Quote:
Originally Posted by ShimatheKat
Oh come on, relax. It is meant to be funny - what's with you all??
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Making fun of the equipment/readiness of the Canadian Armed Forces is popular in Canadian comedy as well. Making light of Canada's Afghan mission is not.
I'd be the first to admit Canada's Afghanistan deployment is small (about 2830 personal total). However, it's pretty insulting to talk about how you don't even know a country is fighting along side you and to accuse them of leeching off you for defense when:
a) they are one of only a few armies in the coalition whose rules of engagement allow them to participate in frontline operations.
b) they not only provide security for the most dangerous part of the country, but extended their "shift" in that part of the country from 3 to 5 years.
c) they have the third highest casualty rate (about 120 deaths so far, most since deploying near Khandahar in 2006) in Afghanistan after the US and Britain, and suffer 2-3 times the number of casualties for their size of deployment than either of those armies do.
And this is coming from a citizen who has very mixed feelings about the Afghan mission (I don't like the Taliban, but I'm skeptical of the mission's chances of success and dislike backing a government that last time I checked still has the death penalty on the books for religious apostasy). I'm really hoping that the writers were honestly ignorant of what Canada's role in Afghanistan has actually been.