{"id":328737,"date":"2021-08-19T20:34:50","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T17:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/where-do-canadas-political-parties-stand-on-wars-like-afghanistan\/"},"modified":"2021-08-19T20:34:50","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T17:34:50","slug":"where-do-canadas-political-parties-stand-on-wars-like-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/where-do-canadas-political-parties-stand-on-wars-like-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"#Where do Canada\u2019s political parties stand on wars like Afghanistan?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a401c90853ae\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a401c90853ae\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/where-do-canadas-political-parties-stand-on-wars-like-afghanistan\/#The_Liberals\" >The Liberals<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/where-do-canadas-political-parties-stand-on-wars-like-afghanistan\/#The_Conservatives\" >The Conservatives<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/where-do-canadas-political-parties-stand-on-wars-like-afghanistan\/#The_NDP\" >The NDP<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/where-do-canadas-political-parties-stand-on-wars-like-afghanistan\/#Canada_the_Pacifist\" >Canada the Pacifist?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#Where do Canada\u2019s political parties stand on wars like Afghanistan?<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n                                                                        <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After 12 years, and 158 Canadian lives lost, the Canadian flag was lowered at the NATO International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was a symbolic endpoint for Canada\u2019s contribution to one of the longest, bloodiest military operations the country has ever faced.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt was a deeply emotional moment,\u201d then Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement in 2014, when he was presented with the Canadian flag that had flown in the Afghan capital. \u201cIt reminded me of the blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice that Canadians had endured to make Afghanistan a better place; a place where a little girl could go to school, a place where a mother might have medicine for her child, and a place where a woman could vote.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even as Canada and other NATO countries wound down their operations for good, there was an undercurrent of optimism. The Prime Minister underscored how \u201cthe Afghan security forces were built-up to defend their country\u201d against the scourge of the Taliban.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those statements seem abundantly naive today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The United States\u2019 withdrew completely in July, leaving behind a fractious political situation and a security nightmare, with a weary acknowledgement from President Joe Biden that \u201cour reasons for remaining in Afghanistan are becoming increasingly unclear.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When America left, two decades of promises and optimism around the Afghan security forces and central government in Kabul disintegrated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One-by-one, major cities came under Taliban control, as pro-government fighters laid down their arms or fled. President Ashraf Ghani fled. Horrific images and stories emerged from across the country of summary executions, women turned away from their universities, and the fearful streaming into Kabul in hopes of catching the last helicopter out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kandahar, where Canada concentrated most of its efforts over the course of the war, was one of the first major cities to fall.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a stunning failure for Western nation-building. It is vindication of those who warned, for years, that Western nations can not remake a country in their image.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it comes at the very beginning of a sleepy summer election where we should be pressing our leaders for clarity as to whether they would ever again commit to a war like Afghanistan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I put the question to our major parties and leaders: Have we learned anything?<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_Liberals\"><\/span>The Liberals<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In recent days, leader Justin Trudeau has been hammered on questions about his government\u2019s effort to evacuate those most at risk from the new Taliban regime, especially those who worked so hard on Canada\u2019s idealist mission.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was, after all, a Liberal government which first committed to sending tens of thousands of troops to the war.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I asked Trudeau, at an event on Monday, to opine on the history of the Canadian operation, and whether he would ever lead the country into a similar mission, he demurred.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think a lot of Canadians are deeply dismayed to see the pace at which the hard work by Canadians and, indeed, by countries across the West\u2014to stabilize, to make a real difference for the people of Afghanistan over these past 20 years\u2014have been undone, or at least put under severe threat,\u201d Trudeau said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He highlighted the undeniable benefits that many in Afghanistan have seen over the past two decades, particularly when it comes to the rights of women and girls. \u201cThe work Canada did made a huge difference,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe also need to remain committed to creating greater opportunity, prosperity and protections of human rights for everywhere around the world, but certainly there\u2019s a lot of reflections many, many countries will be having about the best way to do that going forward given events in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s a rorschach blot of a statement: Simultaneously contrite over a war that claimed some 70,000 civilian lives and produced a state that collapsed at its first test, and committed to the exact kind of language that launched the invasion in the first place and justified its 20-year run.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The evidence of the lessons learned is in Trudeau\u2019s actions. For the past six years, Canada has been allergic to any operation that might go hot. From his decision to end a bombing campaign in Syria im<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a>tely upon taking off to his unwillingness to send Canadian assets to secure the Kabul airport just this week, Trudeau has a total aversion to conflict.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cTrudeau doesn\u2019t care,\u201d says Steve Saideman, Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton. \u201cOr, he doesn\u2019t care enough to expend anything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saideman points to Canada\u2019s contribution to the peacekeeping mission in Mali: \u201cTrudeau made a lot of promises in 2015, that he\u2019d bring us back to peacekeeping,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd then he sent [defence minister Harjit] Sajjan to wander around Africa, looking for an easy mission.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They didn\u2019t find an easy mission, but they did find a conflict in Mali, where the United Nations was begging for contributions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Trudeau government agreed to send hundreds of soldiers and an array of aircraft to the city of Gao. The mission, however, was strictly limited to medical evacuations of other nations\u2019 soldiers\u2014something that wasn\u2019t even, <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>arently, needed, as <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cgai.ca\/canadian_peacekeepers_returning_home_from_mali_feeling_under_utilized\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a private Swiss company<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> became the go-to medevac choice of the UN.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After a year, Canada left, even amid <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/7464112\/canada-military-mali\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">calls for its troops to stay and do more<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trudeau constantly trumpeted his government\u2019s expanded training mission in Iraq, to fight the Islamic State\u2014yet when the situation there got hairy, after the United States assassinated Iranian <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a> Qasem Soleimani, <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/ipolitics.ca\/2020\/03\/09\/canadas-military-training-mission-was-ready-to-resume-in-iraq-until-covid-19-outbreak\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Canada pulled out<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the Sinai Peninsula, there are 55 Canadian Forces personnel there to provide logistics and do military policing. Then there are operations in Ukraine and Latvia to train and prepare our allies in the face of Russian aggression. Beyond that, there are a few training missions, some strategic lift operations, some naval patrols, and not much else.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For a government that loudly proclaimed that \u201cCanada is back,\u201d professes a belief in the Responsibility to Protect, and drapes itself in the legacy of Canadian peacekeeping: It\u2019s an anemic contribution to global security.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_Conservatives\"><\/span>The Conservatives<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trying to figure out what, exactly, Erin O\u2019Toole believes about Canada\u2019s place in the world is a difficult job.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">O\u2019Toole is, himself, a Canadian Forces veteran, having been a navigator aboard Sea King helicopters for coastal surveillance and search-and-rescue operations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He has pressed for a firmer timeline to evacuate the Afghans who supported the Canadian mission, and indicated he would not recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government were he to win, but on the question of what he would do if faced with a similar mission in the future: He wouldn\u2019t say.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I attempted to ask O\u2019Toole what his position on a future state-building mission would look like, but was blocked from asking questions at a campaign event last Sunday. A request for a statement or an interview was similarly turned down. A campaign manager for Alex Ruff, a retired colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces who served in Afghanistan and who is now seeking re-election in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, declined to make the candidate available for an interview.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was the Conservative Party that most aggressively supported not just the Afghan mission, but the American-led invasion of Iraq. It was a Conservative government that sent Canadian fighter jets into Libya in order to protect anti-regime fighters and to, ultimately, unseat dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over nearly a decade, Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried to project an image of Canada that was ready to contribute and increase security abroad. But that didn\u2019t mean a commitment to occupation or prolonged missions\u2014indeed, the NATO operation in Libya seemed to be a rejection of the idea that the West has an obligation to rebuild a country in its own image after bombing it. Canada\u2019s fighter jets pummeled Libyan government positions, clearing the way for a transitional government.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By the time the transitional government fell in 2012, Canada (and the rest of the West) was long gone. Since then, the state has devolved into waves of civil war. Today, <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Trip<\/a>oli is under siege by a <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailysabah.com\/world\/africa\/haftar-militia-refuse-to-subordinate-to-libyan-government\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">brutal warlord<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and Qaddafi\u2019s son seems poised to mount a <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/07\/30\/magazine\/qaddafi-libya.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">popular bid to take over<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the struggling North African country. Libya showcases how quick operations may be less costly, but can often result in equally messy outcomes as even the worst quagmires.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Summing up two decades of Conservative military policy, it\u2019s hard to see many patterns beyond a desire to join conflicts when they begin. It was a Conservative government, after all, that pulled Canada out of Afghanistan, resisting the urge to stay and continue its nation-building mandate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Parsing the Conservative platform for signs of their interventionist philosophy is hardly illuminating.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The document contains plenty of tough talk\u2014like \u201cCanada\u2019s foreign policy is more important now than it has been in a generation. How our national leaders advance and defend the interests and values of Canada is no longer something we can ignore or take for granted\u201d\u2014yet offers little in the way of specifics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Certainly, O\u2019Toole has grand diplomatic goals: Confronting and isolating autocratic regimes like China, Iran, and Russia; forging new alliances and ties throughout the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific; and expanding military procurement to beef up the Canadian Armed Forces. (Some of it is incoherent, like a pledge to step up Canada\u2019s contribution to a NATO deployment in Latvia\u2014which is not for need nor want of additional Canadian troops.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But nothing in the document offers any kind of direction of how O\u2019Toole would handle a request for peacekeepers in a volatile region, or when it would participate in kinetic military operations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe problem is that they really haven\u2019t talked enough about it,\u201d says Saideman, who also leads the Canadian Defence and Security Network. \u201cYou know, they criticize the government\u2019s choices, but they don\u2019t really have a vision.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For a party that could well form government in September, the murkiness of their position should be worrying.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_NDP\"><\/span>The NDP<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The New Democratic Party caught a significant amount of flack over the past 20 years for saying things that were, in the end, incredibly prescient.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In October 2001, then-NDP leader Alexa McDonough slammed the early days of war. \u201cMilitary strikes against Afghani [sic] cities and Afghani [sic] citizens will not make New York, or Montreal or Ottawa safe from terrorist attacks,\u201d she said. (Worth noting: Citizens of Afghanistan are Afghans; an Afghani currently trades at $0.016CAD.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Her successor, Jack Layton, was pummeled for arguing that the mission \u201cdoesn\u2019t have a light at the end of the tunnel\u201d and for suggesting that NATO and Canada ought to negotiate with the Taliban for an end to the fighting. For those suggestions, he earned the title \u2018Taliban Jack.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whatever foresight the party had then, the NDP hasn\u2019t been altogether consistent since. It voted in favour of the 2011 mission in Libya, only to <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.simcoe.com\/opinion-story\/2588339-ndp-retreats-from-layton-s-libya-position\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">pull its support<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> shortly thereafter. (Although Layton\u2019s initial endorsement did call on the government to \u201cdraw a lesson from the war in Afghanistan and give parliamentarians a surveillance and oversight role.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it came to Syria, as autocrat Bashar al-Assad launched horrifying chemical weapons attacks on civilians, the NDP decried airstrikes that hobbled Damascus\u2019 ability to carry out massacres. \u201cIt is not clear what the impact of these missile strikes will be on the conflict,\u201d a blithe NDP statement read.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As is often the case, the NDP has oft demanded that military operations be run through the United Nations\u2014a farcical request of a security council that offers veto power to Russia and China, two governments often responsible for fuelling conflict.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In rhetoric, the New Democrats often contrast the Liberals\u2019 nice words with a lack of action, positioning themselves as the true progressive champions. Right there in their platform is a commitment to \u201censure that funding supports our national defence and international commitments, with a renewed priority of advancing multilateral peacekeeping initiatives around the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the NDP promised to provide a statement outlining what lessons their party learned from Afghanistan, and how it would approach military engagements in the future, it ultimately did not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saideman says the NDP\u2019s chiding of the Liberal record from the left may be compelling, but the party is often just as vague about its strategic aims abroad. \u201cIf Singh were in power, I can\u2019t imagine him sending troops into harm\u2019s way in any real kind of way,\u201d Saideman says. The NDP leader would more likely be in favour of peacekeeping more \u201cgentle places\u201d\u2014defeating the very point of peacekeeping.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Canada_the_Pacifist\"><\/span>Canada the Pacifist?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Looking at the state of affairs on the campaign trail, it\u2019s not hard to see that the major party leaders have taken some harsh lessons from Afghanistan, and Canada\u2019s other forays into international peacekeeping, state-building, and counter-terrorism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At that lesson has been to avoid risk at all costs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That may be a reflection of the mood of the public. Few citizens in the West are clamouring for the kind of open-ended military engagements of the past. The words \u2018regime change\u2019 and \u2018nation building\u2019 have become pejoratives, while the phrase \u2018forever wars\u2019 has joined our political lexicon\u2014many would argue that President Donald Trump clinched victory on a pledge to never again entangle America abroad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trump\u2019s vague rhetoric belied a nevertheless bellicose foreign policy of aggressive, and unchecked, foreign bombing campaigns and knee-jerk decision-making.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For a thousand reasons, it\u2019s worth continuing to press these leaders for clarity on their position. Because it\u2019s one thing to, as Trudeau did, pledge reflection and introspection. It\u2019s quite another to say no to an ally in need of military assistance, or decline an invitation to launch airstrikes against a genocidal regime.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If, or maybe more accurately when, we get there, it would be nice to have a government which has already elucidated the principles which govern its engagement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Will Canada put boots on the ground? Will it topple one government in favour of another? Will it stay behind to do counter-insurgency? Will its peacekeeping forces do patrols, or will they stay inside the wire?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course, it\u2019s possible that we will continue to muddle along at the pace of status quo, engaging only in foreign conflicts where there\u2019s little conflict to be found\u2014or, at least, where we deploy far afield from it. Interventionist enough to reinforce a notion of Canada as a force for good, but pacifistic enough to delineate ourselves from the Americans, and isolationist enough to offend nobody.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cCanadians still want to be a country that makes a difference,\u201d Saideman says. \u201cThey still want to do peacekeeping. They just don\u2019t want it to hurt and they don\u2019t want to pay for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That may be the real political consensus on the campaign trail.<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"ctx-article-root\"><!-- --><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async defer crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/general\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/politics\/ottawa\/where-do-canadas-political-parties-stand-on-wars-like-afghanistan\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Where do Canada\u2019s political parties stand on wars like Afghanistan?&#8221; After 12 years, and 158 Canadian lives lost, the Canadian flag was lowered at the NATO International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul. It was a symbolic endpoint for Canada\u2019s contribution to one of the longest, bloodiest military operations the country has ever faced. \u201cIt&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":328738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CP13274538-766x431.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[72315,67806,67910,109265,72374,67816],"class_list":["post-328737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-afghanistan","tag-editors-picks","tag-erin-otoole","tag-federal-election-2021","tag-jagmeet-singh","tag-justin-trudeau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}