I tried showing someone at work some pictures from my travels only to find out that Flickr would only show the latest 200 or so pictures unless I signed for an account with a fee of around $25 per year. When I transfered my pictures from Yahoo!Photos to Flickr, they didn't mention this deal.
I'm a little miffed about it. In know it's not a lot of money, but I'd rather pay for online hosting and setup my own web gallery. Time to do it is the primary issue.
In the meantime though, you can see some of the pictures in this blog here (a lot of the photos from India were not included for some reason). I also replaced the link to my Flickr photos with the same link.
In the meantime, I should slowly start on the web albums...
Friday, January 18, 2008
Book Review: The Unexpected War, Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang
In the fall, I read "The Unexpected War, Canada in Afghanistan", written by Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang. I'm not sure but I think Mr. Lang is a journalist who writes for the Globe and Mail. Ms. Stein regularly appears on tvo on The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Mr. Painkin's show is excellent and really worth watching if you want to know more about the world and the major events that happen in it).
When this book was published, it got a lot of coverage on the news. It got a lot of fanfare and some good reviews. The authors were interviewed on the different news networks. I'd been following the news about Afghanistan and its effect on our Canadian politics so I was curious about the book and decided to read it.
The book is a story on how Canada got involved in Afghanistan. The authors interviewed the principal people involved in the decision to go there from the politicians to the military personnel and even former prime minister Paul Martin. .
The story has some surprises. In 2003, when the US was getting ready to invade Iraq, a lot of Canadians (including me) were proud that our government made the decision not to go along and be part of the invasion force. It turns out that the American military didn't really want or need us to help in a military way, but rather was looking more for public moral support and help in convincing other countries to join. Apparently they didn't think our military capability was sufficient enough be much good to them. Other surprises in the story regard the way the decisions regarding Canada's presence in Afghanistan were made.
When Jean Chretien did not play along and declared that Canada would not be joining the invasion force, there was a lot hand wringing in the military and political circles around Ottawa that relations with the US were being damaged and we would suffer economic and political consequences. The book argues, with some interesting quotes, that our presence in Afghanistan was primarily a way to placate the US and show that we support them in their response to the airplane attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.
The big surprise to me was that, according to the authors, the decision was made to go to Afghanistan without knowing anything about the country or it's people, an idea of the exact role that we would play, nor the real military capability to be effective in that area.
The initial strategy was "early in, early out"; meaning that Canada would be part of the initial push to set up in Afghanistan but would rotate out after a year or two. A fairly short term commitment, but politically beneficial for relations with the US. This is very far from the current idea of a brave noble mission to bring peace and democracy to a people ravaged by 30 years of war and oppression by a militant group of fundamentalist muslims. The book paints a picture of an exclusively European effort in a more peaceful region in northern Afghanistan telling the Canadian group to find their own mission somewhere else. It seems that there were no plans at the time for the Kandahar region so that's where our military and political people decided that Canada would play a lead role. That decision was made before anyone from the government or military had even visited Afghanistan !
An interesting chapter in the book is titled "We Don't Know Anything About This Country" in which the authors briefly explain the history of Afghanistan and describe some of the tribal relationships in the area. They also used this chapter to illustrate that the decision to go to Afghanistan had more to do with make people in Washington happy than helping poor impoverished Afghanis.
There are some interesting side stories. I've always thought highly of Bill Graham and the book shows that he was an excellent foreign minister. You wouldn't know it by watching news clips of him, but the story also describes John McCallum as an excellent defense minister. General Rick Hillier also gets a good mention.
Overall, I found the book to be a good read. It helps that I'm interested in the topic anyway, but I think that anyone with the slightest interest in Canada's role in Afghanistan would find the book interesting. I also think that the topic of Afghanistan will play a major part in the looming federal election. Given that, I think that the general Canadian public should be aware of how we got to Afghanistan, what exactly we went there to do, and how that differs from what we are doing there now. Reading this book is one way of gaining this awareness.
Highly recommended reading.
When this book was published, it got a lot of coverage on the news. It got a lot of fanfare and some good reviews. The authors were interviewed on the different news networks. I'd been following the news about Afghanistan and its effect on our Canadian politics so I was curious about the book and decided to read it.
The book is a story on how Canada got involved in Afghanistan. The authors interviewed the principal people involved in the decision to go there from the politicians to the military personnel and even former prime minister Paul Martin. .
The story has some surprises. In 2003, when the US was getting ready to invade Iraq, a lot of Canadians (including me) were proud that our government made the decision not to go along and be part of the invasion force. It turns out that the American military didn't really want or need us to help in a military way, but rather was looking more for public moral support and help in convincing other countries to join. Apparently they didn't think our military capability was sufficient enough be much good to them. Other surprises in the story regard the way the decisions regarding Canada's presence in Afghanistan were made.
When Jean Chretien did not play along and declared that Canada would not be joining the invasion force, there was a lot hand wringing in the military and political circles around Ottawa that relations with the US were being damaged and we would suffer economic and political consequences. The book argues, with some interesting quotes, that our presence in Afghanistan was primarily a way to placate the US and show that we support them in their response to the airplane attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.
The big surprise to me was that, according to the authors, the decision was made to go to Afghanistan without knowing anything about the country or it's people, an idea of the exact role that we would play, nor the real military capability to be effective in that area.
The initial strategy was "early in, early out"; meaning that Canada would be part of the initial push to set up in Afghanistan but would rotate out after a year or two. A fairly short term commitment, but politically beneficial for relations with the US. This is very far from the current idea of a brave noble mission to bring peace and democracy to a people ravaged by 30 years of war and oppression by a militant group of fundamentalist muslims. The book paints a picture of an exclusively European effort in a more peaceful region in northern Afghanistan telling the Canadian group to find their own mission somewhere else. It seems that there were no plans at the time for the Kandahar region so that's where our military and political people decided that Canada would play a lead role. That decision was made before anyone from the government or military had even visited Afghanistan !
An interesting chapter in the book is titled "We Don't Know Anything About This Country" in which the authors briefly explain the history of Afghanistan and describe some of the tribal relationships in the area. They also used this chapter to illustrate that the decision to go to Afghanistan had more to do with make people in Washington happy than helping poor impoverished Afghanis.
There are some interesting side stories. I've always thought highly of Bill Graham and the book shows that he was an excellent foreign minister. You wouldn't know it by watching news clips of him, but the story also describes John McCallum as an excellent defense minister. General Rick Hillier also gets a good mention.
Overall, I found the book to be a good read. It helps that I'm interested in the topic anyway, but I think that anyone with the slightest interest in Canada's role in Afghanistan would find the book interesting. I also think that the topic of Afghanistan will play a major part in the looming federal election. Given that, I think that the general Canadian public should be aware of how we got to Afghanistan, what exactly we went there to do, and how that differs from what we are doing there now. Reading this book is one way of gaining this awareness.
Highly recommended reading.
Neglected Blog...
I've been meaning to post something on here for a while but haven't gotten around to it until now. I've been busy with work on a project for Chrysler and a lot of work needed to be finished before Christmas.
I thought I'd have time to sit down and write something over the Christmas break, but I was too busy eating cookies and watching tv...the couch had a deathgrip on my butt too.
I've got a bunch of thoughts and ideas that I'd like to put here, so I'll try to make habit of posting regularly on here this year.
I thought I'd have time to sit down and write something over the Christmas break, but I was too busy eating cookies and watching tv...the couch had a deathgrip on my butt too.
I've got a bunch of thoughts and ideas that I'd like to put here, so I'll try to make habit of posting regularly on here this year.
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