Currently viewing the tag: "Afghanistan"
Under the Obama administration, unmanned aircraft have become a weapon of choice for the United States in its fight against suspected terrorists. Warfare by drone is effective, relatively risk-free, and deadly. But America’s ‘Playstation hegemony’ is controversial. “Oversight is a critical feature.”
Canadian forces are expected to remain active in southern Afghanistan after the current Parliamentary mandate for their mission expires at the end of 2011, says Canada’s Defence Minister Peter MacKay. Canadian troops will focus on training and reconstruction work, while U.S. forces will take over their combat tasks.
Canada is suffering a high number of casualties in the war in Afghanistan. It has become customary to pay respects to soldiers who have died in Kandahar along Highway 401 in Ontario. The stretch of road their caskets travel from Trenton to Toronto has been renamed ‘Highway of Heroes’.
Like the Netherlands, Canada is engaged in an intensive debate on whether or not to extend the military mission in southern Afghanistan. “It is time to define what are the attainable strategic goals,” says the Canadian politician and author Michael Ignatieff.
Thousands of Canadians demanded an immediate withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan this weekend. After more than 40 casualties, there’s a growing sense in Canada that the operation in Kandahar is not a peace mission. “We fear that we have become involved in a war we cannot get out of.”
Toronto’s Khadr clan is known as the self-described “Canadian Al-Qaeda family”. Patriarch Ahmed Said Khadr relocated his family from Toronto to Pakistan and Afghanistan to pursue jihad. In Canada, grandmother Elsamnah is trying to help her grandchildren as they return one by one.
Nederlands 
English 