Burlington, Vermont
I grew up in Ontario and this my favourite time of year in Eastern North America for many reasons. But chief among those reasons is what happens to forests out here in the fall. It is hard to describe to anyone who has never seen them, a maple forest in the fall, where the colours are bright yellow, orange and red. Pitched against a blue sky, the scene is iconic, beautiful and stirs up a nostalgia in me for home.
Flying from Choicago to Burlington today, we crossed over the maple woodlots of the farming country of southern Ontario and upstate New York which were alive with the colour of turning. Then over the Adirondacks, past Mount Marcy and Skylight, two peaks I have climbed upon, these ancient worn down mountains, 20 times older than the ones I live on now but still showing their grandeur and the shape of peaks and valleys covered with pine and spruce with pockets of yellow birch and red maple. Over Lake Champlain, and into Burlington, a lovely older town on the lake, biger and more modern than I remembered it from a previous visit in 1993 but still small enough to have a main street feel about it.
Met up with my Art of Hosting mate Lenore Mewton and we stopped in at the CommunityMatters reception at the Echo Centre and then on for an excellent meal of contemporary Cantonese food at A SIngle Pebble.
Beautiful part of the world to retrun too, and I’m eagerly looking forward to the gathering tomorrow.
Jack Martin Leith is writing again, prolifically and brilliantly on the subject of facilitation, conferences, meeting, organization and work in general.
I may be late to the party, noticng his new blog, but I’m glad to see him back on the web sharing as generously as ever.
Our federal government announced in it’s throne speech yesterday that it was intending to extend Canada’s mission in Afghanistan to 2011. I have written before about my thoughts on the war there, and our role in it. Now, I’m adding my voice to a number of other bloggers who are demanding that we end our role in this conflict. Here are my reasons why:
- We are in a combat mission in Afghanistan. In other words we are a fighting force participating in a war. This is not a peacekeeping mission. It bears remembering that we went to Afghanistan, and we remain there, as a part of a NATO combat force, not a UN peacekeeping force. We went there originally to unseat the Taliban government and to do our part to fight terrorism 9whatever that means). The Taliban government was unseated in 2002, we were there as a new government took office (although it’s not exactly a DEMOCRATIC government). We are now working for THAT government, fighting a civil war against people who don’t agree with their government.
- I don’t believe that we have a role to play by taking sides in a civil war. Afghanistan now has its own government, and the people there need to figure out how to run their affairs. Having NATO doing the dirty work in the Afghan civil war provides no incentive for Afghans to create their own security infrastructure.
- To those who object to this line of thinking by saying that we shouldn’t abandon Afghans until there is some stability I will agree with this. We should therefore have a conversation within Canada about changing our role from a combat force to a peacekeeping force under the auspices of the United Nations. Of course, we have been at war in Afghanistan since 2001 and our leaders and their friends have been on record saying that we can’t negotiate with the Taliban, so perhaps we are not in a position to take a neutral peacekeeping role. I think we have lost that chance.
- Darfur is calling. We are unable to respond. I would like our country to be in a position to help in the world where we can be needed.
- Our commitments to the first and second world wars lasted 10 years combined. Our commitment to the uncertain outcomes of the Afghanistan civil war wlll stretch this far by the end of the current government’s proposed mandate. The outcomes are uncertain, the conditions for victory are unclear and unattainable. Therefore, we should leave now rather than later.
- Just to say it again, I believe that we have debased ourselves by using our armed forces to take sides in a civil war. We helped oust the Taliban, we chose not to be peacekeepers after that event. We have no right to be there any longer.
So, I am for Canada ending the mission there post-haste, regrouping our armed forces and redeploying to Darfur where we can do good.
[tags]canada, war, afghanistan, stephen harper[/tags]
The National Capital Freenet in Ottawa was the host of my first email address. It’s most famous web page may well be the amazing wood s lot. Today, Mark Woods’ blog turned seven.
Happy Birthday!
Thanks to all who contacted me over the last couple of days to let me know my site was down. A little administrative oversight on my part, and to my great joy I discovered how many people near or far check in with what’s going on around here.
So thanks to all…we’re back in business, and no worse for wear.