What the Canadian media don't want you to know

The positions of Senators Obama and Clinton on Afghanistan. Though our media are overwhelmingly pro-Democratic this is the dirty little secret that they very rarely mention--it might confuse Canadians, don't you know:

[...]

Senators Obama and Clinton have tacked in the opposite direction [from Sen. McCain]. Iraq, they argue, makes Afghanistan more dangerous. The Iraq war, Mr. Obama told an audience of supporters in Houston last Tuesday, “distracted us from the fight that needed to be fought in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda. They’re the ones who killed 3,000 Americans.” He has said that if elected, he would deploy at least two additional brigades in Afghanistan.

Senator Clinton, who has been to Afghanistan three times, holds a similar position, her aides say, except they say that she hasn’t specified how many additional brigades she would send to Afghanistan because she wants to further explore the security situation there first. Mrs. Clinton has proposed appointing a special envoy to deal with the Afghanistan/Pakistan border...

The Toronto Star had the good grace to print this letter of mine on the candidates' positions. Their editorial board, on the other hand, nicely managed a bit later to avoid this, I guess, rather too sensitive subject.

The Globe and Mail, for its part, did not print this Feb. 16 letter of mine:

John Ibbitson, in his review of Barack Obama's foreign policy positions ("Can Obama hit a curveball? [full text payer only]", Feb. 16) makes one remarkable omission. He never mentions Mr. Obama's position on Afghanistan, surely the issue of most relevance to Canadians.

Canadians appear to favour by a large margin the Democrats over the Republicans in the presidential race. So it seems to me they should be informed that Mr. Obama has said in a major foreign policy speech that he wants the US to send more troops "to re-enforce our counter-terrorism operations" in Afghanistan and that he also wants European members of NATO to eliminate the caveats that prevent their forces from fighting.

While Mr. Obama wants to get the US out of Iraq as fast as responsibly possible (a position that appeals greatly to many Canadians), he clearly intends no such action regarding Afghanistan. In fact his robust views on Afghanistan are fairly close to those of the Conservative government and poles apart from the "no combat" Liberal policy. Hillary Clinton's approach is not much different from Mr. Obama's.

It is important, when considering what our country should do in Afghanistan, that Canadians be aware of the plans of the two Democratic presidential candidates--one of whom has a very good chance of winning the office.

I copied Mr Ibbitson on the letter. He replied:

fair point, actually.

Says it all.

Mark C.

Posted by markc at February 26, 2008 08:52 AM