Buckdog

So the use of sock puppets by right-wingers has moved from the blogosphere to the halls of parliament?!

Yup - pretty good assessment of what seems to have happened.

We protect his people from fundamentalist enslavement- he sure as hell better say good things about us.

And just to be sure, we'll tell him what to say, to make Harper look good.

Fuck Phil, that's what the mafia does. You must be so proud.

Wanker.

If any of you bothered to do your research- Taliban Jack didnt- it was these guys who briefed Karzai- it happens to be their job.

Strategic Advisory Team-Afghanistan
http://milnewstbay.pbwiki.com/f/22319.html

Phil,

I'm not a real super expert on military stuff, but, uhhh, if he's the President of the fucking country, why would he need our military's input on what to say to Canadians? I don't care what branch of the military it is, it stinks of propaganda. It's one thing for them to advise him on matters of policy, it's another for them to construct his talking points for Canadian consumption.

How do we know it wasnt just plain old advising?

This allegation is coming from the NDP- politicians who haven't bothered to inform themselves on the Afghanistan file. Why doesn't Jack Layton actually visit the bloody country? Whenever he opens that mouth of is on the Ghan', he spews nonsense. Same thing with Dawn Black.

Phil ... you are so completely out to lunch on this issue .. it is shocking.

this is going to hurt but I have to say it...having never been elected, the NDP is UTTERLY ignorant of how government to government interactions.

"op Afghan officials, including Mr. Karzai himself, crafted drafts of the speech.

Mr. Samad said government officials from both countries shared information over several weeks as Mr. Karzai's trip was being planned.

"As is customary in diplomatic arrangements and co-ordination, they shared information about protocol, agenda, discussion items and other relevant bilateral issues," he said in a statement.

"To suggest otherwise is not only ludicrous and insulting, it is also sadly diverting attention away from the real issues we face as two nations."

A spokesman for Peter Mac-Kay, the Minister of National Defence, said there is nothing nefarious in a host government providing input for a speech by a foreign visitor."

http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=57c75e80-fe96-420d-806f-a69982239935&k=14387

"there is nothing nefarious in a host government providing input for a speech by a foreign visitor."

This went beyond input. So what, some might say? Lots of politicians have other people write their speeches. Sure. However, when a political figure gives a speech, they have a responsibility to the public to be clear on whose behalf they are speaking. They can have speechwriters, editors, and advisors help with the speech, but there must be no conflict of interest involved, and the speech must reflect the agenda of the speaker. If an outsider with a separate agenda writes the "initial draft" as charged here, and "key statistics, messages, themes, as well as overall structure," also charged here, then the speaker is but a figure head for the hidden engineer of the speech, thus depriving the public of a critical piece of information when interpreting the speech. When analyzing a speech, some elements we need to look at are: what is being said; what political, social, and economic climate (among others) surrounds it; and what is that person’s or groups’ agenda - which means we need to know who really came up with the speaking notes, overall message, etc. In this case, not only do we have a "hidden" organization writing a speech and passing it off as someone else’s, we have it coming from a different country. If that wasn’t serious enough, the speech is meant to persuade Canadians that we should send more Canadians to risk their lives in a foreign country.
This was not editing, or even a case of handing them information for the speech. From the censored document, we see the speech was actually designed for tone, message and content by Defence: : "Team prepared initial draft of President [Karzai's] address to Parliament 22 Sep." and "key statistics, messages, themes, as well as overall structure [of the speech] were adopted by the president in his remarks."

I'm not NDP, but dawn Black is a solid politician with a high standard of ethics. Lies and slurs are not her style.

It is not surprising that Karzai would get the Canadian Military to in effect draft a speech for him. They know better than he what might best persuade Canadians to extend their mission --which he certainly wants. Karzai was in effect placed in power only because of the US and allies overthrow of the Taliban together with the NOrthern Alliance.The US et al managed his election as president. He can't survive without NATO and US support. In fact he can't even hire his own countrymen to guard him but has a US private corporation do it.
This situation is not one where he must sound "independent" as in his bleats about bomber McNeil blasting too many civilians. Why is anyone surprised at the extent of Canadian military involvement? If Karzai had wanted he would have revised it more but he probably thought it was fine for his purposes and he was no doubt correct.
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