Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Cheryl Gallant: A Profile in Wingnuttery

Check out this bit of crunchy badnesss:


That smiling Stepford Wife is Cheryl Gallant of the "Convicted of Complicity in Torture and Going to Prison Party of Canada."

Ms. Gallant is obviously trying to be Canada's version of the USA's own female wingnut member of a dying "conservative" movement (that'd be the imploding into fascist insanity Republican Party USA) Michelle Bachman.

What makes our Cheryl so special? Try this on for size:
Mr. Speaker, on the weekend I had an opportunity to speak to a soldier from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa who had served several rotations in Afghanistan.

He urged me not to go forth with an inquiry on this issue. He said that every time the Afghan deployment is debated in Parliament, it puts the lives of our soldiers in theatre at greater risk. He recounted that when the motion to withdraw from Afghanistan or to end the combat mission in 2011 was before Parliament, they were in a operation where they heard the insurgents on the radio saying to each other that they should kill as many Canadian soldiers as possible because we were debating this in the House of Commons and that when Canadians saw the caskets of soldiers coming off the plane it increased public pressure. They wanted the MPs to vote to get out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible.

I asked him if they listened to Al Jazeera while they were fighting at the front, so to speak, and he said, “No, ma'am. We heard this chatter on our coms”.

So they had heard Taliban talking to one another, urging each other to kill as many Canadian soldiers as possible. He credits the leader of the NDP directly for the death of his best friend as a consequence of that.

Layton's response was quite restrained:
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member suggests that every time the Afghan deployment is debated it puts soldiers at risk. However, I recall a conversation with the current Prime Minister who took the position, as I did and the whole House of Commons ultimately did, that before there could be any decision about troop deployments or any significant change to troop deployments, it was essential that it be debated and voted on by the elected representatives of the Canadian people.

One thing I know about our troops from having talked to a great many of them is that they not only understand the value of democracy and appreciate that we live in a democratic country where a debate and a vote can be held about what our brave troops are asked to do, but in many ways they also stand behind that democratic principle more than we are ever called upon to do, because they are willing to do it with their lives and that is why Canadians support them.

I would have probably taken a different tact with her. For the most part, I shall refrain from what my response would have been. One thing that I would have asked her would be shouldn't she put more of the blame for Canadian Forces' deaths on the idiot prime ministers who put them on this fool's mission, rather than on the leader of the party that saw the disaster from far off and cried out for us to avoid it?

Or does fighting and killing and dying for corrupt, brutal, unelected, thieving governments full of misogynists, drug-lords and religious fanatics, sound like the sort of thing Cheryl has always wanted the CF to do?

What a fucking dunce and what a fucking gutter political party.

P.S. I'm going to HOPE that Gallant is simply lying about her conversation and that she didn't talk to anyone. But it's possible it's true. In which case, said soldier has got to be one of the dumbest sacks of shit there is. Hey, if you're real dude, you're a stupid chump. I'd bet you five dollars that we're going to leave that country in as bad a mess as when we started, but I don't want to take your money after everything else you've suffered.

3 comments:

no_blah_blah_blah said...

Does Ms. Gallant actually think that the Taliban fighters would have been saying "let's go easy on the Canadians" if the issue wasn't being debated in the House of Commons? Somehow, I think that the Taliban's objective would have been the same: kill as many NATO troops as possible.

Wasn't supposedly one of the reasons why we had to join the U.S. war on terror to preserve our democracies from "terrorists who hated our freedoms and liberties" (whatever that actually means)? Then what would shutting down normal democratic discourse be doing?

The Conservatives are just using the "shotgun approach" to excuse making: they're hoping something sticks. Frankly, it's become insulting to one's intelligence. The House of Commons just passed a motion for a public inquiry to be called. The Conservatives can ignore it, but this won't be forgotten.

thwap said...

no_blah_blah_blah

Somehow, I think that the Taliban's objective would have been the same: kill as many NATO troops as possible.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? Gad, she's an idjit.

liberal supporter said...

Sounds like something out of Star Trek, where every species in the galaxy speaks English! Or will she claim that this soldier and others (she claims he said "we" heard them), understand Pashto, and yet are just regular troops and not working in intelligence. I'm sure the CIA would hire them in a heartbeat if they knew these soldiers can understand Pashto.

Then there's the problem of how these soldiers could hear radio transmissions of the enemy, yet couldn't trace their location and kill them.

Given this "taliban with radios" theory, I think a very good strategy would be to make it sound like we're about to leave, so they'll become less cautious, get on the radio even more and so be tracked and killed.

I suspect she spoke with a soldier and then used her talking points book to fill in what she alleges was said.