"If Karzai is unstable and wants us out."

If the government of a country does not assist the armed forces there, then those forces are an occupation force in the eyes of that government. That cannot be that big a revelation.

I think the actions of the west in Afghanistan are inherently wrong. Not because the North American public wants to help the poor and sick, or stop the denigration of the women. Those motives are good, and as they should be.

Afghanistan has been a source of illicit drugs for centuries, if not millennia. I think that's why we're over there, in a vain attempt to get a society that is addicted to drugs to give them up. There's too much money in it.

Our public motives are not the reasons the government sent Canadian Armed Forces over there. Our soldiers are getting killed and maimed in the name of a lie. We will never be able to bring that country into the democratic point of view as long as warlords and government officials line their pockets with drug money. The immense profits of those who produce the drugs finance the guns and munitions that allow the warfare to continue to control who plants, harvests, processes, and ships out the opium.

Eliminating the worlds' addiction to drugs is not achievable. The War in Afghanistan will continue as long as the drugs are so lucrative. Maybe the answer is in that.

Aw come on yourself, coke, although not even close to a healthy beverage, doesn't have alcohol in it, affecting reaction times, balance and logic processes in the minds of those who drink it.

I have to admit that I'd love to have my employer give me free beer at lunchtime.. maybe. I do have one very large point to make though.... What happens when a worker who has had a couple of pints of brew drives a forklift truck into a full warehouse rack of supplies, knocking them over and injuring someone, or worse? What happens when an employee gets hurt or killed through the inebriated actions of some other employee who has been drinking on the job with the employers blessing and assistance? What about the costs of mistakes made in shipping or brewing, or any of the other many tasks done by workers who have been drinking?

Can you imagine the hordes of lawyers waiting outside the factory gates to demand the company pay dearly for every imaginable expense incurred by someone hurt on the job?

I can hardly imagine a North American employer who would allow such a dangerous, costly practice.