Utter Disgust with Liberals and Conservatives

I'm becoming ever more disheartened with the CPC. They have become just another party of Ottawa hacks where winning a majority becomes the holy grail ... where any principle, any previous stand, and any greater idea is sacrificed on the altar of pure politics. In my opinion, Stephen Harper has led the CPC into this style of skulduggery simply because he's willing to do anything ... and I mean anything, to get that magic majority.

Nothing exemplifies this more than the CPC/Liberal blood bath over detainees in Afghanistan. Both sides are bashing each other while claiming to be better supporters of the troops, when frankly, both the Liberals and CPC can be categorized as limpid troop supporters.

Harper, who came into office with glowing rhetoric about not quitting in Afghanistan has sacrificed the mission for Quebec votes, while the Liberals have a long history of killing the military with pathetic budget support. The CPC too, have hardly increased support as a percentage of GDP, making Canada the pitiable, most miserly, most financially least worthy of NATO nations while committing our troops to one of the most dangerous regions and tasks in all of Afghanistan. In other words, our men and women have, as a percentage of national population, sacrificed more than any other ally in Afghanistan ... yet our country is the most pitiful in what it budgets overall for the military.

Sure, Harper and co. have provided our men and women in Afghanistan with increasingly better equipment, but to think, for a minute, that the Liberals wouldn't have done the same is to be a hopeless partisan hack ... and I know political hacks because I can hack away with the best of them.

So it is, that I have nothing but loathing for the Harper CPC and Liberals when it comes to our military ... they both, like most Canadian political parties before them view our soldiers as little more than political liabilities; a pain in the ass. As long as the boys and girls in camouflage make good photo-ops or vote getters, both the CPC and Liberals are all “Red Friday” ... but the moment these same brave men and women become vote losers they are quickly shuffled off into oblivion ... Harper's utter silence and utter lack of moral support for the mission is shameful. The moment the mission became a liability for attaining the holy grail, our brave leader has hardly uttered a peep about the mission (other than offering rambling, embarrassing, and confusing interviews south of the border).

At this point my fellow conservatives will come rushing in with excuse making ... something to do with that oh so nasty media. To which I say ... if you can't show strong vision and communicate it in the face of a hostile media, you might as well kiss your country goodbye. While men and women die for us in Afghanistan, my fellow conservatives worry about those meanies in the media ... how utterly weak.

The day that Harper vastly increases the military budget so we can at least match most of our NATO allies in budgetary commitment, I may change my tune. The day, our soldiers go into battle on a fleet of MRAPs, instead of death traps, I'll give Harper a nod. The day, we can field a tiny force of 2000 or so soldiers indefinitely in a low level conflict, without burning out the military both in humans and equipment, I'll say that our leaders truly support the troops in every material way possible.

But until that day, I have not one ounce of respect for the machinations and ways of that most despicable creature in all of Canada ... the Canadian Federal political hack.

Adrian has more:

The whole detainee affair, which I’ve largely ignored until now because as far as I’m concerned Canada has done more than it’s fair share of diligence, has spilled over into a partisan fighting match between the Liberals and Conservatives. It wouldn’t make much difference to me, except that the two have now taken to smear attacks on each other involving our military.

The Liberals accuse the Conservatives of using the troops as “props” in the blame game. The Prime Minister’s Office issued an email to the press slamming the Liberals for playing politics with the troops:

“In another Liberal blunder, Michael Ignatieff has issued a statement denouncing the Prime Minister for supporting the men and women of Canada’s Armed Forces.”

But that isn’t really accurate, is it? The Liberals haven’t been denouncing the Prime Minister for supporting the troops, a ridiculous statement to make, but for downplaying the detainee issue. Stephen Harper indeed did invite criticism by employing a tried and tested tactic of using military patriotism in order to deflect away negative attention.

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