I think that we should not get involved in Afghanistan beyond working with the Taliban to ensure the safe return of Canadian citizens/permanent residents to Canada and to continue trying to bring Afghans and their families who assisted Canadian soldiers to Canada if they want to come. If the international community puts enough diplomatic pressure on the Taliban I believe they will engage and co-operate. They are now in power and they need to care for their people not enslave them. Celebrating their homeland as no longer being invaded is not how we want to ever be seen again. Getting that involved in a country's process is something we have declined to do in the past and we should continue simply putting diplomatic pressure on the Taliban to fulfill their promise that anyone who wishes to leave Afghanistan may do so. If they can get people to live there under their rule that is on those people but they should let people leave and not murder them for being collaborators. It only creates hate amongst their own people and will ferment rebellion. It would be nice if Afghanistan could have peace; that the children could go to school (all of them) because the world is a better place if people are educated and understand the needs of the world not just the needs of themselves. The world is at a very dangerous crossroads and life on this planet could become very very uncomfortable if we do not concentrate on the main problem which is climate change.
We do need to engage with the Taliban. People are much more responsive if you engage with them rather than undermine them. They like control obviously as they are in power a second time. Being in control also has enormous responsibilities and this time they have an entire generation of children that has had an opportunity to go to school and where women have been part of the administration. One hopes that they will see the advantage to just carrying on with education of the children and having women being part of the administration.
One drape panel left to hem and a little work done on the outside yesterday. Today I continue with the outside mostly but will get that drape hemmed. I can feel the smaller footprint as I clean and yesterday another successful completion of one floor. But having the smaller footprint means that I clean deeper! I need the footprint to be even smaller. I want to end up with just enough furniture and knick knacks for a very small house when all of this is completed. But life is always in flux really and new changes will influence my lifestyle as time moves on.
I would like to vote conservative but Stephen Harper's attack on Fisheries and Library and Archives Canada still reigns high in my thoughts and I need to trust them once again not to go after institutions that oppose some of their deepest commitments like Canada as a major oil producer being the most important product. We do have other products to sell. Hiding that behind the need to balance the budget was pretty lame in my opinion.
The lesson of Lebanon looms large in my mind as well. All of the Lebanese people who came here and obtained Canadian citizenship and then went back to Lebanon at the first sign of trouble in Lebanon immediately clamoured for Canadian help in coming back here. How many have now gone back to Lebanon once again? It is not fair to Canada. We need to have people emigrate here who want to stay. As the daughter of an emigrant (my father and his parents came to Canada when he was a child from England), I voice that opinion because it is only if you become part of the country that you adopt that that country then benefits. My father and his parents never went back to England; they had to say goodbye to all of those relatives although they corresponded with them through the years. Life has changed for sure and you can travel more readily but think of where your roots are? where your loyalties lie? To grow Canada needs people to establish themselves permanently here not get citizenship with its privileges and then go back to their home country when life is good there. Do they actually benefit their home country? Not sure if they do since they take the good jobs and then leave whenever trouble looms putting their native country right back in the state they were when they left originally. As we move further and further away from having religion have any say in our politics; our country will only benefit. Religion is a personal item and should not control how our government manages for us or creates laws.
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