Originally Posted to 'the Fake Headlines' by Margie This is an article from the online Canadian newspaper Straightgoods and I feel that is really worthy of posting here. At the end of the arcticle there is a link where you can download Mr. Laxer's book Mission of Folly
Why Canada should bring its troops home from Afghanistan.
Dateline: Monday, February 19, 2007
by James Laxer
Canadians have been fighting in Afghanistan for five years without having had an authentic national debate on the mission. To date the only vote in parliament on the issue was held in May 2006, which carried by a scant 149 to 145. With only two days notice that there would be a debate followed by a vote, the Harper government won a two-year extension of the mission. The country is deeply divided on the merits of the mission. Most Canadians tell pollsters that they do not believe the mission will be successful.
The government of Jean Chrétien announced that Canada would send troops to Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001, in the weeks following the September 11 terror attacks on New York City and Washington DC. Since then, the Martin and Harper governments have extended the mission. Forty-four Canadians have died in the mission to date. On a per capita basis, more Canadians have died in Afghanistan than has been the case for any other country sending forces from the outside, including the US and the UK.
When the US pulls out of Iraq, the Afghanistan war will collapse and the ensuing peace agreement will pay little respect to human rights.
The Bush administration invaded Afghanistan with the stated goals of punishing the Al Qaeda terrorists and overturning the Taliban regime in Kabul. The invasion was featured, as an element in what George W Bush announced would be a global War on Terror. From the beginning, the key members of the Bush administration regarded Afghanistan as a secondary target and were planning the subsequent invasion of Iraq. Victory in Iraq was intended to ensure US dominance in the Middle East — with its vital oil reserves — as well as in Central Asia.
In principle, the Afghanistan mission is a NATO operation. Apart from the US, Canada and the UK, however, major NATO allies, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain are involved in the Afghanistan mission only in a very limited way. They are keeping their forces out of the serious fighting in the south, where so many Canadians have died, because public opinion in their countries won't stand for high casualties in a war the public doesn't really support.
Pakistan, Canada's supposed ally, is playing a duplicitous role in the war. The Taliban and other insurgents are using Pakistani territory adjacent to Afghanistan as a refuge. When the fighting gets too tough for them, they retreat across the border into Pakistan and come back in force when they are ready to hit Canadian troops again.
Washington is not prepared to have a showdown with the Musharraf government in Islamabad over this duplicity. The United States has strategic interests in Pakistan that far exceed those in Afghanistan. Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state that plays a crucial role in establishing the balance of power in Asia.
In this game of smoke and mirrors, Canadian soldiers are engaged in a dirty war, in a region of Afghanistan where few NATO allies are willing to go. Washington is anxious to have Canadians do as much of the difficult fighting as possible in southern Afghanistan, where the revitalized Taliban has been taking a toll.
Not least, this is because the Bush administration needs to keep US military casualties to a minimum. American public opinion, already highly critical of the war, is negatively affected by rising casualties. On the other hand, Canadian casualties provoke no such reaction in the United States. The deaths of Canadian soldiers are rarely reported in the American media.
Should Canadians be paying a price in blood in a conflict in which double-dealing is the name of the game?
The Harper government claims (among other things) that the fight in Afghanistan is about the establishment of a democratic government that respects human rights, in particular the rights of women. In fact, this fight is not about human rights and never has been.
The Taliban and Al Qaeda grew out of the earlier struggles of the Mujahideen from the 1970s to the 1990s to overturn the pro-Soviet regime that was kept in power by Soviet troops. The United States provided enormous financial aid and direction to the Mujahideen, knowing that they were virulently opposed to the rights of women. Now the US and its NATO allies are fighting the political forces Washington helped create.
While the human rights record of the Taliban government was atrocious — including the forced removal of women from the workforce, the denial of education to girls and the requirement that females wear the burqa — we must never forget that the US played a large role in creating the Taliban. Moreover, the Northern Alliance and other allies of the US in the struggle to overturn the Taliban government have been guilty of major human rights abuses including rape, public executions, bombing of civilians and the massacre of prisoners.
One of the greatest human rights abuses of recent times, the US prison camp in Guantanamo, Cuba, where prisoners from the Afghan conflict are held indefinitely, is a legacy of this war.
While Canada continues its fight in Afghanistan, the US is rethinking its wider war in the Middle East and Central Asia. Only 25 percent of Americans now support the US war in Iraq, which for the people of the US has been the major conflict, with Afghanistan as the sideshow. Many Republicans, as well as Democrats, want a major change in American foreign policy, including bringing the troops home from Iraq.
Once Americans decide to pull their forces out of Iraq, they'll soon do the same in Afghanistan. When the US completes the change in its foreign policy that is already underway, prospects are slim to none that the ensuing peace deal will ensure democratic regime that respects human rights, especially the rights of women.
The Harper government presents the mission in Afghanistan as being divided between two equally important pillars, the military struggle and the provision of reconstruction aid. In fact, ninety percent of Canada's spending in Afghanistan has been on its military effort and only ten percent on reconstruction aid.
Canada ought to pull its troops out of the conflict. Canadians should undertake to provide additional aid to Afghanistan up to the level of Canadian military spending there to date. That would amount to at least $3.5 billion in additional reconstruction aid.
Canadians should also use the national discussion of the Afghanistan mission to design a new foreign policy for Canada. Among other things, Canada ought to move swiftly to the provision of 0.07 percent of its GDP to foreign aid projects. Canadian governments have long talked about this target, while doing little to meet it.
Related addresses:
URL 1: www.straightgoods.ca/PDFs/JamesLaxer/Mission-Folly.pdf
URL 2: www.jameslaxer.com/blog.html
