Quote Originally Posted by Merv Benson View Post
The guy goes on the media mouth piece for the enemy's message and tries to get credibility by embracing a part of that message. His job is to fight back against the enemy media message. This guy is in need of a brutally frank discussion of his own arrogance and miscalculations.
I totally agree, Merv. He is supposed to be representing the US to the Arab world. What bothers me equally about the story is that it is being played in the Canadian press. Not only is he going against the US in the Arab world or, at least, to al-Jezira's viewers, he is also doing so, inadvertently, in the national press of US allies.

Right now, Canadians are split on our involvement in Afghanistan and, while the polls are tending towards withdrawing, that appears, to me at least, to be "soft support" for us to withdraw. This type of message from a US ambassador will go some way to "hardening up" support for calls for us to withdraw. Given that we currently have a minority government led by a man who is being called a "Bush Clone" and that we have a leadership race in the Liberal Party where our involvement in Afghanistan is a key issue, the effect of a pronouncement like this will go far beyond the muslim world.

Marc