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Canada agrees to build ‘Great Wall of Kandahar'

The Canadian Press

Latest comment posted at 1:28 PM EDT 07/07/08

Three-kilometre perimeter of stone, brick and iron will surround Kandahar University campus ...Read the full article

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  1. Mani Pulated from Bymedia, Canada writes: Chalk up another contract, for the Bin Laden Construction Company!
  2. Paul Wallnutz from Canada writes: We just saw how effective the other 'Great Wall Kandahar' was. You know, the one around the prison.
  3. Jack Robertson from Toronto, Canada writes: This will be another colossal waste of our tax dollars. When the Taliban eventually demolish the wall or render it useless, the media spin will be interesting. We should get out of Afghanistan and leave the Afghanis to their own fate. We don't have a 'mission' to save the world and shouldn't be pouring money down the drain and wasting the lives of young Canadians in parts of the world that aren't worth 'saving' in the first place. When the last NATO soldier leaves Afghanistan, the country will revert to being the basket case it always was, all the billions of Western 'foreign aid' dollars notwithstanding.
  4. Liam Smith from Canada writes: This is exactly the kind of thing that I expect my taxes to be wasted on!

    For the sake of the Empire!! Woo! Woo!
  5. Comments closed, censored, deleted or made to disappear from From Mini Bushland, Canada writes: Great walls are the solution everywhere. Berlin led the way.
  6. Troy Ackerman from Canada writes: You all cry that we should be doping some reconstruction and making the place safer, then cry harder when they do. What a bunch of hypocrites.
  7. Allan Eizinas from Simcoe, Canada writes: .
    We do not have the money to fix the crumbling bridge over our local stream but we do have half a million dollars to build a useless wall around a school in Afghanistan?

    What the %$#@^%$ is going on!?!
  8. Charles the Great from Canada from Canada writes: "Comments closed, censored, deleted or made to disappear from From Mini Bushland, Canada writes: Great walls are the solution everywhere. Berlin led the way."

    I hope you know that most Germans want that wall back up. I might do a lot of good for Germany and Europe as a whole. There are just to many problems in the old East Germany which the old West Germany wants out. But when it comes to the Great Wall of Kandahar, so you think that the students of Kandahar University should be attacked by old foes that controlled their most of lives? Well... it nice to see that the wacko left would kill off a country's future for the lefts political goals.
  9. Jeff T from Canada writes: The left in this country share something with the far right. They are xenophobes. They do not want anything to do with anything that is different, and sure as heck do not want to do anything that requires even just a little bit of research.

    And Neocynic, thanks for the article... Just goes to prove, you are an idiot. You should have actually read the article, it is a good read. Not your usual, CF bashing garbage.
  10. Jeff T from Canada writes: Whoops, wrong thread for ole Neocynic... Sorry.
  11. Andre Carrel from Canada writes: When you live behind the security of a wall long enough you'll eventually come to the realization that walls are built to keep you in. Jail, campus, Berlin, Palestine, don't matter where.
  12. Anthony B from Maritimes, Canada writes: The "Great Wall" may keep out the goat-herders and nomads but how do they plan to keep "undesirables" from infiltrating the student body? And building a wall may present the insurgents with a challenge too tempting to resist.
  13. Abu Akkrab from Canada writes: Troy, these same posters will be complaining that we haven't done enough when we leave Kandahar in 2011. When returning from travels overseas, my biggest adjustment to life back in Canada is getting used to the whining again.
  14. Dave Rider from Barrie, Ontario, Canada writes: I think if building a wall will help those students wishing to study at the university, especially women, then they should definately do it. I'm not 100% in favour of the war in Afghanistan, but people complain they don't want us being on the front lines fighting, but rather we should be doing recontruction and development. Now that they are proposing such things, such as this wall to help protect university students, everyone is still complaining. We are there whether we like it or not, this is one initiative that can actually help many Afghanis.
  15. W ho from Canada writes: Building pricey walls around the world is now part of "The Mission"
  16. Anthony B from Maritimes, Canada writes: Abu Akkrab from Canada writes: "When returning from travels overseas, my biggest adjustment to life back in Canada is getting used to the whining again"

    That "whining" you refer to is also known as free speech and the right to criticize our leaders; advantages that were perhaps absent from your overseas destinations.
  17. Joseph Whistle from Canada writes: Education is a threat to terrorists. Terrorists need to have an environment of terror in order to be able to exist and operate. It is their bread and butter. Order, society, education, people living normal lives, are all enemies of terrorists. It's time that terrorists are seen for what they really are. They have absolutely totally nothing to do with any form of "freedom fighters" whatsoever. No. They simply need terror in order to trade weapons, control power, have access to whatever they want to take.
    Some say stupid things like "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". B.S. in the first degree !
  18. Carbon Blob from Sector 7G, Canada writes: Jack Robertson from Toronto, Canada writes: "When the last NATO soldier leaves Afghanistan, the country will revert to being the basket case it always was"

    Exactly Jack. I wish more Canadians would read up on the history of Afghanistan, and especially about the Pashtun people, before they spout off.

    Our soldiers have joined a long list of foreign armies that have tried to 'civilize' that region. The Afghanis have always prevailed in the end and always reverted to their own traditions.
  19. Troy Ackerman from Canada writes: Anthony B from Maritimes, Canada writes: Abu Akkrab from Canada writes: "When returning from travels overseas, my biggest adjustment to life back in Canada is getting used to the whining again"

    That "whining" you refer to is also known as free speech and the right to criticize our leaders; advantages that were perhaps absent from your overseas destinations. ___________________I disagree, there is a huge difference between free speech and constant moaning and complaining like what we get in Canada. Quite possibly the hardest people in the world to please, and I have been all over the world to comment like that.
  20. Bob Cajun from the glorious nation of coboconk, Canada writes: Nicolo Machiavelli predicted back in the 16th century that building walls was a waste of time since it diverted scarce resources from building an army to root out the enemy. Evidently he did not live long enough to see the walls around York University. They are most useful canvases for the Fine Arts faculty as well as the Political Science faculty/politburo. As for twinning with a Canadian University, may I sugest York, as their students seem to be experts at growing one of Kandahar's cash-crop - marijuana.

    I am sure the average goatherder (hey wasn't Obama's dad a goat herder?) will be impressed
  21. Mahatma Gandhi from Canada writes: Well, Kandahar "University" seems to have enough money for a really big mosque, but pretty much nothing else: http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/features/blogs/schmidt.html?post=6389 . FTA: "These are institutes of higher learning in name only. The college, where Osama once trained his jihadists, is filled with gutted classrooms, and those are the good ones that have been cleaned up. The older students teach the younger ones 'cos the only poorly paid teachers who are there are the ones who can't find something else that pays a liveable wage or they're old and must stay or risk losing their eventual government pensions.
    The university lacks power and plumbing, it has no library or laboratories, and the country's future doctors, engineers and teachers who study here have no computer time. At the college, older students teach the younger students because there just aren't enough teachers willing to starve ... Multi-millions have been committed to Afghan education, but there are no signs, five years after the Taliban government was evicted, that much is reaching these two institutions."

    If the money is going to the local government, or to the "University", then I have my serious doubts any wall is going to get built.

    But let's assume the money wasn't stolen: Instead of spending half a million dollars on a row of bricks, enclosing absolutely nothing, how about spending that money on scholarships for students to study abroad, maybe, oh I don't know, in Canada? If you want to favour women, make that a condition of the scholarship. Then we would really be investing in their education, and Canada would control how the money is spent.
  22. Troy Ackerman from Canada writes: Mahatma Gandhi, the school may be in ruins now, but a wall may allow construction to go on unhindered. Canada, a country of defeatists and debbie downers, and nothing more.
  23. The Iconoclast from Canada writes: The money should be used to built schools in remote areas to educate children. Read "Three cups of tea" by Greg Mortenson to see how very little money can do a lot of good.
  24. Dennis sinneD from Calgary, Canada writes:

    The Iconoclast from Canada writes: "The money should be used to built schools in remote areas to educate children. Read "Three cups of tea" by Greg Mortenson to see how very little money can do a lot of good."

    Looks like a great read about an effective system. Education really is the key. Thanks for the tip...
  25. Comments closed, censored, deleted or made to disappear from From Mini Bushland, Canada writes: Charles the Great from Canada from Canada writes: "Comments closed... I hope you know that most Germans want that wall back up. I might do a lot of good for Germany and Europe as a whole. There are just to many problems in the old East Germany which the old West Germany wants out. " --- Yes, I know, we all want our very own great wall. You're quite right too, on the effectiveness of walls at keeping all problems out: in Palestine, on the US borders with Mexico, with Canada, between countries all over Europe, East-West across the Mediterranean .... So I say: by all means, give them Germans their wall back (make it thicker and higher, this time) while playing Beethoven's Hymn to Joy backwards. I'm all for it... Where do I sign?
  26. A good Canadian from Canada writes: Anthony B from Maritimes, Canada writes: Abu Akkrab from Canada writes: "When returning from travels overseas, my biggest adjustment to life back in Canada is getting used to the whining again"

    That "whining" you refer to is also known as free speech and the right to criticize our leaders; advantages that were perhaps absent from your overseas destinations.
    -----------------------------------------
    No, its just whining. Free speech is usually intellegent in its presentation.
  27. Richard Roskell from Canada writes: I'm sure it will be money well spent.
  28. Anthony B from Maritimes, Canada writes: A good Canadian from Canada writes: "Free speech is usually intellegent in its presentation."

    And "intelligence" begins with the ability to spell the word correctly.
  29. Richard Roskell from Canada writes: Ouch! :)

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