[Mayworks-org] Resisting Empire and the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan

[The Bullet]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 43... February 20, 2007
___________________________________________________________

Against War: Resisting Empire and the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan


**York Ad Hoc Committee Against the War**

It is now five years since Canadian troops were first deployed to
Afghanistan, entering from the outset into a combat position. Canada
moved into a war in Afghanistan without any Parliamentary sanction or
debate. The Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chretien
engineered both an endorsement and accommodation to the American 'war
on terror' by moving into Afghanistan without directly supporting the
American invasion and occupation of Iraq. The policy was a classic
case of Canada trying to have it both ways. The Canadian mission in
Afghanistan was thus begun with neither wide discussion and even
minimal accountability nor strategic thought. It was undertaken to
affirm Canada as the American empire's key ally. In this case, Canada
would act would support U.S. and western imperialism under the rubric
of a NATO mission given legitimacy by a resolution rammed through the
UN Security Council in the wake of 9/11, when rational and calm debate
and analysis was completely foregone. 

Prime Ministers Paul Martin and Stephen Harper both subsequently
raised Canada's commitments to the Afghanistan mission in terms of
troop levels, arms expenditures, and operational deployments.
Notably, Canada moved into a forward combat position in Southern
Afghanistan in the winter of 2006 to directly engage Taliban forces.
Canada is scheduled to play a larger role in the NATO command
structure. Relative to domestic population levels, more Canadians
have been killed in Afghanistan than any other of the NATO allies.
And more Canadian soldiers, as well as civilian officials, will be
killed in the coming months, given the chaos that is continuing to
spiral upward in Afghanistan and, indeed, across the Middle East.

There are other disturbing aspects of the Canadian deployment that
the government of Canada has been less than forthcoming about. Canada
will soon be at war in Afghanistan as long as any war Canada has
fought in, notably WW II. The Canadian mission is primarily combat
and not development-related, with only about 10 percent of
expenditures being related to development work. The Karzai government
in Kabul being defended has no real democratic mandate. It is a
cesspool of corruption, with aid moneys transferred and taxes
collected soon vanishing into any number of pockets. The so-called
Afghan parliament is full of ex-Taliban and warlords. The government
is making next to no progress on women's and human rights. The
Canadian Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence,
in its February report, 
Canadian Troops in Afghanistan: Taking a
Hard Look at A Hard Mission
, came to most of these same conclusions.
It all but admitted that the war cannot be 'won' (in the eyes of a
foreign military force intervening in another country). But the
Senators then illogically concluded that Canada must stick it out
because of the need to support NATO allies and for peace and
security. Yet, the Senate Report itself had just observed what is
apparent to all but the willfully ignorant: the war and conflict is
spreading, as is the range and violence of various terrorist acts. It
is the ideological need to support NATO, as one of the foremost
institutions of western militarism and imperialism, re-engineered in
the post-cold war period to project military power into wayward
states in the 'global south', that remains at the heart of the
Canadian intervention in Afghanistan. When a mission lacks
justification and is faltering, as with the Canadian and NATO mission
in Afghanistan, all that is left is for the bankrupt rulers to assert,
as they so often have in the past, that 'war is peace'.

The Canadian war in Afghanistan has been barely discussed in
Parliament, with only the briefest debate in May 2006 on a motion
extending the Canadian mission. A much deeper process of discussion,
education, and mobilization needs to ensue across Canada. The
Canadian Peace Alliance and other peace groups have called for
nation-wide demonstrations across Canada for March 17. We must begin
to work toward that now in our workplaces and communities across the
country. 

We are supporting an anti-war teach-in at York University on February
22 as part of this process. And we are calling on university, college
and high school campuses across Canada to engage in similar
teach-ins. Anti-war activists, students and professors, workers and
all citizens simply concerned with democracy, peace, international
restraints on militarism, and democratic sovereignty must work to
build a wide opposition against the war. We need to bring Canadian
troops home and get them out of Afghanistan, and get NATO and
American troops out of Iraq and the Middle East.

*******************************************************************

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ANTI-WAR TEACH-IN: YORK UNIVERSITY

Thursday February 22, 2007 

A day of panels and workshops about building the anti-war movement.

1:30-3:00pm

Opening Plenary: Resisting Empire, Racism and War 

CFA (Centre for Fine Arts) Room 312 

You can check the location here: 

(Map - bldg 36, Joan & Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts
<http://www.yorku.ca/yorkweb/maps/interactive/KeeleCampus.swf?flashBuildingID=36>
)
Panelists:

Sherene Razack, Professor of Sociology & Equity Studies at OISE,
University of Toronto, author, "Dark Threats and White Knights: The
Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism"

Michael Mandel, Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University,
author, "How America Gets Away With Murder: Illegal Wars, Collateral
Damage and Crimes Against Humanity", and activist, Lawyers Against
The War, Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians

Angela Joya, Graduate Student in Political Science, York University,
member of the Middle East Socialist Students Network

Workshops in the York Student Centre:

3:15pm - 4:30pm 

Trade Unions and Anti-War Organizing - GSA Lounge, Room 425 

Canadian Foreign Policy and Imperialism - Room 311C

4:45pm - 6:00pm 

The Student Anti-War Movement - GSA Lounge, Room 425 

Anti-Imperialism - Room 311C

6:00pm

Social at The Underground

 This teach-in is sponsored by a network of anti-war groups,
including: Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG), Grass
Roots Anti Imperialist Network (GRAIN), Graduate Students Association
(GSA), Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3903,
International Solidarity Working Group, CUPE Ontario International
Solidarity Committee, Latin America Solidarity Committee (LASC)

***************************************************************

***************************************************************

Questions About Canada's Involvement In Afghanistan

**Trade Unionists Against the War**

Canada is at war in Afghanistan. Many Canadian soldiers have been
killed - the highest percentage of lives lost of any of the foreign
armies that are engaged there. Canada currently has 2,300 troops in
Afghanistan and it seems that almost every day the Harper government
is escalating our country's commitment to the "mission" by providing
new tanks, more troops, fighter planes and billions of dollars
towards an open-ended war that could last decades.

 We are told that the intervention is helping the people of
Afghanistan rebuild their country and prevent the return of the hated
Taliban, and that our soldiers are there to bring democracy, equality
and economic well-being for the Afghan people. Even more, Prime
Minister Stephen Harper and his Foreign Affairs Minister Peter McKay
tell us that fighting in Afghanistan is necessary to stop terrorism
and that it is part of a world-wide struggle for freedom, echoing
U.S. President George W. Bush. Leading Liberal leadership candidate
Michael Ignatieff called our involvement there a question of
morality.

 Yet, in spite of all of these claims, the majority of Canadians
either oppose or have grave concerns about Canadian participation in
the war in Afghanistan. Many working people share these concerns and
are increasingly opposed to the government's policies. Lately, our
unions are speaking out against the war as well. Ordinary Canadians
have raised a number of questions about Canadian intervention in
Afghanistan. We attempt to address some of them below.

 Isn't the current government of Afghanistan concerned about
democracy and equal rights?

 The current Afghan government was installed as a result of the U.S.
intervention in 2001. That government is neither democratic or nor
stable and, protected by the American-led occupation force, rules
today over an extremely unequal society.

 Human Rights Watch estimates that 60 percent of Afghanistan's
legislators have links to the country's warlords. One European
diplomat reckoned that about 20 legislators have active private
militias and that at least 20 more have been involved in drug
smuggling.

 In other words, the Afghan government is corrupt, repressive and
weak. It is dependent on the occupying armies of the United States,
Canada and the other NATO countries. Recently, the most senior
British military commander in Afghanistan described the situation in
the country as "close to anarchy", with feuding foreign agencies and
privately controlled security companies compounding problems caused
by local corruption.

What is life like for the Afghan people under the Karzai government?

Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world.
According to a young Afghan woman legislator, Malalai Joya, in
Afghanistan:

* 700 children and 50 to 70 women die each day for lack of adequate
healthcare. 

* 1,600 to 1,900 per 100,000 women die in childbirth. 

* Life expectancy is less than 45 years. 

* 40 percent of the population is unemployed. 

* Afghanistan stands 175th out of 177 countries on the UN Human
Development Index

Won't the American, British, Canadian and NATO intervention make
things better there?

No. The principal goal of the intervention force is to seek out and
destroy those who are fighting against the puppet Afghan government.
This overwhelming focus on a military solution to the country's
problems will not bring economic development or improvement in the
lives of the people.

Everyone talks about the opium industry in Afghanistan - what is the
issue?

Afghanistan is the world's largest supplier of opium, supplying 92%
of the world heroin market. This remarkable statistic reflects the
desperate situation facing Afghan farmers. The years of invasion,
occupation and war have destroyed the country's fruit, vegetable and
industrial production and trade. Farmers are forced to cultivate
opium poppies in order to survive. Instead of providing Afghans with
legal ways to use opium products (opium is the key ingredient in
morphine, codeine and other opiate-based pharmaceuticals) or
developing alternative crops, the American occupiers have
concentrated their efforts on eradicating the poppy. This has, in
turn, has made it more difficult for Afghani's to feed themselves.
Meanwhile, the warlords in the Karzai government play a major role in
running and benefiting from the opium trade.

Isn't there a danger of religious fundamentalists and terrorists
coming back to power, if we leave?

The Taliban government was overthrown by the American-led bombing and
military intervention in 2001. But it was replaced by a puppet
government, friendly to American interests. The rebels fighting the
current government include some of the former Taliban and Al-Q'aida,
as well as nationalistic members of different ethnic groups,
religious conservatives and others who are disgusted with the
continuing occupation of their country by the U.S. and NATO forces
and the continuing corruption of the government.

Today, the Karzai government includes many of the same repressive
religious extremists that terrorized the Afghan people in the early
1990s. The current constitution and courts make Islamic law supreme.
The Americans' allies also threaten the lives of any potential
opposition as well as those who dare to argue for equality and
political rights. In other words, the current government that we are
defending includes both fundamentalists and terrorists.

As journalist Eric Margolis has recently commented: "Western troops
are not fighting 'terrorism' in Afghanistan, as Prime Minister
Stephen Harper claims. They are fighting the Afghan people. Every new
civilian killed, and every village bombed, breeds new enemies for the
West."

What about the condition of women and girls in Afghanistan today?
Isn't this mission supposed to protect women and girls to get back
their rights?

As Afghan woman's activist and legislator Malalai Joya recently
noted, "Contrary to the propaganda in certain Western media, Afghan
women and men are not 'liberated' at all", because the present
government has continued many of the repressive policies towards
women and girls. She noted at the Federal NDP convention in September
2006: "I think that no nation can donate liberation to another nation.
Liberation should be achieved in a country by the people themselves.
The ongoing developments in Afghanistan and Iraq prove this claim."

Amnesty International noted in 2005 that: "Violence against women and
girls in Afghanistan is pervasive; few women are exempt from the
reality or threat of violence. Afghan women and girls live with the
risk of abduction and rape by armed individuals; forced marriage;
being traded for settling disputes and debts; and face daily
discrimination from all segments of society as well as by state
officials.... Strict societal codes, invoked in the name of tradition
and religion, are used as justification for denying women the ability
to enjoy their fundamental rights, and have led to the imprisonment
of some women, and even to killings. Should they protest by running
away, the authorities may imprison them." (From Afghanistan: Women
still under attack - a systematic failure to protect, May 30, 2005).

Why is Canada in the war?

For all the talk about freedom and democracy, the Canadian mission in
Afghanistan is primarily about supporting the United States and
redefining Canada's role in the world. Canadian troops were
originally sent to Afghanistan to ease the pressure on U.S. troops in
Iraq and to curry favour with Bush in order to "make up" for Canada's
refusal to participate in the Iraq invasion and the Bush's "Star
Wars" anti-missile program.

Many businesspeople and politicians argued that helping the American
war effort would help offset U.S. threats to limit investment and
trade with Canada. Canadian Chief of Staff Rick Hillier has also
pushed for closer integration with the U.S. military.

When all is said and done, the Canadian establishment shares a number
of common interests with the American ruling elite: in protecting the
interests of large corporations and banks around the world; in
helping the U.S. to use its power to guarantee that no country
challenges private enterprise; and controlling important sources of
raw materials.

This is the motivation for Canadian intervention in Haiti (where we
helped to overthrow a democratically elected government that
threatened business), our support of Israeli aggression in the Middle
East and the protection of corporate rights at home.

Paul Martin's Liberal government supported this mission and Stephen
Harper's Conservatives have continued it. Has anything changed?

Like many previous Canadian governments, the Martin Liberals talked
publicly about pursuing independent Canadian interests through
peacekeeping initiatives while they actually lent aid and support to
the Americans. The big difference is that Prime Minister Stephen
Harper's Conservatives have dropped the pretence of independence.
They openly support George Bush and identify themselves with the USA.

The Harper government, backed by right-wing elements in the military
establishment, also wants Canada to drop its pretence of independence
and neutrality and is working to create a foreign policy more openly
aligned with American interests. This means that the Canadian
military would concentrate on aggressive missions, geared towards
fighting ground wars in support of U.S. campaigns against "terrorism"
- the role that the military is increasingly playing in Afghanistan.

Canadian Chief of Staff Rick Hillier is a major spokesperson for this
point of view, which involves massive investments in armaments and
soldiers and a redirection of social resources away from humanitarian
aid towards offensive weaponry. In order to succeed, this effort
requires a massive propaganda campaign, designed to convince the
Canadian people that there is an "enemy" - and that the enemy must be
destroyed. This is why Hillier commented that the rebels in
Afghanistan are, "detestable murderers and scumbags" who should be
killed.

But aren't Canadian forces bringing development and reconstruction,
as well as fighting the Taliban?

Most of Canada's politicians and many of our media outlets would have
us believe that it is possible to combine reconstruction and
humanitarian aid, along with efforts to "pacify" the opposition
through military action. This is not true. Issues of development,
education, economic growth and social justice must be handled
differently. They require fundamental changes in society. The puppet
Karzai government is not about to embark on such changes and this is
clearly not what the Canadian mission is all about.

Looking at the actual spending of the Canadian mission, we can see
that successive Canadian governments don't even believe their own
propaganda. Between 2001 and 2006 Canada spent over CDN$ 4 billion
(US$3.6 billion) on its military deployments, but has spent and
pledged less than US$1 billion for humanitarian and development aid.

A Canadian vet from an earlier war, interviewed in a major newspaper,
put the issue clearly: "If they can't get a resolution to it, then
bring them home or pull them back and put them on peacekeeping. We
don't have a big enough force to be peacemakers. I don't believe you
go into a man's country and shoot him to bring him democracy. It's a
funny way of doing it."

We are told that the Afghan people support the U.S.-backed government
there. Is this true?

Even though TV accounts show pictures of Canadian troops giving candy
to Afghan children, the Canadian army is waging an aggressive war
against Afghan rebels, many of whom are fully integrated with the
civilian population. This inevitably leads to the death of innocent
people. As a result, many Afghans see little difference between the
Canadians and the Americans there. Why would they?

After resigning his post, a former aide-de-camp to the commander of
the British taskforce in southern Afghanistan commented that: "All
those people whose homes have been destroyed and sons killed are
going to turn against the British,.... It's a pretty clear equation
if people are losing homes and poppy fields, they will go and fight.
I certainly would."

After the most recent, Canadian-led NATO offensive, supposedly
against the Taliban, a Globe and Mail reporter noted that: "Many of
the fighters killed - perhaps half of them, by one estimate - were
not Taliban stalwarts, but local farmers who reportedly revolted
against corrupt policing and tribal persecution. It appears the
Taliban did not choose the Panjwai district as a battleground merely
because the irrigation trenches and dry canals provided good hiding
places, but because many villagers were willing to give them food,
shelter - even sons for the fight - in exchange for freedom from the
local authorities." What does this tell us about the will of the
Afghan people and the reasons they are fighting?

Isn't this a UN and NATO-sponsored mission? Does that matter?

The original U.S. bombing and invasion - Operation Enduring Freedom -
was supported by the United Nations, after intense American pressure
in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Regardless of this endorsement,
it was wrong. The current Canadian mission is part of NATO. It too is
wrong.

Canada is a member of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization),
a 26- country alliance originally formed at the height of the cold
war to "protect the west against a Soviet attack" and to promote
American and Western European economic interests in the third world.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO continued to tie Western,
Eastern and Central European countries, as well as Canada, to the
American project of maximizing its global power. The U.S. has used
NATO to support its occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There are times when the international community of nations should
unite to stop a real threat to the world's peoples. In this case, the
Afghan resistance is not a threat. The reality is that NATO is helping
to extend American power there, acts as an extension of American
power.

Should Canada be concerned about "maintaining its commitment" to
NATO? Should we be lecturing other countries to increase their
commitment to the war?

No! We should be questioning the very existence of NATO and prepare
to get Canada out of the organization. Canada could play a leadership
role here, as people in other NATO countries are raising the very same
questions and concerns.

What is the likelihood of winning the war?

Stephen Harper says, "We will be there as long as it takes". But
there is no end in sight and even military strategists know this.

In a candid comment, Canadian Defence Minister O'Connor - a former
arms company lobbyist - recently said, "We cannot eliminate the
Taliban, not militarily anyway. We've got to get them back to some
kind of acceptable level so they don't threaten other areas.'' Even
the former American Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, recently
admitted that the war cannot be won militarily.

In any event, what does "winning" mean? If it means keeping the
present Afghan government of corrupt, fundamentalist warlords and
their allies in power, do we want to win?

Are we undermining our troops by calling for them to withdraw?

No! When our country sends its military into combat, we have a moral
responsibility to be absolutely sure that we are doing so for the
right reasons. If the overall mission is wrong - if it is supporting
oppression and results in the needless deaths of innocent people, as
well as those of our soldiers, and is doomed to failure - our
soldiers are needlessly risking their lives for the wrong reasons and
need to be brought home.

This is the best way to support our men and women who are fighting
there. It is also the way a democratic society makes decisions about
military interventions.

What should we do?

Canada's "mission" in Afghanistan must end and our troops be pulled
out. We must also pressure the U.S. and other NATO troops to do the
same.

Supporters of the war claim that pulling out would allow the
"terrorists and extremists" to take over the country, but as we have
seen, the government itself includes both.

As well, half of Afghanistan is already controlled by rebel forces.
NATO cannot stop this. Continuing the mission will only postpone the
time when Afghans can begin controlling their own destiny. Our
presence there needlessly increases the toll of civilian and military
deaths, making it more difficult for real reconstruction and
development to begin.

Withdrawal can and should be part of a negotiated settlement. But the
Harper government refuses to consider negotiations. Regardless,
foreign occupation forces need to be removed. The people of
Afghanistan must be free to determine their future without outside
interference.

The Soviets tried to impose their vision of society in Afghanistan in
the 1980's and they failed. The U.S. has also tried to impose its
vision and it is failing as well. Democracy, equality and social
justice can only take root from within a society because they must be
the work of the people themselves. They cannot be brought from the
outside, through an occupying army. As Malalai Joya has bravely noted
"No nation can donate liberation to another nation."

How did this war start?

This conflict has its roots in the American intervention in
Afghanistan that began during the cold war.

What do we need to know about the history of this conflict?

The U.S. has a long history of intervention in Afghanistan, which
resulted in instability, inequality, poverty, many deaths and
injuries and hardship for the people of that country.

In the late 1970s, a regime came to power in Afghanistan that sought
to modernize the country and bring in social reforms. It also had
close ties to the Soviet Union. In response, the American government
sponsored and armed a group of fundamentalist fighters, called
mujihadeen, to oppose the government.

The U.S. also hoped to draw the Soviets more directly into
Afghanistan, seeking to tie their cold war adversaries down in an
unwinnable war. The mujihadeen included some of the most brutal and
corrupt warlords in the country as well as the wealthy Saudi Arabian,
Osama Bin Laden. The U.S. lavished aid and resources on these
movements. The mujihadeen were involved in the opium trade and
persecuted Afghans who argued for democracy and social equality. In
this way, the Americans built-up the very same fundamentalist forces
that they oppose today and undermined the possibility of creating a
democratic society, one that was not dominated by religion.

The Soviets did invade in 1979 and after waging a long and brutal war
their occupation armies were unable to defeat the mujihadeen. When the
Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan in 1990, the various warlord groups
engaged in a bloody four year war among themselves for control of the
country. Thousands of Afghans were killed, injured or forced to become
refugees. Agriculture and trade were destroyed. These fundamentalist
warlords closed women's schools and attacked the real rights of women
and girls that had previously existed in Afghanistan.

In 1996 a new group of religious zealots called the Taliban, defeated
the other warlords, came to power and succeeded in extending their
control over most of Afghanistan, by promising stability and
protection from the warlords. Once in power, the Taliban deepened the
ruthless and repressive control over women and enforced a strict
medieval form of Islamic law. The U.S. refused to oppose them, citing
the need for stability (and protection of a proposed oil/natural gas
pipeline). But with the growing influence of Bin Laden's Al-Q'aida
group inside the country, the Americans began to challenge the
Taliban.

The 9/11 attack in New York (by Al-Q'aida operatives), brought a
swift and brutal response from the Bush Administration. "Operation
Enduring Freedom" unleashed a massive bombing campaign against
Afghanistan, using Cruise missiles with cluster bombs, and resulted
in the deaths of between 3000 and 3400 civilians. Another 20,000
Afghans reportedly lost their lives due to disease and starvation as
a result of the invasion.

This bombing campaign was unnecessary. The Taliban made a number of
offers to negotiate the surrender of Bin Laden and the expulsion of
Al-Q'aida fighters, but Bush refused to talk. The U.S. was more
interested in sending a message about its power, than seeking justice
for the 9/11 attacks.

Ultimately, the Taliban were driven out by a group of warlords called
the Northern Alliance, allied with Washington. These warlord groupings
included many of the same corrupt and repressive factions that the
Americans had originally bankrolled in the 1980s. In the process, the
American authorities arrested hundreds of "suspected terrorists" and
subject them to torture and humiliation in Guantanamo and elsewhere,
in violation of the Geneva Accords.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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