Mr. Chair, I wish the member had been at the debate this afternoon which was precisely on this point.
The question asked was, is peacekeeping as we know it in a traditional sense still realistic and is it appropriate in the situation that we are talking about? I think, regrettably, we are all forced to come to the conclusion that the blue berets peacekeeping with light weapons in this situation is probably not going to get the job done.
As I see it, the problem with the government is that on the one hand it seems not prepared at all to understand the value and necessity of really aggressive, robust, diplomatic initiatives, and on the other hand it seems prepared to send troops into missions where there is very little evidence that what we are doing, for example, in Afghanistan is not making a desperate situation worse. The more chaos, the more killings, the more fanaticism that is fuelled, the more Taliban, and the cycle continues. It is deteriorating and we are headed for what unfortunately could well be Canada's Iraq or Vietnam.