Topic: Implications for Canadians in Afghanistan if Iraqi Insurgents Win

[Griffin]

Considering the way things are going in Iraq, with the apparent loss of public support in the US/Britain for the Iraq mission, what do you believe will be the implications if the insurgents win in Iraq, regarding:

1.  Cdn. troops in Afghanistan?
2.  The impact on the region?
3.  More global concerns?

[MCG]

Griffin,
What are your thoughts?

[Synthos]

The insurgents that are in Iraq now would wage for control, land, property etc... They won't just high five and hike it out of there if the US backs out.

There would be much less incentive for new recruits from foreign countries to go to Iraq, unless they wanted in on the brawl fest that would likely take place there.

1. There might be an increase to the flow of foreign fighters into Afghanistan because the insurgents would view Iraq as a "victory against America and the Western World". Emboldening them to their cause. Some, however, might be happy enough with just them out of Iraq.

2. Iran/Syria might make a play to envelope Iraq (this is my guess, not based in fact)... Although this would likely cause a lot of Sunni deaths because AFAIK Iran/Syria aren't too buddy buddy with Sunnis. Iran supposedly backed Shiite candidates in the Iraq elections.

3. Globally it will be the nail in the coffin of US foreign policy. It didn't work in Vietnam, and it hasn't worked in Iraq.

[Griffin]

Griffin,
What are your thoughts?

I have a few thoughts, however would be interested in hearing others comments first, hence the question rather than an outright statement.  Not playing games, just interested in other perpsectives.  Not to worry, I will probably weigh in.

[Thucydides]

We could be on the receiving end of this:

http://www.therant.us/staff/kraft/10242006.htm

December 7, 2008
Terrorism Raymond S. Kraft
October 24, 2006
 
December 7, 2008, began inauspiciously.
 
At 0753 at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the attack that had triggered America's entry into World War II, sixty-seven years before, was ceremoniously commemorated, an honor guard, taps, a 21-gun salute, the bugle's notes and the rifles' crack drifting across the bay to the USS Arizona memorial, where Admiral Arthur Peterson, USN Ret., laid a wreath in memory of the sailors sleeping below, one of whom was his own grandfather.
 
On the West coast it was 1053, and in Washington D.C. it was one fifty-three in the afternoon, 1353 military time.
 
In 2006 America, tired of War in Iraq, had elected Democrats to modest majorities in both houses of Congress. Representative Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency. In the spring of 2007, on a narrow, party-line vote, Congress, led by Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer refused to authorize spending to continue the war in Iraq, and set September 30, 2007, as the deadline for complete withdrawal of American troops.
 
President Bush spoke to the country, to the American forces in Iraq, to those who had been there, and to the Iraqi people, to apologize for the short-sightedness and irresponsibility of the American congress and the tragedy he believed would follow after leaving task of nurturing a representative and stable government in Iraq half done, his voice choked, tears running down his stoic face, a betrayal of emotion for which he was resoundingly criticized and denounced in much of America's media.
 
The level of violence across Iraq immediately subsided, as the Americans began preparations to redeploy back to the States. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised the new Congress for its clear vision and sound judgment. America's Democrats rejoiced and congratulated themselves for bringing peace with honor and ending the illegal war based on lies that George Bush had begun only to enrich his friends in the military-industrial complex, and promised to retake the Presidency in 2008.
 
"The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls."
 
At 1000 on September 30, 2007, precisely on schedule, the last C-5A Galaxy carrying the last company of American combat troops in Iraq had roared down the Baghdad runway and lifted into the air. Only a few hundred American technical and military advisers and political liaisons remained in-country.
 
The Galaxy's wheels had scarcely retracted when Iraq erupted in the real civil war many had feared and foreseen, and which many others had predicted would not happen if only the American imperialists left Iraq. Sunni militias, Shia militias, and Al Qaeda militias ravaged and savaged the country, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis known or suspected to have collaborated with the Americans, killing Shias for being Shias, Sunnis for being Sunnis, Americans for being Americans, and anyone else who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 
By noon, not one of the American advisers and liaisons left behind remained alive. Many had been beheaded as they screamed. Most of their bodies were dumped in the river and never seen again. In the next thirty days more than a million Iraqis died. The General Assembly of the United Nations voted to condemn the violence, and recessed for lunch and martinis. In America, there was no political will to redeploy back to Iraq. And after a few months of rabid bloodletting, the situation in Iraq calmed to a tense simmer of sporadic violence and political jockeying, punctuated by the occasional assassination, while several million refugees fled the country. Only Kurdistan, in the north, which had thrown up a line of its Peshmurga fighters to keep the southern violence away, remained stable and at relative peace.
 
In the spring of 2008 America began its quadrennial circus of a national election, and in November elected a Democrat, the Junior Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as it next president, to the surprise of few. Her running mate, to the surprise of many, was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose intelligence, charisma, and reputation as an indefatigable campaigner for gay marriage and the homeless of San Francisco helped solidify Clinton's support among liberal Democrats who only grudgingly forgave her for not openly opposing the Iraq war sooner, and the Clinton-Newsom ticket went to the top with a narrow 50.2% lead over Republican John McCain's 49.8% of the popular vote, despite, or perhaps because of, Clinton's and Newsom's lack of foreign policy and military experience.
 
America, or a slim voting majority of it, felt it had had all the war it ever wanted to see, and Hillary had led her party to a glorious (if narrow) victory with the unambiguous slogan: "Clinton & Newsom: No More War." Crowds at every whistle stop had cheered and chanted, No more war! No more war! No more war! At victory parties George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice were hung and sometimes burned in effigy, enthusiastic crowds chanted "No more war!" many times more, and local bands cranked up the theme from the first Clinton electoral victory, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow...yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone...," and indeed, it was.
 
President Bush had been a very lame duck since the 2006 election, and with a Democratic Congress could do little but veto most of the bills it sent him. The Democrats couldn't override his vetoes, so for nearly two years almost nothing important had been accomplished by anyone on the Hill or in the White House. After the 2008 election it was transition time, flocks and herds of thoroughly demoralized Republican staff began leaving Washington in search of greener pastures, Congress adjourned for the Holidays, Democrats came house hunting, and Clinton and Newsom began the briefings they would get from a fully cooperative Bush administration on the state of the nation and the state of the world they would inherit and have to cope with for the next four years, or eight, and in those last weeks of November both Hillary and Gavin seemed to age rather quickly. The exhilaration of the campaign was over, and the weight of a tumultuous world began to settle on their shoulders.
 
Back in early October, 2006, North Korean President (for life) Kim Jong Il had announced the detonation of a nuclear bomb deep in a tunnel in the stony mountains of North Korea. The seismic signature had been small, and American intelligence at first doubted whether it had been a nuclear explosion at all. Traces of radioactive emissions were detected a few days later, and the intelligence estimate revised to conclude that it had been a failed test that produced perhaps only 10% or less of the expected yield, only 0.5 to 1.5 kilotons, not the 20 kilotons, at least, that Western intelligence had anticipated.
 
Kim Jong Il gloated. The deception had worked. The Americans were thinking in terms of long range intercontinental ballistic missiles with huge warheads that they could shoot out of the sky with their sophisticated billion-dollar anti-missile defense systems. He was thinking in terms of small warheads carried by small, medium range cruise missiles that could be launched from many places, and infiltrated close enough to slip in under the radar and hit America's coastal cities.
 
On the evening of December 6, 2008, a junior analyst in the National Security Agency was going over routine satellite photo production of ship movements in the Atlantic and Pacific within a thousand miles of the US coasts. Late in the shift he thought he saw something through a haze of fatigue and caffeine, and called a supervisor over to talk.
 
"Look," he said, photos up on several computer screens, more printed out and spread across his desk, "See? These boats, not big ships, fishing boats, yachts, they've been moving in along shipping lanes for several days, across from the South Pacific toward the West coast, up from the South Atlantic toward the east. Nothing very unusual, they're all small and slow, and scattered up and down the oceans, it seems, but if you look at the times and courses..." and he pulled out a chart he had plotted, "They're approaching so they will all arrive at about the same time, or all be about the same distance off the coast at about the same time...," he trailed off.
 
The supervisor looked a bit quizzical. "Coincidence? Probably. You need more sleep. Too much fun in the night, eh? Let me know if you see something we can do something with." And walked away.
 
At 0723 Hawaii time on the 67th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack three old fishing trawlers, about 100 miles apart, and each about 300 miles off the east coast, launched six small cruise missiles from launch tubes that could be dismantled and stored in the holds under ice, or fish, and set up in less than an hour. The missiles were launched at precisely one minute intervals. As soon as each boat had launched its pair, the skeleton crew began to abandon ship into a fast rubber inflatable. The captain was last off, and just before going overboard started the timer on the scuttling charges. Fifteen minutes later and ten miles away, each crew was going up the nets into a small freighter or tanker of Moroccan or Liberian registry, where each man was issued new identification as ship's crew. The rubber inflatables were shot and sunk, and just about then charges in the bilges of each of the three trawlers blew the hulls out, and they sank with no one on board and no distress signals in less than two minutes.
 
The missiles had been built in a joint operation by North Korea and Iran, and tested in Iran, so they would not have to overfly any other country. The small nuclear warheads had only been tested deep underground. The GPS guidance and detonating systems had worked perfectly, after a few corrections. They flew fifty feet above sea level, and 500 feet above ground level on the last leg of the trip, using computers and terrain data modified from open market technology and flight directors, autopilots, adapted from commercial aviation units. They would adjust speed to arrive on target at specific times and altitudes, and detonate upon reaching the programmed GPS coordinates. They were not as adaptable and intelligent as American cruise missiles, but they did not need to be. Not for this mission.
 
They were small, less than twenty feet long, and only 18 inches in diameter, powered by small, quiet, fuel-efficient, high-bypass turbofans, and painted in a mottled light blue and light gray ghost camouflage. Cruising at 600 knots, just below the speed of sound, they were nearly impossible to see or hear. They came in under the radar until they reached the coast. After that they were lost in the ground clutter. Nobody saw it coming.
 
At precisely 0753, Hawaii time, 1353 in the District of Columbia, sixty-seven years to the minute after the Pearl Harbor attack began, the first of six missiles to hit the Washington area exploded in a huge white burst of nuclear fire just 500 feet above the White House, which disappeared in a mist of powdered plaster and stone, concrete and steel. President Bush and President-Elect Clinton had been meeting with Condoleezza Rice and Mrs. Clinton's national security adviser, reviewing the latest National Security Estimate, when they instantaneously turned into a plasma of the atomic elements that had once been human beings. No trace remained.
 
Alarms immediately began going off all over Washington, and precisely one minute later the second missile exploded just as it struck the Capital dome, instantly turning thousands of tons of granite that had one moment before been the nation's center of government into thousands of tons of granite shrapnel that shredded several square miles of Washington like a leviathan Claymore mine. At precisely one minute intervals, four more 3 kiloton nuclear weapons exploded at an altitude of 500 feet AGL above the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters, the NSA headquarters, the FBI headquarters, all of which were fully staffed in the middle of the day. In five minutes, the government of the United States of America was decapitated, and a quarter million of the people who made the place run were dead, or dying, or had simply disappeared.
 
Also at 1353 Eastern time, a missile had blown off just above the New York Stock Exchange, in New York City, and thousands of years of collective financial knowledge and experience evaporated in the nuclear flame. In one minute intervals, others had hit the financial centers of Boston and Baltimore, and the Naval base at Norfolk, Virginia.
 
Simultaneously, within the same 10-minute window of hell, nuclear tipped cruise missiles devastated the largest intermodel shipping facility on the West coast at San Pedro harbor, exploded just above the Library Tower in central Los Angeles, and short circuited the computer technology ghetto of Silicon Valley in Santa Clara County, big time. One exploded ten feet away from the top of the Bank of America Building in San Francisco and set much of the east slope of the city ablaze. Another giant fireball flared among the phalanx of office towers along the Capitol Mall in Sacramento, instantly obliterating Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state government of California, the largest state economy in the US, the seventh largest economy in the world. Two ripped open the heart of Portland, Oregon, one shattered the financial district of Seattle, and the last one turned the Microsoft campus into a pillar of fire and smoke, wiping from the face of history, in a second, the IT giant that had revolutionized global communications.
 
It was 0803, Hawaii time. Ten minutes.
 
Three million Americans dead. And not a trace of the assault fleet remained on the surface of any ocean.
 
Vice-President Elect Gavin Newsom was in his bedroom at home in Pacific Heights, his window overlooking the Golden Gate and the Marin bluffs. He thought he heard an oddly loud crack of thunder and saw a flash reflected on the hills across the inlet, but it was a clear day and nothing else seemed out of place. He continued packing for the return trip to Washington, his second since the election, to continue his transition briefings and begin organizing his staff. His nomination as Hillary's running mate had come as a huge surprise, and he was elated.
 
Someone rapped on the door, loudly, twice, and without waiting for a reply the senior Secret Service officer on his detail opened it and stepped quickly in. "Come with me, now," he said. Gavin was startled. "I need to finish packing," he replied.
 
"No time, sir. Something has happened. Very big. I fear. No details yet. We have to get you out of here, NOW! RIGHT NOW! GO! GO! GO!" He grabbed Newsom's arm, swung him around, and pushed him out the door, where two other Secret Service agents flanked him down the stairs and out to a running black Suburban waiting in the garage. They pushed him into the back seat, jumped in, and the driver gunned the engine, out the drive, down the street, tires squealing. Nobody spoke until they were headed over the Bridge, northbound at seventy-five miles an hour, weaving through the traffic which wasn't yet the gridlock it would soon become.
 
"What the hell's going on?" he finally demanded.
 
"Okay. This is what I know," the officer said. "The US has apparently sustained multiple nuclear attacks in the last fifteen minutes, including Washington D.C. and San Francisco. Financial district. We're not sure how many, at least ten, maybe twenty. Lots of dead.  Got the White House, the Capital, the Pentagon. Our job is to get you on an airplane at the nearest functioning airport, that'll be Novato, and get you to a safe place.  Prestissimo."
 
"Where?" Newsom asked. Things were moving way too fast now.
 
"Don't know yet. We'll get orders."
 
The Air Force Learjet had been airborne for two minutes when a cell phone buzzed, and the Secret Service captain answered it and handed it off to the Vice President Elect. "It's Mr. Cheney, sir," he said.
 
"Gavin?" Dick Cheney asked. "Yes, sir," Newsom replied, subdued, for the events of the last hour had sobered up his elated mood considerably.
 
"Okay, Gavin. I don't know what you know, so I'll tell you what I can. There have been approximately 20 nuclear strikes on government and financial targets in the US, about an hour ago. No real damage estimate yet, except that it's awful. A hundred times 9/11, maybe a thousand times. I happened to be at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and have moved into Cheyenne Mountain to set up a temporary HQ, until we get things sorted out. As you know Cheyenne was vacated by NORAD a few years ago, so we have plenty of space. You will be flown here, nonstop."
 
"I know you haven't a lot of national and international experience." Cheney had thought of saying that Newsom had none, but Newsom would be too painfully aware of that. He didn't need reminding. "The President is missing and presumed dead. So is Mrs. Clinton. So you may become the next president, in about six weeks. I don't know.  he Constitution says the Vice President succeeds a president who is dead or disabled, but it doesn't say what happens if the President Elect dies before being inaugurated. I suppose the Court will have to answer that, if we can cobble one together by then. In the meantime, I will assume you will be inaugurated. You'll have a steep learning curve, a real steep curve. All presidents do, under the best of circumstances, and these are not the best of circumstances."
 
The next day a hard winter storm roared down the West coast from Alaska, pelting rescue workers in bombed out city centers with hard, cold rain, that did not let up for a week. People alive but injured or trapped in the wreckage died of hypothermia before they were found. Two days later, a cold front out of Canada brought heavy snow to the Northeast. Millions were already without electricity, and in a week of subzero weather hundreds of thousands more died. More than four million, altogether. More than one of every one hundred Americans.
 
Al Qaeda had picked December 7 because it was the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and because, just before Christmas, the Infidel holiday, it would destroy the Christmas shopping season so important to so many retailers, driving another nail into the national economy of the Great Satan. And it would destroy the festive spirit of the season for millions of Americans, perhaps for all. The perfect psyop. Psychological warfare. And the weather forecasters had predicted severe winter storms on both coasts during the week immediately after disaster.
 
Al Qaeda leaders had calculated, correctly, that by turning up the violence in Iraq during the weeks before the 2006 election it could achieve an anti-war Democratic Congress that would vote to end America's wars in the Middle East, and then by turning down the violence in Iraq after the election of an anti-war Democratic Congress, it could lull America into a false sense of safety and security in anticipation of the "peace in our time" that America's new ruling party had promised would follow from what Al Qaeda perceived, correctly, as America's retreat before the unstoppable determination of the Islamic Resistance Movement, the Jihad. America did not call it that, of course. The Americans thought they were just ending a bad and illegal war ginned up by George W. Bush to depose Saddam Hussein who had proven not to have WMDs after all, the ones the Americans had never found, the ones buried in Syria. Al Qaeda saw more clearly. It was a capitulation, a de facto surrender of the Middle East to the coming Islamic Caliphate that would someday rule the world. The martyrs of Islam had beaten the Great Satan to its knees. In time they would cut off its head.
 
By Christmas, the American economy had imploded. Inflation soared, unemployment soared, businesses closed, cities that had suffered direct hits became ghost towns. Tax revenues evaporated, leaving state governments without funds to pay unemployment benefits or teachers' salaries. With the New York Stock Exchange gone, stock trading ended, and values plummeted. Retirement assets and pension funds disappeared in a wink. Nobody knew what to expect. Real estate crashed, and major banks filed for bankruptcy. With the collapse of the American economy, the largest on earth, the most productive country on earth, with just 5% of the global population producing one third of the global economic output, the rest of the global economy fell into chaos. Oil shipments stopped, food shipments stopped, and in that winter millions of people in third world countries starved to death.
 
The America era was over.
 
"In the spring of 1941, Nazi Germany was poised to dominate the earth. France, the low countries, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, and much of Poland had been overrun by the Germans. All of Europe, save neutral Sweden and Switzerland, was in the hands of Hitler's friends and allies: dictators or monarchs who ruled fascist Italy, Vichy France, Franco's Spain, Portugal, the Balkan countries, Finland, and above all the Soviet Union."
 
"A single German division under General Erwin Rommel, sent to rescue beleaguered Italians in Libya, drove Britain's Middle Eastern armies flying and threatened the Suez lifeline; while in Iraq a coup d'etat by the pro-German Rashid Ali cut the land road to India. In Asia, Germany's ally, Japan, was coiled to strike, ready to take Southeast Asia and invade India. No need to involve the United States; by seizing the Indies, Japan could break the American embargo and obtain all the oil needed for the Axis Powers to pursue their war aims.
 
"Hitler should have sent the bulk of his armies to serve under Rommel, who would have done what Alexander did and Bonaparte failed to do: He would have taken the Middle East and led his armies to India. There he would have linked up with the Japanese. Europe, Asia, and Africa, would have belonged to the coalition of dictators and militarists."
 
"The Nazi-Soviet-Japanese alliance commanded armed forces and resources that utterly dwarfed the military resources that the holdouts, Britain (with its empire), and the United States, could field. The English-speaking countries would have been isolated in a hostile world and would have had no realistic option but to make their peace with the enemy, retaining some autonomy for a time, perhaps, but doomed ultimately to succumb. Nazi Germany, as leader of the coalition, would have ruled the world."
 
"Only Hitler's astonishing blunder in betraying and invading his Soviet ally kept it from happening." - David Frompkin, Professor of International Relations and History, Boston University, writing in What If: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (Putnam 1999) pp. 308, 309.
 
History is made, wars are won and lost, cultures and nations and civilizations come and go, rise and fall, as much by blunders as by victories.
 
The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls.

Raymond S. Kraft is an attorney and writer in northern California.

Obviously the worst case scenario, but we must always base our plans on enemy capabilities, not intentions. Today both capabilities and intentions are quite clear.

[Carcharodon Carcharias]

Considering the way things are going in Iraq, with the apparent loss of public support in the US/Britain for the Iraq mission, what do you believe will be the implications if the insurgents win in Iraq, regarding:

1.  Cdn. troops in Afghanistan?
2.  The impact on the region?
3.  More global concerns?

Welcome to the website Griffin. Perhaps enlighten us all by filling out your profile to actually who you are.

As for insurgents winning, well that will not happen. Although from my prospective I see and hear alot with what goes on here, the size of this operation in Baghdad alone, well its almost unimaginable.

We are right smack in the middle of it, which includes the good and the bad. More good here happens than the bad (the mdeia don't tell you that), and slowly the ISF are stepping up to the plate, although corruption, graft and inflitration into the IP and Army are a concern.

Don't believe everything you hear from the media, for they are a bigger problem than the enemy, that is a fact! Things are going not as bad as the media goes off about, so wherever you get your info from, well think again.   

Failure by the Coalition, however is not an option. We WILL win.

In my opinion, for those know-it-all students and 'armchair' generals who think they have figured out the US foreign policy in Iraq, well put it this way, look at the whole thing like sex, you can read about it, hear stories, see the graphs and movies, perhaps maybe even fantasise about it, but unless you are here, taste it, smell it  and experience it well then, STFU!

From Baghdad,

Wes

EDITed for spelling and clarity

[GAP]

We could be on the receiving end of this:

http://www.therant.us/staff/kraft/10242006.htm

Obviously the worst case scenario, but we must always base our plans on enemy capabilities, not intentions. Today both capabilities and intentions are quite clear.

What the Democrates have never learned, and Republicans have to keep cleaning up after a Democrat tenure, is that what Canadians & Americans consider getting along, is perceived by most of the world as weakness.

Every Democratic President has put the US into a less stable situation, compromised it's security, and generally come across as weak kneed wimps. This is eventually going to bite the US big time, and that's taking into account 9/11.

This scenario, one similar, is not that unrealistic.

[Journeyman]

While avoiding the actual question asked, I would comment on one point within Kraft's scenario:

The level of violence across Iraq immediately subsided, as the Americans began preparations to redeploy back to the States.

Not going to happen. With an impending withdrawal, you'd get all of the fence-sitters, out-of-towners, and pseudo-allies jumping into the fray with both feet...to prove to the inevitable "jihadi loyalty inquisition" that they had been faithfully fighting the infidels.

[GAP]

Well Griffin....I think it's time you stepped up to the plate. Interesting subject, thoughtfull articles, and this thread should generate some good discussion, unless it was initiated by a troll.

So step up, fill out the profile to give yourself credence, and state your views. If not then I don't think we should feed the fishies

[dglad]

We could be on the receiving end of this:



Obviously the worst case scenario, but we must always base our plans on enemy capabilities, not intentions. Today both capabilities and intentions are quite clear.

Cool and all too plausible story.  The only flaw is the lack of the inevitable spasm of US nuclear retaliation.  Given such a scale of attacks, I rather doubt that the US would be inclined to hold back from incinerating Pyongyang, Tehran, and probably points inside Russia and China, since this goes well beyond terrorism and into a strategic attack on the US--a scenario for which the US strategic nuclear forces were specifically designed.  None of which is comforting, of course, because the continuation of THAT story is far uglier than what the writer offers in this one.

[Griffin]

Griffin,
What are your thoughts?

Here you go; just a few comments.

1.  Cdn. troops in Afghanistan?

If Iraq falls to Al-Qaeda, it will be a natural launching point into Afghanistan, hence problems for our troops.  As the zealots that are now in Iraq will be looking for more of the same, and the close proximity to Afghanistan, plus the fact that many Islamic states either look the other way or support the terrorists in one form or another, the pressure on NATO would logically increase.  Our 'air bridges' for supplies, re-enforcements, etc. may become more difficult and hazardous as a conseqence.  Facing this mess, the USA is even talking now about having something less than a western style democracy, as long as the Iraqui government stops the current state of things.

2.  The impact on the region?

If they can destabilize not only Iraq, then all the 'Stan countries could follow, along with increased confidence for them to set their sites on Arab states that are friendly to the west.  What many commentators are worried about is a coallessing of these elements, that with a nuclear weaponized Iran could be extremely dangerous.  Consider also the near manic attitude Turkey has exhibited towards there being a Kurdish state south of their borders.  This has included some rather draconian statements in the past that the government would invade norther Iraq to stop such an eventuallity.  When one looks at the local, regional, and global aspects of this mess, one can't help but think back to the Balkans and what led up to WWI, except for the fact this is on a much larger scale.

3.  More global concerns?

Spill over affects could be in Pakistan, which could setoff new concerns regarding the Kashmir dispute.  The President of Pakistan has already survived a couple of assassination attempts, and it wouldn't be out of the question that if they are successful, and if the elements in the Pakistan Intell that supported the Taliban government get back into power, this could not only mean serious border problems with Afghanistan, but also with India.  Having all these countries with nukes, and having crazed passions driving them on, makes this all the more worrisome.  Of course you can add in the fact that Al-Qaeda has had a presence in Somalia, Kenya, and other parts of Africa, and consider that the largest moslem population is in Indonesia that has already seen its share of problems, the problems with Islamic terrorists in Thailand, and I'm sure all of you could add more countries, this is looking considerably more of security concern for the west than what it has had to contend with for decades.

I hope the federal government listens to the 3 reports the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence have written with special attention to urgently increasing manpower, budgets, equipment, and other assets.  The current and forecasted increases just won't do the job in this increasingly dangerous global situation.  That's even before one considers the appalling lack of resources for the home front.

[Griffin]

Well Griffin....I think it's time you stepped up to the plate. Interesting subject, thoughtfull articles, and this thread should generate some good discussion, unless it was initiated by a troll.

While I understand why some would be wary of trolls, I would hope that new members to this forum, such as myself, would be given at least a fair opportunity to get acquainted with a new venue and be judged on their posts over a reasonable period of time.  Jumping on the newbies isn't a good way to encourage new membership, and over the years I've seen this turn off people.  It is also a disincentive for the 'read only' types to get involved.  Some may outright leave what they view as a hostile environment, which means a loss to the forum concerned, and even more likely they will warn people off.  Enough said on that.

You may even find my comments today on this Subject worthy of reading and maybe even debating.

[Michael O'Leary]

Jumping on the newbies isn't a good way to encourage new membership, and over the years I've seen this turn off people.

So, how long have you been observing activities here and gathering data?

[GAP]

I still appreciate having a sense of whom I am talking to, and right now you are closer to filling the definition of a troll, than that of a interested participant who just happens to start controversail threads and sits back and watchs the comments roll in.

[George Wallace]

While I understand why some would be wary of trolls, I would hope that new members to this forum, such as myself, would be given at least a fair opportunity to get acquainted with a new venue and be judged on their posts over a reasonable period of time.  Jumping on the newbies isn't a good way to encourage new membership, and over the years I've seen this turn off people.  It is also a disincentive for the 'read only' types to get involved. 

Griffin

If you were at a Social Gathering would you just walk up to a group and blurt out some comment and expect them to accept you whole-heartedly into whatever conversation they were having, even if what you blurted out had nothing to do with the conversation?  Talk about an 'ice breaker'.  More like a good way to earn several 'icy' stares.

By the way......Welcome to our little 'conversational group'.

[Griffin]

So, how long have you been observing activities here and gathering data?

Good question. I only became active with this forum in the last month.  No prior involvement, although I have been involved in other forums, including military ones for years.  For those so interested in profiles, I will add that I served with the GGHG for about 3-years, a member of the GGHG Association even though I now reside in BC, and am a member of the Legion and CCS21.  I have been asked to join the RCMI, which I expect I may do in the next year, as I make business trips to ON that let me visit my old regiment, and meet other former CF members.  Upon moving west and I spent 25 years either in a part time or full time capacity as a first responder, and at my present job I am involved in Emergency Response Planning and Training.   I come from a family that has members in the military on both sides and in all of the services.  Have a life long interest in things military and see the CF as an incredible but unrealized asset by too many politicians, including when needed during a domestic emergency.

I hope that is enough, because I sure don't have any decoder ring.   

[Michael O'Leary]

Good question. I only became active with this forum in the last month. 

Actually, you didn't answer the question.  Nice wordsmithing though, can I get some more smoke with that mirror.

[Griffin]

Actually, you didn't answer the question.  Nice wordsmithing though, can I get some more smoke with that mirror.

Well since your title seems to indicate staff, you should or your boss here should have access to the exact date I joined here.  I note you ignored all the other data so I guess I've got you pegged too! 

[Michael O'Leary]

Well since your title seems to indicate staff, you should or your boss here should have access to the exact date I joined here.  I note you ignored all the other data so I guess I've got you pegged too! 

I can tell you the time and date you registered, but that wasn't the question, was it?

[54/102 CEF]

I think that regionally its in everyone`s best interests to cool things down.

Recommended book "Understanding Terror Networks" by Marc Sageman - formerly with CIA in Pakistan during Afghan - Russian Touranment.

Also you could get "The Far Enemy - Why Jihad Went Global" by Fawaz Gerges. Same story - the Islamic World was taken by surprise over 9/11 and did not fall into line behind the raggedy headed bunch out at Cave 17.

Both are at Chapters / Amazon

Sageman states

Pakistan is not a source of the Global Sh-t Head Alliance - I read between the lines it is a source of soldiers for the Poppy Wars.

There are still bags of foreigners who he says the Afghans can't abide - aka Egyptians and Saudis and all the trouble makers have medium to advanced education, so much for knuckle dragging tribesmen.

Overall its a policing job vs a military job and he states the appropriate national forces are being dragged into compliance with world standards of civil duty.

He quotes polling data by the Pew Global people on attitudes in the Muslim world about destablising behaviour and it points against Al Quaeda and ilk. People want stablity no matter who they are.

All in all - Al Quaeda gets no respect from inside the the camel back world. Local leaders yes. But remember that Al Quaeda cuts into their action - so when asked for payoffs - I bet they are real slim.

As for our Senate Committee Reports - I say they aint worth the paper they`re printed on. All this money coming into play 5 plus years after the fact - minus 4 years lost with Gene the Stealin Machine`s crew  - will take some time to spend.

Just my 2 cents.

And PS - 20 years from now you`ll be drinking Tea in Tehran and watching the Leafs (I mean Oilers) on Sports Net.

[tomahawk6]

Short answer is there are minimal implications for Canadian forces in Afghanistan should the Iraqi insurgents win [remote chance]. The odds are better for a shia civil war between pro-Iranian milita vs the non-sectarian types with the Kurds and Sunni's joining the non-sectarian side.

[Dodger1967]

Ok Guys:

First comment is, if you're with the Taliban, or Al Qeada, then by all means go ahead and attack my fellow former G.G.H.G. Member, I'll be waiting in the wings to take you on.
Second is if you're CF, or former CF then you're all on the same side, why go looking to pick a fight over here, save the fighting for the Muslim Extremist.

Third if you're not up on your intel why open your mounth in the first place.

Fourth it doesn't matter about Iraq, or Afganistan, what matters is this...

Islamic Extremist goals are the complete and utter rule of the entire world. Did anyone what that special report on CNN Last Night? I did !

These Religous Zealouts teach hatered of the Jewish People and westerners in their public school and high school cirriculim, their movement is growing. It has spread all over the world and is being taught in Muslim Schools Worldwide. The term used by a Lebanese American, who went to school in Lebanon and went through those teachings called it Islamo - Fascism. And compared it to the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany.

So Gentlemen, what it will eventually boil down to is this. We'll be fighting for our very survival and I for one would rather die than live under Islamic Law and have the Muslim Religion shoved down my throat.

For anyone who didn't see CNN, I copied the Transcript, email me for a copy

dodger_1967@yahoo.ca

Cheers

[GAP]

Edited to add what I was responding to:

The odds are better for a shia civil war between pro-Iranian milita vs the non-sectarian types with the Kurds and Sunni's joining the non-sectarian side

Case in point being that there were some serious errors made with creation of the borders for Iran, Iraq, et al. The Kurds stretch across south east Turkey, northern Iran, and Iraq, and Eastern Syria. All the governments of these countries have actively worked to defeat any creation of a total Kurdish country. The Turks have been especially vicious in this process, because they stood to lose large areas of their land.

[Tango2Bravo]

Dodger,

I can't tell if you are serious or not.  Do you think that the folks writing here are Taliban or Al-Queda?  Do you think that everyone in the military agrees on everything?  I missed the CNN report because I was watching the Sens break out of their slump.  What are you saying or asking exactly?

Cheers,

Red Five standing by

[paracowboy]

First comment is, if you're with the Taliban, or Al Qeada, then by all means go ahead and attack my fellow former G.G.H.G. Member, I'll be waiting in the wings to take you on.
Second is if you're CF, or former CF then you're all on the same side, why go looking to pick a fight over here, save the fighting for the Muslim Extremist.

Third if you're not up on your intel why open your mounth in the first place.

Fourth it doesn't matter about Iraq, or Afganistan, what matters is this...

Islamic Extremist goals are the complete and utter rule of the entire world. Did anyone what that special report on CNN Last Night? I did !

Are you on narcotics? I'm just asking because it will have an impact on my answers.

You're talking to SERVING Members who are either just back, or preparing to go. Moderate your silliness crrespondingly.

BOTH of you. Griff, you're starting to annoy me. Start answering some questions honestly and directly or get shown the door.