Our Losses in Afghan

Our Losses in Afghanistan

It is always tragic when people die before they have lived full lives. It would be just as tragic if we lost 4 people on holiday in Mexico to bandits. The question is not if our fellow Canadians died but what did they die for.
Why are our soldiers in Afghanistan? They are there to continue the suppression of a determined and deadly enemy who stated objective is to destroy Western civilization (of which we are a part). This fanatical fundamentalist group used Afghanistan as a training ground for terrorists. Terrorists came from around the world to be trained in te basics of using explosives, rocket launchers and various other kinds of weapons. Their next step was to return to their countries of residence and carry forward their revolution. Some attacked the populations of the countries in which they lived. In other cases the terrorists used their country of residence (like Canada) as a staging area to mount attacks against our neighbors to the south.
Our soldiers are in Afghanistan as our small part in the war against this terrorist organization. When you destroy the terrorists training facilities you begin to reduce their ability to slaughter victims in Canada and our Western allies. Our soldiers are participating in a war which has been foisted upon us by these fanatics who want to bring the whole world under Sharia law and make all nations Muslim.
Where should we deal with the terrorists? In the countries they come from or only when they come fully trained to submerge themselves in our population and after they have slaughtered our citizens by their attacks. It is certainly better to deal with these monsters before they are loose in our population. Who would you have facing these killers? Should our local police be expected to face terrorists who use military weapons and explosives. Should we expect our local populations to face terrorists attacks with petitions, fishing rods and baseball bats (the only _weapons  our former government thought citizens should possess). Is it not much better that our soldiers who have training  military weapons and vehicles face our enemies in their own countries?
These are only the selfish reasons why our soldiers should be in Afghanistan. The fact that people in another country are being oppressed, tortured and killed by these fanatics should move us in compassion to free them and keep them free from oppression.
Have Canadians completely lost perspective on our responsibilities to those in other countries that we would sit in safety while others live in misery and oppression? Are we so short sighted that we do not understand that we have attacked by an enemy whose objective is to make us into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban? Why do we close our eyes to the fact that we are dealing with a well funded, fanatical organization that hates us and aims to destroy us, our country and our civilization. This enemy will not be turned from its objectives by treaties or concessions. They attack us based on their religious understanding of the world and only elimination of the organization and those who continue to follow it_s principles will bring peace.
Our soldiers have died as part of this struggle. We should mourn them. We should honor them. We should support their families. We should make sure their families are taken care of because of the great sacrifice they have made to keep us free. These heros volunteered to lay their lives on the line for us. Surely we will not dishonor their sacrifice and memory by using their deaths as a pretext to sit on our hands until the fanatics begin terrorizing our cities.

Don Cook