Afghanistan

I am mostly sad for the families of the Canadian soldiers and the coalition forces who were killed in Afghanistan  and for the many soldiers who are now maimed because of land mines. But I am also sad for the people of Afghanistan.

Today there is comment that the Taliban will permit women to be part of their government. Is it a wait and see moment? There has just been so much war the last twenty years in Afghanistan and for generations before that. Now an entire generation of children has grown up though in a country where education was available for all desiring it except when the Taliban killed the children and destroyed schools and as always children are the future. One prays that Civil War does not now become the life in Afghanistan. The children deserve peace. 

As a Canadian my interest is in peace for a people that have faced war for the last twenty years and for years before that but that peace must be fair and equal for all in Afghanistan. The Taliban have shown us what they can do can they now make a peace that works for all of the people of Afghanistan?  

They must see that Afghanistan can have a good life given the progress of the last twenty years. What do they want for their people or are they just selfish wanting to continue a ruthless existence that doesn't end up benefiting anyone except for the greedy? 

There is always a price to pay if you support an attack on another country? Human nature demands a response unfortunately. Hating the lifestyle of Western nations does not give one the right to attack them. 

I am surprised at how much my political opinion has changed in this past decade. A staunch Conservative all of my life I actually have been voting Liberal. I hate the way they throw money at everything without a really good plan that is economically sound but they have managed this past year to come up with really good ideas on how to support a country closed down by a pandemic. I really liked the plan to have the WE charity manage support for students last summer and it was perhaps the last straw for me when the Conservatives basically threw a wrench into all of that and destroyed the plan purely for political purposes. Children deserve better; they have suffered a great deal during this pandemic; their schooling interrupted and their social progress put on hold basically. 

Do we need an election? It pumps money into the economy so why not. Anything that gets the economy moving again is a good thing. The Conservatives need to come up with better ideas not just bashing Justin Trudeau. I never voted for his father but have voted for the son because he represents the Liberal party which has managed to pull off this past year and a half in an amazingly good way in spite of their habit of just throwing money at it. This is one time that we need to just continue to pump money into the economy to bring it back. At the moment I can only think of things that I do not like about the Conservative party; it would be nice to see a return to Progressive Conservative not Regressive. I do not want to hear of any talk about rolling back our forward momentum in greening the economy; I support the oil industry because plastics is the future not because we need gas guzzling cars. But we need to manage those plastics; to use their durability rather than their expedience. I never want any discussion on abortion; it is a personal issue and doesn't belong in politics or the criminal code. Young girls died from botched abortions; never again should that happen and that is my opinion since I worked in the hospital when I was 19 years of age and now nearly 76 years of age. Before I worked there I did not believe in abortion but then I was never in the position of needing one so again it is a personal decision. 

And please do not turn vaccination into a political attitude. The need to be vaccinated is paramount; I like being a hermit living mostly in my own space and time and also living with my family. But I got vaccinated because it is the right thing to do as a member of the human race. When I was a child we were vaccinated against smallpox because it was the right thing to do. Killer diseases can only be eradicated by vaccination not by burying your head in the sand (that can kill you just as COVID-19 can kill you). Perhaps the most important thing to do right now is to vaccinate the world and hopefully that will continue at a rapid pace. It would be nice to see stats on that actually and they are available. 31.7%  (as of four hours ago) of the world population has received at least one dose and 23.7% are fully vaccinated. Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations - Statistics and Research - Our World in Data. We still have a long way to go. 37.05 million doses are administered each day at this time.