I always thought that MacKay got his info from David Wilkins the US ambassador to Canada but then MacKay's spokesperson said he didn't. That is strange, Wilkins was invited by MacKay to go to Afghanistan with him. Wilkins would have had ample opportunity to have given him the info. Perhaps it went like this:
Wilkins: You know Peter it would be a nice New Year's gift if you helped us beat up on Iran a bit. Here is some dirt from our TOP administration officials.
Peter: Sure Dave. Always ready to help out our freedom loving friends to the south. Just don't send us back that Khadr kid. The press will lap up this stuff and I will make sure your name is never mentioned..
Monday » January 7 » 2008
Where did MacKay get information?
Targeting iran. Anyone can make a roadside bomb
MIKE BLANCHFIELD
CanWest News Service
Monday, January 07, 2008
As far as international bad guys go, Iran has proven to be a convenient and safe target for Canada.
So when Defence Minister Peter MacKay turned up in Kandahar on Christmas Day and accused Iran of arming the Taliban insurgency against Canada and its allies in Afghanistan, few eyebrows were initially raised.
But to anyone with even a passing knowledge of recent history in the region, MacKay's broad assertion - short on nuance or explanation - triggered alarm bells.
"I think we're going to have to ask him where he got his information," Brig.-Gen. Marquis Hainse said several days later.
In recent months, other prominent figures have raised doubts about whether Iran's ruling clerics are behind the shipment of guns and bombs over its eastern frontier to the Taliban-Al-Qa'ida insurgency in southern Afghanistan: Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Canada's former ambassador to the country, Chris Alexander, now the deputy United Nations envoy to Kabul who Prime Minister Stephen Harper has touted as a leading expert on Afghanistan. So where did MacKay get his information?
His office isn't saying. But his spokesman made clear Friday where it didn't come from: U.S. ambassador David Wilkins, who accompanied MacKay on his lengthy journey to Kandahar.
The original source of the Iran-meddling-in-Afghanistan narrative began with top Bush administration officials.
"Canada is very concerned by allegations that arms are reaching Taliban groups through Iran," a Foreign Affairs spokesperson said. Through the Iranian embassy in Ottawa, Canada has "urged the government of Iran to take appropriate measures" to prevent any support from reaching insurgents in Afghanistan, France Bureau added, without providing details.
U.S. experts suggest it is unlikely that Tehran is directly supporting the insurgency.
In western Afghanistan, Iran is a positive influence and evidence is easy for any visitor to see, said Anthony Cordesman, a senior analyst with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
In Kandahar, MacKay said he was concerned about information on how to make improvised explosive devices was coming into Afghanistan from Iran.
But Gary Sick, a member of the National Security Council in the 1970s, said there is nothing inherently Iranian about the IEDs. "Anyone with a decent machine shop who knows what they're doing" can build IEDs."
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008
Copyright © 2008 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label David Wilkins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Wilkins. Show all posts
Monday, January 7, 2008
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Wilkins encourages Canada to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2009
This is from the Charlotte Observer. Notice that Wilkins was invited to go to Afghanistan by MacKay! MacKay is sucking up to his American advisors. Of course there is no need to convince MacKay that we ought to stay on and on to be junior partners in US imperialism. It is the Canadian public that needs to be primed and pumped to continue sending our troops to the slaughter.
Wilkins encourages Canada to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2009
By SEANNA ADCOX
Associated Press Writer
COLUMBIA, S.C. --The U.S. Ambassador to Canada said Friday he's unsure how the death of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto will affect the Canadian parliament's upcoming vote on troops in Afghanistan.
"It remains to be seen," Ambassador David Wilkins said from his native Greenville after returning from his first trip to Afghanistan. "I think we're all not only expressing regret of a tragic death but concerned about the stability of Pakistan and how that instability, if it turns to instability, affects Afghanistan."
As ambassador, he is encouraging Canadian officials to extend that country's military operations in Afghanistan beyond its current commitment that ends in February 2009. "But we fully understand and appreciate it's up to Canadian elected officials to make that decision," Wilkins said.
He expects the parliament to vote early next year. About 2,500 Canadian troops are in Afghanistan's southern region bordering Pakistan, where former Prime Minister Bhutto was assassinated Thursday. Canadian troops first deployed to the Kandahar area nearly two years ago and there is growing public unease.
Canada, with 73 combat deaths, has suffered higher casualties in Afghanistan than other countries because of their location in an area with high insurgent activity, Wilkins said.
The ambassador left Afghanistan on Wednesday after a three-day visit with troops, at the invitation of Canada's Defense Minister Peter MacKay. Wilkins said he spent 45 minutes in a bunker on Christmas night after a rocket hit an airstrip at an Air Force base he was visiting in Kandahar. But he said the explosion was not near him.
Wilkins encourages Canada to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2009
By SEANNA ADCOX
Associated Press Writer
COLUMBIA, S.C. --The U.S. Ambassador to Canada said Friday he's unsure how the death of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto will affect the Canadian parliament's upcoming vote on troops in Afghanistan.
"It remains to be seen," Ambassador David Wilkins said from his native Greenville after returning from his first trip to Afghanistan. "I think we're all not only expressing regret of a tragic death but concerned about the stability of Pakistan and how that instability, if it turns to instability, affects Afghanistan."
As ambassador, he is encouraging Canadian officials to extend that country's military operations in Afghanistan beyond its current commitment that ends in February 2009. "But we fully understand and appreciate it's up to Canadian elected officials to make that decision," Wilkins said.
He expects the parliament to vote early next year. About 2,500 Canadian troops are in Afghanistan's southern region bordering Pakistan, where former Prime Minister Bhutto was assassinated Thursday. Canadian troops first deployed to the Kandahar area nearly two years ago and there is growing public unease.
Canada, with 73 combat deaths, has suffered higher casualties in Afghanistan than other countries because of their location in an area with high insurgent activity, Wilkins said.
The ambassador left Afghanistan on Wednesday after a three-day visit with troops, at the invitation of Canada's Defense Minister Peter MacKay. Wilkins said he spent 45 minutes in a bunker on Christmas night after a rocket hit an airstrip at an Air Force base he was visiting in Kandahar. But he said the explosion was not near him.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Afghan Diplomat: No proof Iranian gov't behind IEDs
Where do Mackay's great ideas come from?
U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins accompanied MacKay to Afghanistan -- at Canada's request -- for the Christmas Day visit with troops
The US does not need proof and neither does its representative in Canada Peter MacKay. Perhaps MacKay's attack on Iran was his Xmas present to the US and Wilkins.
No doubt Karzai finds such attacks embarassing and counter-productive since Afghanistan has relatively good relationships with Iran but that does not matter to the US or Canada either it seems. Who are the Afghanis to say what their relationship to Iran is?
No proof Iranian gov't behind IEDs: Afghan diplomat
Updated Wed. Dec. 26 2007 6:52 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Afghanistan's Ambassador to Canada appears to be cautious about blaming Iran for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) being used in attacks against Afghan and NATO soldiers in his country.
On Tuesday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay alleged that many IEDs in Afghanistan have come from Iran.
"We're very concerned that weapons are coming in from Iran, we're very concerned these weapons are going to the insurgents and keeping this issue alive," he told reporters in Kandahar, where he was paying a Christmas visit to Canadian troops.
But Omar Samad, the top Afghan diplomat in Canada, told CTV Newsnet on Wednesday that there is no evidence about where the IEDs actually originated and who brought them to Afghanistan.
"Iran is a neighbor and we have good relations," he said. "The point is -- and the questions that have to be answered (and) are being looked at as far as who is involved in this. Is this a smuggling issue? Is this a policy issue by some government? Is this maybe an attempt by arms dealers to bring arms from a certain source?"
The Afghan government is working with its partners, including Canada, in attempting to find answers to those questions, he said.
Samad pointed out that Iran, which shares a 1,000-kilometre border with his country, hosts one million Afghan refugees. He said it must still be determined whether or not certain groups in other countries are involved in sending weapons to Afghanistan or if governments are involved.
U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins accompanied MacKay to Afghanistan -- at Canada's request -- for the Christmas Day visit with troops. In the past the U.S. has accused Iran of supplying weapons and materials for IEDs to insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq.
U.S. officials have also accused Iran of having a nuclear weapons program, which was refuted by an intelligence assessment by 16 American spy agencies just a few weeks ago.
Canada had not linked Iran to weapons in Afghanistan before MacKay's and Wilkins' trip.
MacKay said in French that Canada has repeatedly demanded that Iran halt the flow of weapons to Afghanistan.
But Samad said more investigation is needed before assigning blame to a specific source.
"First, we have to establish the facts, and then we will look at the options that exist," he said.
Iran's Shiite government has historically had frosty relations with the Taliban, which is the main insurgent force fighting against NATO and Afghan national forces. The Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents are composed of Sunni Muslims, who have traditionally been antagonistic towards Iran's Shiite Muslims.
MacKay also warned Pakistan to stop supplying weapons to Afghanistan, which has a strained relationship with the government in Kabul in the past few years.
U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins accompanied MacKay to Afghanistan -- at Canada's request -- for the Christmas Day visit with troops
The US does not need proof and neither does its representative in Canada Peter MacKay. Perhaps MacKay's attack on Iran was his Xmas present to the US and Wilkins.
No doubt Karzai finds such attacks embarassing and counter-productive since Afghanistan has relatively good relationships with Iran but that does not matter to the US or Canada either it seems. Who are the Afghanis to say what their relationship to Iran is?
No proof Iranian gov't behind IEDs: Afghan diplomat
Updated Wed. Dec. 26 2007 6:52 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Afghanistan's Ambassador to Canada appears to be cautious about blaming Iran for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) being used in attacks against Afghan and NATO soldiers in his country.
On Tuesday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay alleged that many IEDs in Afghanistan have come from Iran.
"We're very concerned that weapons are coming in from Iran, we're very concerned these weapons are going to the insurgents and keeping this issue alive," he told reporters in Kandahar, where he was paying a Christmas visit to Canadian troops.
But Omar Samad, the top Afghan diplomat in Canada, told CTV Newsnet on Wednesday that there is no evidence about where the IEDs actually originated and who brought them to Afghanistan.
"Iran is a neighbor and we have good relations," he said. "The point is -- and the questions that have to be answered (and) are being looked at as far as who is involved in this. Is this a smuggling issue? Is this a policy issue by some government? Is this maybe an attempt by arms dealers to bring arms from a certain source?"
The Afghan government is working with its partners, including Canada, in attempting to find answers to those questions, he said.
Samad pointed out that Iran, which shares a 1,000-kilometre border with his country, hosts one million Afghan refugees. He said it must still be determined whether or not certain groups in other countries are involved in sending weapons to Afghanistan or if governments are involved.
U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins accompanied MacKay to Afghanistan -- at Canada's request -- for the Christmas Day visit with troops. In the past the U.S. has accused Iran of supplying weapons and materials for IEDs to insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq.
U.S. officials have also accused Iran of having a nuclear weapons program, which was refuted by an intelligence assessment by 16 American spy agencies just a few weeks ago.
Canada had not linked Iran to weapons in Afghanistan before MacKay's and Wilkins' trip.
MacKay said in French that Canada has repeatedly demanded that Iran halt the flow of weapons to Afghanistan.
But Samad said more investigation is needed before assigning blame to a specific source.
"First, we have to establish the facts, and then we will look at the options that exist," he said.
Iran's Shiite government has historically had frosty relations with the Taliban, which is the main insurgent force fighting against NATO and Afghan national forces. The Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents are composed of Sunni Muslims, who have traditionally been antagonistic towards Iran's Shiite Muslims.
MacKay also warned Pakistan to stop supplying weapons to Afghanistan, which has a strained relationship with the government in Kabul in the past few years.
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