Canada "not onboard" with U.S. plan to arm Afghan militias: MacKay

The weapons given to the militia will most likely either be sold by the locals or taken from them by the Taliban. Either way they will be ultimately be used against ISAF.

They just never learn do they?

If memory serves me well, didn't they try this in a small asian country, populated by backwards, stoneage people.

Look at how well that turned out for them.

Why don't they face reality, if you want something done properly you've got to do it yourself and arming a unreliable rabble to try and keep your ass safe isn't exactly the best way of going about it.

American solution to all conflicts. Give guns to untrained civilians. Or better yet, train those civilians so one day they will turn against us. There is nothing better than armed tribal militias to greet coalition troops. Yes....nothing better indeed.

Tegan you still think nothing positive has *edit* ever *edit* been accomplished now.

Like if they didn't have enough stuff left by the soviet occupation in the 80s...

Rebuilding this country Tegan, you think that with Pakistan as neighbor they will be able to recover from nothing ? Not with that level of corruption.

Well, gee sapper, if we have already won, what are we still doing there?


Said nothing about being done. Just that despite what you may think, we have accomplished things.

Keep swinging away though.

Seriously Tegan you have to stop jumping to conclusions, it just makes you out to be an arrogant ignorant *itch.

Maybe just my opinion.

But I spent nearly 8 months in Kandahar and I've noticed a lot of improvements, from the very begining to the end, sure with pakistan not taking care of the training camps on their side of the border it's slowing us down, but still we're on the good way, it's just that you wont see it on TV. Especially here in Qc, where it's more important to bash the army in the news than acknoledge anything good we've done.

The public is not very well informed.
That's the kind of things you can just realize offshore...

The militias are the only thing that passes for a police force in some parts of Afghanistan. Arming them is necessary to counter the Taliban who already have guns. Otherwise we have to keep troops in those places elsewise the Taliban just waltz right in after we leave.

Is it the ideal thing to do? No. Any better ideas?

Yes we remove the need for people to have an armed militia. You basicly want to turn the country back to when warlords ruled their own little patch of Afghanistan and there was no formal government.

We needs to be done is remove the need for the locals to have an armed militia. This is done by helping improved the ANP.