So, do Manley and his panel of experts know something they didn't tell us in their otherwise frank and revealing report handed to Stephen Harper last week?
Maybe so.
Turns out the Yankees are coming in a matter of weeks, and the only question is how long they will stick around.
Sources tell us that at the very moment Manley was in Ottawa this week releasing his report calling for NATO reinforcements, high-ranking U.S. military officials were only a few blocks away, planning exactly that with their Canadian counterparts.
The answer, sources tell us, is our troops will soon be getting everything the Manley report says they urgently need -- and then some.
Manley must have been aware of these discussions, if not then his panel is incompetent, irrelevant to serious discussion.
Weston acknowledges the public uncertainty of deployments past seven months, but comes to the same conclusion I've argued:
"This is not meant to be an open-ended deployment," says one U.S. source. "It is limited to seven months, and hopefully by the end of the Bucharest summit, NATO as a group will have laid out a plan to fill those gaps that have been identified for a long, long time."
Don't count on it.
If, after 7 months, no other country is prepared to augment the American deployment, does anyone really believe the Americans would just pull out, leaving the south exposed? Me neither, which makes the Manley "demand" more a study in setting up favorable framing, rather than the frank choice the panel presents.
9 comments:
Manley is going to be on Cross Country Checkup on CBC 1 at 4:00 EST today. The toll free number to call in is 1-888-416-8333.
Let's do a blogswarm on the radio!
Steve,
So now we have come to a conspiracy, not just between Stephen Harper and the US Administration, but with the addition of the former Liberal Deputy Prime Minister as well.
And the purpose of this conspiracy? To "sell" Canadian's on staying in Afghanistan.
Greg Weston has an ego only marginally smaller than Jim Travers, has an anti CPC chip on his shoulder you can see from Moose Jaw, and is trying to sell papers in Toronto.
Your source of information isn't credible.
Tomm
tomm
So Weston is lying about the meetings "blocks away". The detail he provides suggests otherwise.
Tomm:
Greg Weston has an anti-CPC bias?
That is a joke right? Although I do agree about the size of his ego.
Greg Weston is one of the biggest cheerleaders of the Conservative Party. He rarely takes a critical look at them without somehow comparing them favourably to the Liberals in the process.
However, despite this bias he does seem to have some journalistic integrity because he will occasionally call a spade a spade. Personally, I believe it is when he realizes that there is no escaping the stupity of the Conservatives sometime and to try to make excuses for them would make himself look bad.
Sun media, part of the left-wing media conspiracy??
There is no sarcasm strong enough to contain the view that because Greg Weston works for Sun Media that he is a part of the Sun Media Borg which is a propaganda wing of the Harper-CPC Super Borg.
I heard that nobody has ever seen Lorrie Goldstein and Greg Weston in the same place at the same time. Coincidence?
Did you see Weston on QP today. He kind of, back handed, in an unhealthy way, defended Sandra Buckler. The man is clearly on the payroll.
Tomm
Steve & Ottlib,
If you guys beieve in a CPC media conspiracy that includes Greg Weston and John Manley, I think we need to start a club.
I too believe in the pervasive influence of the media and how they twist every piece of news, selectively report, and heavily effect the views of the people.
Do you want to start a club or something?
Tomm
Check out Paul Wells' blog today - interesting and quite frankly frightening - Karzai I mean.
The cross country check up is just plain old marketing for his cause. Wallin was on CTV.
Manley and Harper should have told their friend George to keep his mouth shut. I see the Pentagon said they would pressure NATO allies to cough up the 1000 troops and shortly after a NATO official comes out and says that this is all politics and Canada withdrawing will not harm NATOs mission which already involves 40,000 troops in Afghanistan. He thinks NATO countries are not reacting positively to Manley's message of cough up more now, or we leave and I'm sure they won't like it any better coming from George Bush.
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