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Reasons to Stop Propping Up Obama’s War
My computer’s IN basket has recently contained alerts from peace-oriented organizations, Stephen Staples’ Ceasefire.org, in particular. All of them are concerned about the danger of ramping up Canadian involvement in Obama’s war in Afghanistan, and all of them exhorting Canadians to tell the Harper government to cease and desist further involvement in a war that nobody wants.
As a public service I have assembled some salient points to assist Canadians in case they need more rhetorical ammunition to shoot off to friends and/or MPs.
- It’s not our war. Canadians don’t want it. Canadian soldiers have no reason — no right — to be there.
A Canadian Press-Harris Decima survey last month suggested almost 90 per cent of Canadians want the troops out of Afghanistan by the 2011 target, if not before.
In spite of this, the Obama administration and our own military, are pressuring the Harper government to extend our commitment by deploying our fleet of CF-18 Hornet fighter bombers, that is to extend the killing of innocent civilians. - Canadian Press — June 28, 2009.
The Afghan people didn’t ask for our help. They didn’t ask Canadians. They certainly didn’t ask Americans. “If you have come to help me you can go home again. But if you see my struggle as part of your own survival then perhaps we can work together.” - Australian Aborigine Woman - quoted in Getting to the 21st Century [Korten]
It’s an unwinnable war. No military force has ever conquered Afghanistan since the time of Alexander the Great.
Comparing coverups in Viet Nam and Afghanistan, Toronto Sun Foreign Affairs columnist Eric Margolis writes: “when U.S. military spokesmen trumpeted daily glowing reports about enemy body counts… hearts and minds won over, and smiling children waving little American flags… the U.S. was “winning” all these little daily battles, [but] Communists were winning the war. …
“Once again, U.S. fighting men in Iraq and Canadians in Afghanistan have been sent into no-win wars by their poorly informed, badly advised civilian masters, and ordered to keep coming up with rosy progress reports.” (Unwinnable Wars, 09/10/07)
- Aiding warlords. In supporting the war Canadians express tacit support for the corrupt puppet government of President Hamid Karzai.
Outspoken Afghan feminist, pro-democracy activist and illegally suspended parliamentarian Malalai Joya told Green Left Weekly that the invasion was carried out “in the name of human rights and women’s rights”. However, Joya said, “The US has imposed the Northern Alliance fundamentalists on our people. They are the criminal mujaheddin from the 1992-96 civil war with the same mentality as the Taliban, but with suits and ties talking about democracy.
“The mujaheddin combined violent and misogynist religious fundamentalism with violent and misogynist banditry, with mass rape their favoured military tactic. This made the civil war period as dark as the Taliban rule that followed.. .[Karzai] has chosen two notorious warlords, Mohammed Qasim Fahim and Karim Khalili, as his vice-presidential running mates.
“While the Western media is describing the [recent] elections as a test for Afghan democracy, Joya is scathing. “The elections are under the warlords, drug lords, awful corruption and the occupation forces. To talk about free elections is not only ridiculous, it has no legitimacy at all. (www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2009/07/04/)
“The New York Times reports President Bush’s former ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, could soon assume a powerful, unelected position running the Afghan government. Under a plan being discussed with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Obama administration, Khalilzad could essentially become the unelected CEO of Afghanistan, taking away power now held by the democratically elected Karzai. Karzai’s ties to the United States have deteriorated recently. (www.democracynow.org/2009/5/19/headlines)
It’s insulting to the Afghan people. The Harper government is making the same arrogant mistake that our Canadian forefathers made with Aboriginal peoples when they packed them off to the Mission schools. In other words, it assumes that our ‘Christian’ culture is superior to that of the Afghanis, and that the Canadian Military is the agency to deliver it — not even CIDA(!).
It’s another war of US imperialism, with access to Middle East oil as its target. The Harper government is trying to sell us the old Bush/Chaney fiction that we are bringing ‘freedom and democracy’ into their country. Why not? It seems that lots of Americans have bought it.
Linda McQuaig writes in Holding the Bully’ s Coat: “As the United States has become a belligerent and lawless force under George W. Bush, the Canadian government has followed in close step. Attempting to please our powerful neighbour, Ottawa has abandoned Canada’s traditional role as a leading peacekeeping nation, and instead adopted a more militaristic, warlike stance, battling insurgents in Afghanistan as a junior partner in the U.S. ‘war on terror’.”
OTTAWA — Obama Democrats have quietly sounded out power-brokers in Ottawa looking for advice on how to convince war-weary Canadians to keep military forces in Afghanistan after 2011.
Conscious of the deep political and public opposition to extending the mission further, American officials — political and military — are struggling to understand those concerns and identify the right arguments to make to the Harper government to “keep Canadian boots on the ground,” said defense sources….President Barak Obama has made it clear Afghanistan is the central front in the war against al Qaeda and terrorism.
Any discussion of Canadian involvement beyond 2011 will likely make Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority government squirm because there’s no appetite for extending such a costly war. - Canadian Press report dated June 28, 2009
- Many innocent civilians are being killed.
Stephen Staples writes, “According to the United Nations, 530 Afghan civilians were killed by U.S. and NATO air strikes in 2008, a 65 per cent increase over 2007. Experts all agree that the growing numbers of civilians killed by air strikes is eroding Afghan support for foreign troops.
“Canadian warplanes should never be part of these deadly bombing and strafing runs in Afghanistan. How many deaths of innocent Afghans would be on our hands?”
Speaking of the US-led occupation of Afghanistan, Australian biologist Dr Gideon Polyya goes so far as to call it genocide. Based on Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention, he estimates that post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths total 3-7 million. He also points out that 3-4 million refugees have been generated. (www.countercurrents.org/polya090709.htm)
- It supports the Military-Industrial Complex. President Obama [who bought the Bush Administration lies] is yielding to the Military-Industrial Complex who are only too happy to peddle their lethal hardware and assassin services.
“Admiral Mike Mullen, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said the Obama administration has placed no limits on the potential number of US troops in Afghanistan. In an interview with the Washington Post, Mullen said the new US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has been told to request as many troops as thinks he needs.” (www.democracynow.org/2009/7/2/headlines)
- It’s bad for the economy. All of the materials and services of war are depleting the US treasury — already on the brink of bankruptcy and threatening to plunge the global economy into chaos.
Mike Blanchfield reported in the Vancouver Sun of June 24, 2009 that [Treasury Board] figures released show that cost of the war for 2009-10 is estimated at $1.513 billion, while for 2010-11 the cost is pegged at $1.468 billion.
“It seems to me, unbeknownst to Canadians, the costs and projections for this mission in Afghanistan are spiralling out of control without any public disclosure or opportunity for public debate on this,” said NDP defense critic Jack Harris. (www.vancouversun.com/news/1729212/story.html)
- It’s bad for the planet. The aircraft and other vehicles of destruction are polluting the atmosphere and hastening climate change and the destruction of the planet as we know it.
The war in Afganistan is too costly in financial, environmental and humanitarian terms (increasingly the majority of fatalities are civilian.)
The war is about hegemony of oil supplies and nothing to do with installing democratic (Western version) to Afganistan.
Canadian troops must be brought home. Furthermore the plan to deploy F-18 fighters is guaranteed to increase the carnage.
Most Canadians are against the war, therefore the democratic action is to bring Canadian troops home, and encourage the United States to do the same.
Chris Thomas Slater
#1. Posted by Chris Thomas Slater in Vancouver, Canada on July 18th 2009 at 9:58pm
Prime Minister Stephen Harper shows a distressing tendancy to want to appear a tough guy. The first newspaper photo I recall seeing of him, when he was made Prime Miister, was of him wearing army fatigues. His desire to put first-time marijuana smokers into prison, and to allow the excutions of Canadians in foreign prisons are not the attributes of an educated, or a civilized person. He is looking more and more like a sociopath. Ordinary Canadians have no desire to go to war with the Americans, who have gotten their own country perhaps hopelessly off-track. Harper is behind the times, rather than with the times, or ahead of the times. He misleads people, as a political expediancy, as when he said that a coalition government for Canada would be such a bad thing.
#2. Posted by Madeline Bruce in Nanaimo, B. C. on September 7th 2009 at 12:06am