /shrugs

[heydaralon]

The Afghan Soviet thing has been oversimplified to an embarrassing degree by many people. Idk how many times I've talked about the Middle East with people and they tell me: "You realize the US funded Bin Laden right?" as though this is some kind of game changing info. The United States armed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, but they did not just hand AQ (which did not even exist until 87 or 88, right when that conflict was almost done btw) a blank check and say: "Attack America in 20 years!" Rather, the US starting with Carter started arming Afghan rebels to stir up trouble with the Soviet friendly regime in Kabul. Once the tanks rolled in, our country, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia decided to help against the Soviet effort. Here is the key distinction though. The US had operatives in the country, but most of the funding went via the ISI who used discretion on who got the funds. The leader of Pakistan Zia Ul-haq basically just used a bunch of the Saudi-US money to set up domestic terror groups like Lashkar e-Taibba to help fuck with India. He pretty much did what every despot did, and tried to lump his regional conflict into the larger ideological conflict of the Cold War to get the foreign aid train moving. Once the war ended, Pakistan could no longer match its funding for these groups, and thus did not have total control. While it still controls much of LET, many groups from the Soviet conflict era are actually semi autonomous, and have stirred the shitpot around Kashmir and in the tribal areas. In my opinion, this has led to as much geo-political instability in the region as anything from that war. Bin Laden was mainly funded via private donors from SA and the Gulf States. He helped organize relief aid, housing, and medical care for foreign fighters via the bureau of services in Peshawar (I think), but his most important role was just a charismatic face to put on the movement to get Muslims from the Arabian Penninsula to fight in a foreign conflict in Central Asia. There were thousands of foreign fighters in Afghanistan, but they did not play an important role in the ultimate outcome, save for a couple of successful raids which generated good PR. From a strategic standpoint, both for anti-Soviet Afghanis, and the US, foreign arab fighters were worthless. They were unfamiliar with the language, land, and customs, and they generally were shitty inexperienced fighters compared to the Afghans. The Afghans did not like fighting alongside them, and generally viewed them as sanctimonious war tourists who interfered with legitimate operations. Much of the time they were dead weight and did far more harm than good. They often had their own tiny Arab units which again contributed little beyond fedayeen style raids and pointless skirmishes. That war was not decided by foreign fighters. I'm not saying that the US decision to interfere with this regional conflict was good, in fact I would argue the opposite. But it frustrates me when I hear people say that the CIA funded Bin Laden and were at fault for 9/11, when the reality is not nearly as straight forward.

[Smitty-48]

The Afghan Soviet thing has been oversimplified to an embarrassing degree by many people. Idk how many times I've talked about the Middle East with people and they tell me: "You realize the US funded Bin Laden right?" as though this is some kind of game changing info. The United States armed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, but they did not just hand AQ (which did not even exist until 87 or 88, right when that conflict was almost done btw) a blank check and say: "Attack America in 20 years!" Rather, the US starting with Carter started arming Afghan rebels to stir up trouble with the Soviet friendly regime in Kabul. Once the tanks rolled in, our country, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia decided to help against the Soviet effort. Here is the key distinction though. The US had operatives in the country, but most of the funding went via the ISI who used discretion on who got the funds. The leader of Pakistan Zia Ul-haq basically just used a bunch of the Saudi-US money to set up domestic terror groups like Lashkar e-Taibba to help fuck with India. He pretty much did what ever despot did, and tried to lump his regional conflict into the larger ideological conflict of the Cold War to get the foreign aid train moving. Once the war ended, Pakistan could no longer match its funding for these groups, and thus did not have total control. While it still controls much of LET, many groups from the Soviet conflict era are actually semi autonomous, and have stirred the shitpot around Kashmir and in the tribal areas. In my opinion, this has led to as much geo-political instability in the region as anything from that war. Bin Laden was mainly funded via private donors from SA and the Gulf States. He helped organize relief aid, housing, and medical care for foreign fighters via the bureau of services in Peshawar (I think), but his most important role was just a charismatic face to put on the movement to get Muslims from the Arabian Penninsula to fight in a foreign conflict in Central Asia. There were thousands of foreign fighters in Afghanistan, but they did not play an important role in the ultimate outcome, save for a couple of successful raids which generated good PR. From a strategic standpoint, both for anti-Soviet Afghanis, and the US, foreign arab fighters were worthless. They were unfamiliar with the language, land, and customs, and they generally were shitty inexperienced fighters compared to the Afghans. The Afghans did not like fighting alongside them, and generally viewed them as sanctimonious war tourists who interfered with legitimate operations. Much of the time they were dead weight and did far more harm than good. They often had their own tiny Arab units which again contributed little beyond fedayeen style raids and pointless skirmishes. I'm not saying that the US decision to interfere with this regional conflict was good, in fact I would argue the opposite. But it frustrates me when I hear people say that the CIA funded Bin Laden and were at fault for 9/11, when the reality is not nearly as straight forward.

tl:dr, but even skimming, don't see how this has anything to do with Canada, nor why we would want to import any of that sort of misadventurism into our polity here.

"America, something, something, the CIA didn't blow up the World Trade Centre wanh-wanh-wanh?" So what?

[heydaralon]

The Afghan Soviet thing has been oversimplified to an embarrassing degree by many people. Idk how many times I've talked about the Middle East with people and they tell me: "You realize the US funded Bin Laden right?" as though this is some kind of game changing info. The United States armed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, but they did not just hand AQ (which did not even exist until 87 or 88, right when that conflict was almost done btw) a blank check and say: "Attack America in 20 years!" Rather, the US starting with Carter started arming Afghan rebels to stir up trouble with the Soviet friendly regime in Kabul. Once the tanks rolled in, our country, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia decided to help against the Soviet effort. Here is the key distinction though. The US had operatives in the country, but most of the funding went via the ISI who used discretion on who got the funds. The leader of Pakistan Zia Ul-haq basically just used a bunch of the Saudi-US money to set up domestic terror groups like Lashkar e-Taibba to help fuck with India. He pretty much did what ever despot did, and tried to lump his regional conflict into the larger ideological conflict of the Cold War to get the foreign aid train moving. Once the war ended, Pakistan could no longer match its funding for these groups, and thus did not have total control. While it still controls much of LET, many groups from the Soviet conflict era are actually semi autonomous, and have stirred the shitpot around Kashmir and in the tribal areas. In my opinion, this has led to as much geo-political instability in the region as anything from that war. Bin Laden was mainly funded via private donors from SA and the Gulf States. He helped organize relief aid, housing, and medical care for foreign fighters via the bureau of services in Peshawar (I think), but his most important role was just a charismatic face to put on the movement to get Muslims from the Arabian Penninsula to fight in a foreign conflict in Central Asia. There were thousands of foreign fighters in Afghanistan, but they did not play an important role in the ultimate outcome, save for a couple of successful raids which generated good PR. From a strategic standpoint, both for anti-Soviet Afghanis, and the US, foreign arab fighters were worthless. They were unfamiliar with the language, land, and customs, and they generally were shitty inexperienced fighters compared to the Afghans. The Afghans did not like fighting alongside them, and generally viewed them as sanctimonious war tourists who interfered with legitimate operations. Much of the time they were dead weight and did far more harm than good. They often had their own tiny Arab units which again contributed little beyond fedayeen style raids and pointless skirmishes. I'm not saying that the US decision to interfere with this regional conflict was good, in fact I would argue the opposite. But it frustrates me when I hear people say that the CIA funded Bin Laden and were at fault for 9/11, when the reality is not nearly as straight forward.

tl:dr, but even skimming, don't see how this has anything to do with Canada, nor why we would want to import any of that sort of misadventurism into our polity here.

"America, something, something, the CIA didn't blow up the World Trade Centre wanh-wanh-wanh?" So what?

lolol I thought this thread had meandered into Soviet Afghan war because of the last couple of posts about CIA and mujahadeen.

[TheReal_ND]

*clears throat*

[Smitty-48]

lolol I thought this thread had meandered into Soviet Afghan war because of the last couple of posts about CIA and mujahadeen.

Mujahideen. And they were America's stalwart allies against the Communists anyway you slice it, whether you try to launder the money through the ISI or not, so even if we meander into the Soviet Afghan War, I fail to see how America is in any way hands clean in terms of enabling the Mujahideen and associated subsequent Global Jihad, hence; so what?

Your problem, you created it, you lost control of it, and then it backfired on everyone, but what does this have to do with Canader, eh wot?

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

lolol I thought this thread had meandered into Soviet Afghan war because of the last couple of posts about CIA and mujahadeen.

Mujahideen. And they were America's stalwart allies against the Communists anyway you slice it, whether you try to launder the money through the ISI or not, so even if we meander into the Soviet Afghan War, I fail to see how America is in any way hands clean in terms of enabling the Mujahideen and associated subsequent Global Jihad, hence; so what?

It is just making the CIA cagey about funneling drug money to the right wing Canadian ant-Trudeau partisans for weapons. We don't want to lose Main back to you hosers.

[heydaralon]

lolol I thought this thread had meandered into Soviet Afghan war because of the last couple of posts about CIA and mujahadeen.

Mujahideen. And they were America's stalwart allies against the Communists anyway you slice it, whether you try to launder the money through the ISI or not, so even if we meander into the Soviet Afghan War, I fail to see how America is in any way hands clean in terms of enabling the Mujahideen and associated subsequent Global Jihad, hence; so what?

Well, I would agree that the US set the stage for a lot of the bullshit happening in the region, and does bear some responsibility, I just think its too reductive to take one action of that conflict, and lay the whole thing down on the US' feet. In my opinion, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were more complicit in the Afghan problems, and at the time, AQ didn't exist and OBL wasn't shit beyond a face. They were minor in that conflict, did not contribute much to the outcome, and were not beneficiaries of US aid. Yet when the war ended, AQ inflated their importance by acting like the arab fighters led to the fall of the Soviet Union. It seems like many people in the West have taken this explanation at face value without really looking at what happened. The USSR did not leave Afghanistan because a few thousand arabs, many of whom, had never fired a rifle before, decided to show up. It would be like George Clooney claiming that he ended the conflict in Darfur because he visited a refugee camp and mentioned Sudan in an oscar speech.