Quo Vadis?

Two weeks ago there was a 20 minute segment mostly about the Canadian mission in Kandahar on PBS Frontline/The World. Sam Kiley

It reminded me of Conrad's Heart of Darkness more than anything else. We went into one village with various humanitarian projects in mind and then suddenly were ordered to pull back to Kandahar. What do you think happened to those villagers who "cooperated" with us after we abandoned them to the fate of the local Taliban? The whole exercise is pointless except for safeguarding a few urban areas with some stability. The Taliban can still cross back and forth into Pakistan with impunity where they find refuge with their fundamentalist and tribal friends. The Americans and British refuse to lean hard on President Musharraf who works with local warlords/tribal chiefs/fundamentalists in the border regions to ensure stable rule. In the end we have the juxtaposition of wanting to combat "terrorism and the drug trade" on the one hand and supporting regimes which beyond well orchestrated demonstrations of intent are utterly docile when it comes to implementing any concrete action against both.

54 not a bloodbath

"54 makes the Afghan mission the bloodiest conflict since the Korean War."
Each death is a tragedy for the families and fellow soldiers involved. That is a risk each soldier in a war zone takes. But really, 54 deaths in five years does not constitute a bloodbath. Let's not forget that some of those deaths were accidents (like the most recent one) or friendly fire incidents. I think our troops have done remarkably well considering the risks they take (especially compared with the Germans and other NATO "allies" who refuse to consider allowing their troops in the relatively more safe northern zone to help out Canada on southern missions). Let's keep our losses in perspective--54 casualities would be a "normal" morning's trench fighting in WWI. Furthermore, the BC forest industry lost almost that many men to industrial accidents the year before last--and they don't get a ramp ceremony.

Canada's role

We are fulfilling UN resolution 1453, combating narcotrafficking and terrorism and creating a secure future for an independent Afghanistan governed by the acknowledged government of Karzai.

This role is pretty respectable.

As for method: force is justified because dominator cultures like that of the Taliban cannot be dissuaded by pure pacifism. Humanitarian initiatives to rebuild the country are also necessary but NGOs are not going to survive without military cover.

As for security interests: Afghanistan in the hands of jihadists was and would be a significant terrorist base. It is in my interests that these bases be denied to the extent practical, hence the UN resolution.

Questions:

Michael Byers
What is the status of the legal actions against the Canadian Government and/or Military in respect to the breaches of Geneva Conventions regarding the handling of POW's or 'Detainees' (to use the modern euphemism)?

Jared Ferrie
What is the 'man in the street' (of Kandahar) attitude towards:
Canadian Troops?
PRT's?
American Troops?
British Troops?
Polish or Bulgarian Troops?

Does the 'man in the street' (of Kandahar) ever mention or compare the situation to the Soviet actions of the 1980's?

Terry Glavin
What, exactly, is military intervention or any military action supposed to gain?
Please be precise with your answer.

Lauryn Oates
I understand that women have begun broadcasting in northern parts of Afghanistan, even challenging actions of local warlords. These women were doing these broadcasts before the Taliban were outsted by the Enduring Freedom actions.
Do you see any better conditions for continuing these educational efforts if the NATO forces continue to stay?

~please wait for an answer~

The local warlords have all been 'elected' to the national congress and are now using legislative tools to shut down the womens' broadcasting actions, they ~ the warlords ~ are getting lots of theological support for taking these actions and the women stand on the edge of becoming outlaws, just for speaking out loud.
Do you still agree that the NATO forces should be enforcing "afghan" law?
Should NATO forces be training and arming any 'police' forces that would be used to strong-arm silence from this group?

To All
If Canada stays (beyond 2009):
Do we continue to try and fight the 'Taliban' the way we have been?
Do we fight the way the Soviets did (more armor, more airpower, more bombs, bullets and boots on the ground)?
Do we continue to cooperate closely with the Americans regarding Opium productions?

If Canada leaves (in 2009 or earlier):
How do we get out given that the US are not likely to want to 'lend' out their heavy airlift, since they ~the US~ will be rather busy with their own heavy airlift out from Iraq?
Are we really ready for the Canadian Soldiers to return home?
Do we want them to come home without some sort of 'cooling out' period?

~ perhaps in Europe ... some 'time off' before coming home ... time off with councelling to ward-off PTSD?

When a person...

joins the armed forces they should fully expect that they may at some point in time be putting their lives on the line. It's not like the adds that say "Join the army, see the world". These men and women , I hope , should be making their families aware of the dangers that they may face.
As stated above we are there under United Nations Resolution No. 1453. We are signatory to the UN and sre bound by duty to fulfill certain missions. Afghanistan is only one of them. If you want to pull out of that country why are we not pulling out of others? If we were not there do you think that the Taliban wouln't massacre these people. Come on, get real.

If you don't want to be in these conflicts pull out of the UN. And while you're at it pull out of NATO and all of the other Treaties we have signed.
Just watch how fast the world respect for This Country and what we do disappears.

What are we doing?

We, as a country, are trying to make the world a better place. Where there is lawlessness, law and order has to be established. Do we not care about human rights?

To even ask "what we are doing in Afghanistan" smacks of abject naivety and amorality.

A better question is "why AREN'T we in Sudan or DRC as well" to which we know the answer.

and why are we not in ...

... for example, burma or zimbabwe?

oh, right, we have to wait for the americans to be sure there's oil near those places first.

canada has lots of oil. we should be aligning ourselves to one day be in a position like the saudis - where the world, including the americans and british come, caps in hand and on their knees, beating a path to our doors.

Murdock...

In answer to your question about Canada being ready for the troops to come home without a cooling off period:

The troops rotate in Afghanistan every 6 months, which means some troops come home and others go there every six months. I believe the Canadian Forces does have a time of debriefing and counselling after the six months, so troops who come home have already been getting that time to decompress before going back to their regular lives.

I think the more important question you asked is how we are going to get our troops and equipment home after the mission. Right now we are dependant on the US to fly us around. That is why the heavy lift planes that Harper has ordered are so important. They will allow us to decide when and where our troops go, instead of having to negotiate with foreign militaries to determine these things.

I hope that at the very least we stay until the end of our 2009 commitment. If there are other NATO allies willing to take over for us, then it would be nice to bring everyone home. If no one will take over for us, it will be a tough decision to make!

Globe & Mail Editorial

Globe and Mail April 23, 2007

Editorial

The truth Canada did not wish to see

All of Canada's assurances have proven false on the detention of prisoners handed over to the Afghan authorities. The prisoners appear to have been tortured, and Canada is hardly in a position to claim it did not know what was going on. At best, it tried not to know; at worst, it knew and said nothing.

Among those who gave assurances that the prisoners were properly treated (or who rejected claims of prisoner abuse) are Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Brigadier-General David Fraser. The name on Canada's detainee agreement with the Afghans, signed in December,
2005, is Gen. Rick Hillier, Canada's Chief of Defence Staff.

With senior ministers in the Canadian government and the heads of the military staking their credibility on the treatment of detainees, Canada might have been expected to inquire into whether their assurances would hold up to scrutiny. If The Globe and Mail's Graeme Smith could find out about a pattern of extreme abuse, including the use of electrical currents, boiling water and beatings with cables, it defies belief that Canada could not.

For a country that just conducted a painful self-examination, lasting nearly three years, into how Canadian citizen Maher Arar wound up in a Syrian torture cell (where he was beaten with cables), this is shattering news. Canada can not, after all that, claim merely to be playing by the rules of a tough part of the world. That would be naked hypocrisy.

It is still government policy -- or should be -- that the torturers on our side are no more justifiable than anyone else's. This country is a signatory to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which forbids returning people to another state where there are substantial grounds to believe they will be tortured.

(con't)

here's the rest of it

There is a practical reason, too, for not being complicit in torture; such complicity may put Canadians at higher risk of being tortured if they fall into the enemy's control. The first job for the Canadian government now must be to stop all transfers of prisoners to Afghan authorities immediately until a new process can be developed, in agreement with Afghanistan, to provide a high level of confidence that they will not be tortured when handed over to local authorities.

At the same time, Canada needs to ensure that all current detainees turned over by Canada are safe from abuse. The Netherlands has a strict agreement with the Afghans that allows its diplomats and military officials access to any prisoners. It has never been clear why Canada has not obtained a similar agreement.

Mr. O'Connor, the Defence Minister, needs to explain why Parliament, and Canadians in general, should maintain confidence in him. He misled the country by maintaining, for nearly a year, that the Red Cross was monitoring the prisoners for Canada. The Red Cross, it turned out, was doing no such thing. Gen. Hillier needs to say what steps he took to ascertain that his agreement with the Afghans was being respected. In the end, it is not Mr. O'Connor's or Gen. Hillier's reputation at stake. It is Canada's.

GCIII

As a soldier who is preparing to deploy to Afghanistan, I would like to know the panel's thoughts on why or why not the Taliban are protected by the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

Please approach this as a legal/technical question as opposed to a moral one. Thanks!

For Laruyn Oates

If there was no war or intervention. What tacics/strategies do you think would have brought about an end to the Taliban regime?

What could have been done for the women of Afghnistan and was not done during the Taliban regime by countries and/or organizations outside Afghanistan? Why do you think it wasn't done?

What is the situation for women in Afghanistan now?

Thank you.

MAKING SOMEONE MONEY ?????????????

YOU BETCHHA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

remember what EISEHOWER said when he left the presedential office....

watch out for THE INDUSTRIAL MILITARY COMPLEX...............

geez,folks...when are they gonna learn to print this on DIAPERS and make crib mobiles

TEACH,YOUR CHILDREN WELL..............

wars,KILL YOUR CHILDREN !!! FOR THE PROFIT OF OTHERS...

and as HARPER HAS SHOWN US...HE IS AN ASTUTE BUSINESSMAN WHEN IT COMES TO MAKING MONEY OF YOUR SONS/DAUGHTERS BODYBAGS...

Why Afghanistan? Why Peacekeeping?

I believe it is legitimate to question how and why our mission in Afghanistan materially differs from any of our "peacekeeping" missions over the past half-century. This kind of military involvement was invented and promoted by the Liberal party--same guys who put us in Afghanistan. Why should Canadian troops be anywhere but in Canada?

And perhaps we should be asking why the blockade of a highway or rail line in another country is more worthy of military attention than one back home (Mr. McGinty, are you listening?)

clo3

Incorrect.

As of right now, reservists are coming home from their 'deployments' and getting exactly zero councelling regarding PTSD, they are coming back to their lives and finding their nights a hell of strange memories and little sleep. This is translating into decreasing daytime work performance.

The military has NO POSITION on PTSD, AT ALL. They deny it exists and will not administer any medical or other support for any current, or former soldier EVEN IF THEY ARE PROFESSIONALLY DIAGNOSED WITH THE DISORDER.

getting out and 'heavy airlift'

clo3 wrote.

A nice idea, but as the UK Defence minister was accused I now say that we cannot 'magic-up' a heavy airlift force capable of getting us out of the tar-baby known as Afghanistan.

1) The 4 aircraft at the outside limit of the bill will not be enough to get out all of the troops at once, and I advocate that 'bug-out' is the only way we will see all of the troops home.
Why? you may ask.
The opposition, call them Taliban, call them Mujehedin, call them whatever have access to the 100's of missing Stingers, some of them type 3's. The Stinger-2's are bad enough but at least there are EW defences that exist to mitigate the losses from these missiles.
Singer-3's are practically foolproof and even the US has no defence against them.
Unless we get out all at once, the Stingers will come out like flowers in the spring, without a real active airforce surpressing these launchers (not that it would matter as the Mujehedin had done to the Soviets they were willing to sacrifice 10:1 in order to see the Russians off) the casualty count will mount exponentially as these 'heavy airlift' are picked off as they take off.

2) With the US definately looking at a material show-down in Iraq (maybe even a holocaust threat in Iran ~ may we be smart enough to avoid that catastrophy), they (the US) will either be in a massive re-enforcement effort ~ as they push for getting the Iraqi's to fight to the last sunni, or in their own version of a bug-out, especially if a Democrat President gets the Oval Office by promising the withdrawl.
How does this affect the Kandehar mission?
Either way the US heavy airlift is 'busy' possibly facing Stingers of their own. This means counting on the US to help with anything is total folly, the US airforce will be up their armpits in blood-soaked sand and not in any mood to help anyone, NATO or otherwise.

3)I really suspect that there will be no replacement force from NATO in 2009. In fact I see many of the other NATO nations being gone before then, leaving the thin red line to stand or fall on their own.
What does this mean?
Canada needs to start major diplomatic actions to ensure a land-based escape route. Considering our mostly stable relations with Russia I think this is the route to take and have the northern 'stans' ready to move south to meet our retreating forces. We had better have a 'plan C' before we see 'plan A' (US heavy airlift getting us out) or 'plan B' (our own airlift) fall apart.

Sadly all I can see is a 100% casualty rate once the real fight gets going...

Technetium

In your preparations please ask for a copy of your deployment instructions and a copy of the entire detachment action rolls, and make sure that both have been signed by the Commanding Officer, if possible, or at least the company officer if the senior officer is not available or not willing.

Leave these copies with trusted persons here in Canada, or your family as proof that you were ordered/stationed in Afghanistan.

Why?

There were combat engineers that were verbally transferred off of Canadian Destroyers in the Gulf in 1992 after Gulf War I. They were helping with the clean-up of the oil spills and working to get Kuwait back into some sort of usable condition, things like bridges & communications towers, no combat fighting.

These troops went back to their ships afterwards and thought nothing of what they did. Until 1997, when they all started to come down with Gulf War syndrome, and nasty cancers etc. The military had no record of them ever leaving the ship, no proof that they were ever anywhere but safe aboard the Destroyers. One even had his entire record of being aboard the ship erased!

For your future, get the records.
Please take this advice seriously.

What are we doing in Afghanistan?

In the final analysis, I suspect it will be no different than what the Greeks did...

“The people of Iraq have exhausted me. There is not one strategy I use against them that they have not already beaten me to. I cannot conquer them, and I have no other choice but to kill them to the last man.” – Alexander the Great, in a purported letter to his tutor Aristotle.

Please, let reason prevail, leave now before more blood soaks into the maple leaf.

If we do not like what forms behind us, we can go back and slaughter them if need be...from a safe distance like 35,000 feet.

When Should you Step In?

You're walking down the street and a young woman is being slapped around by some guy. She's heading for a school and the guy is her religious fanatic brother who doesn't want her to go. He wants her to stay home and cook; behind a veil and a wall, away from the men. His 'friends' are just as fanatical and have killed innocents and destroyed schools. Do you just walk on by?

That's what's going on over there and as much as I hate wars I do think that, sometimes, becoming involved is the right thing to do.

realistically stepping into man//woman issues

I have done just that 'intervention' in our real world today. I just happend to have a video camera and a cellular telephone. (part of my work tools)

I taped the assault and when I saw that he was continuing to 'stalk' her, I called the local RCMP detachment, vectoring in the cruiser to his exact location (after he saw the car he tried to hide).

I showed them the tape and it turned out that he had done this to her many times before. She would not swear out a complaint, but my tape brought him to 'justice' anonymously since I was not needed to do any more than swear out an affidavit of the authenticity of the tape.

Crown council accepted the evidence and charged him, he did 8 months.

You are wrong to make this comparison, as it is not what was, nor is 'going on' over there.

To take your simple point, then what we needed to do there, and in other places like Darfur, is to point our cameras there, put it all on YouTube, CNN, BCTV and everywhere else we possibly can.

Embarrass them and make certain that they know they cannot 'get away' with it anywhere. Allow no more dark little corners.

Unfortunately the reality is we cannot expect this alone to be satisfactory. Taking the actions we have done ~ to use your facile example again ~ is like charging into the argument with a broadsword and wildly swinging it about, while in the living room of the entire family. Striking the argumentative brother once or twice, but also whacking grandma, her little sister and the next door neighbour who was over for tea...

geographically challenged

Not sure what Murdock is talking about regarding Alexander the Great and his purported quote to Aristotle. Iraq did not exist prior to the previous century, and neither did Kandahar for that matter until Alexander built it. That is right, Kandahar City was named after Alexander, its founder. The only armies he had trouble subjugating were the people of what is now Kazakhstan (aka Borat-land and later the home of fearsome warriors like Tamerlane) and a little later of course, the Hindus whipped Alex and the Macedonians real good, sent them packing a couple of millenniums ago.

This myth about Afghans being unbeaten warriors was created by Kipling after the Brits lost three Afghan-Anglo Wars. But even though the Afghans beat both the Brits and the Soviets, it came at a dreadful cost to them. In 10 short years the Soviets lost thousands of men but the Afghans lost 1.5 million lives, not to mention several millions of refugees and land mine amputees.

Skillfully well sold...

"When should you step in?"

rm, this war is all about payment. When you step in to an abuse situation on the street, it is all about saving someone, not about receiving for it, but in THIS war, it is all about receiving under the guise of saving… It is a crooked war.

For us to trust that these slippery as an oil slick leaders are just in it to help the underdog and to set the bully straight, is very dangerous thinking. My thoughts are if you follow the money\energy trail and you will find the only reason for the wars today.

My boys are 21 and 23. They are both big strapping healthy young men. I made sure I raised them with a light on the politics around them. And, I have been straight-up about questioning "who" is the bad guy really in these wars.

Many of their friends went to Afghanistan, but my sons have chosen not to but to instead question our leaders and their wars.

I feel deeply for the parents who have lost children to this war. Grief stricken, many of them continue to stand in support of what their sons or daughters died for when they themselves do not even understand it…

Indeed this war has been skillfully well sold…

My View.

Bear

Good Samaritan hoax finally exposed!

You little children disguised as adults who insist on seeing the Canadian adventure in Afghanistan as some kind of good samaritan project should read this in today's Globe and Mail.

"What Ottawa Doesn't Want You To Know."

Apparently the Harper government was well aware that detainees turned over to the Afghan police by Canadian forces were routinely subjected to brutality, torture and execution.

yeah right

Torturing prisoners?
I bet they were only "following orders"!

We have heard that excuse before and it is not surprising that our troops conveniently just hand over prisoners -------- the alternative may be to just shoot them so as not to have to take any prisoners?

Quote:the alternative may be

That's what we did to the 12th SS "Hitler Youth" in Normandy. And they did it to us too.

How do prisoners fare under the Taleban?

Torture Inc.

the 'handling' of prisoners is better done through sub-sub-contractors, since we have barely enough soldiers 'over there' to piss off the locals, let alone actually imprison them.

well then we are back to the reality that we cannot conquer them, and have no other choice but to kill them to the last man

Murdock...

Murdock, in a country with a functioning justice system and effective police force/corrections department, taping people doing crimes usually does stop them from committing them. However, there is no international police force and the international justice system is questionable at best. The Taliban are religious fundamentalists. Do you honestly think they will be embarrassed by having pictures of their atrocities played on the BBC and CNN? Bad media coverage only works if they want other people to like them, which I don’t think is the case with the Taliban. They believe that the western world is corrupt already, why would it phase them if the western media condemns their actions?

Having evidence of international crimes only matters if there is a force willing to uphold international law. If we are not willing to have our troops in Afghanistan to stop these crimes, taping them will have no effect and is therefore pointless.

War for oil?

I may be completely out to lunch on this, but considering the trillions of dollars and political capital this war has cost western governments, wouldn’t it have been much cheaper to just by the oil from the Taliban in the future? You can buy an awful lot of oil for a trillion dollars! While I agree that there are some people who profit greatly from war (WWII basically restarted Canada’s economy), I would be hesitant to claim the Canada is in Afghanistan for oil or profit. Especially when you consider the new laws surrounding campaign donations. Politicians have very little to gain by pandering to multi-billion dollar weapon manufacturers and oil companies. Take Stephen Harper for example, his stance on this mission may very well cost him the next election. If he was supporting this mission to secure donations from large corporations, it seems the political cost for him is much greater than the political gain. It makes no sense to me.

Ron Yamauchi, are you sure about drugs?

Ron, you wrote that our forces are combatting narcotrafficking in Afghanistan.

My information is that the Taliban had completely wiped out the heroin trade before the Americans defeated them, but now the trade is back up to pre-invasion status, and Afghanistan is again the world's number one exporter of heroin.

Home Movies

Murdock I applaud your efforts and your success but the Taliban couldn't give a whit. Especially since they don't want a tv in any homes. They want the stone age to return to Afghanistan. Video coverage is a nice idea but has limited use. The famous Don McCullin has said,""I have been manipulated, and I have in turn manipulated others, by recording their response to suffering and misery. So there is guilt in every direction: guilt because I don't practice religion, guilt because I was able to walk away, while this man was dying of starvation or being murdered by another man with a gun. And I am tired of guilt, tired of saying to myself: "I didn't kill that man on that photograph, I didn't starve that child." That's why I want to photograph landscapes and flowers. I am sentencing myself to peace."

As for oil, Afghanistan doesn't really have any. They do have gas but that's hardly of any use to Canada.

clo3, why 'make a record'?

no it is not.

before sending your arms into action, there must be moral conviction behind their employment.

we 'knee-jerked' with the americans in 2001. Joining Operation Enduring Freedom that 'mission creeped' along into the morass that is there now.

None of this was properly thought through, nor were the military actually allowed to take the kind of 'free reign' that would be needed.

Now we are stuck with what is, I am not saying that only the recording of the evidence would 'solve' the problem, but it would have provided better support from all sectors of our society and given the military a real 'green light'.

I cannot change what was done, only work with what is, I used the video example to point out the facile argumen and useless example of realisticman

start small work to something larger...

The first polish resistance fighters that smuggled pictures of mass executions by Einsatzgruppen before any of the 'death camps' had been built were dissapointed to find that their efforts only managed to get the whole UK House of Commons onto their feet to condemn what was happening...yet they, in the end, did take actions and had the bankrupted economy to prove it.

The point of that past observation is that such things as are alleged to have happend have no timeless witnesses. There are no photographs, not even survivor illustrations. We are expected to believe that these things happened, and because of that take such action(s) as we have?

Moreover, unlike a good judge, we have pronounced sentence without even bothering to examine the evidence, from any angle at all...we just took the prosecutors statement and joined him on the executioners platform!

The idea of generating video evidence to garner real support comes for our population here in Canada ~ not in Afghanistan! One must accept that whomever took the risk to generate the evidence would be prepared to take the next step of active resistance to the modern version of the Einsatzgruppen.

YouTube

Who in a Taleban-controlled Afghanistan is going to take the pictures and upload them to YouTube?

And why would the Taleban care? They blew up the giant budhas and didn't give a rat's ass about who thought what about it.

Evidence is only important if you plan on doing something about it. How would that be accomplished without using armed force?

Subtle sense of humor Clo3.

Politicians have very little to gain by pandering to multi-billion dollar weapon manufacturers and oil companies.

Does everybody remember that back in the Vietnam days 90% of the world's heroin came from the golden triangle, but now that the Western forces are in Afghanistan 90% of the world's heroin comes from there. My gut feeling is that this is no coincidence. If this really was a drug reduction issue then there would be an effort to go after the import/export arm of the trade, and spend less time harassing the locals.

Afghanistan Forum

Dear Tyee Editors,

You advertise a "debate" among "experts" on Canada's role in Afghanistan.

You have invited several people who have opinions on this question, none described by you as having completed any formal training, short or extended, in one vital dimension of the topic; namely, the history and social structure of Afghanistan. Informed some may be, and that is sufficient qualification. So why not just drop the mainstream media's bad habit of awarding the title of "expert" to puff-up the importance of their invited voices, voices that prove, more often than not, simply to be just one more rehash of the manufactured consent.

My question relates rather to your use of the notion of "debate". If this is to be a debate, or stimulating discussion, why did you select your participants from within such a narrow range of opinions? If you are going to debate the fate of women in Afghanistan, why no woman debater who shares at least something closer to those women's experiences, as well as living in this society where many seem so intent on 'saving' her? If you are going to debate the role of the Canadian military, why no debater who has been in the Canadian military and left it because he opposes the mission in Afghanistan? Why no first nations youth or parent to debate how the Canadian military manipulates their desperate conditions at home to sustain war-making in Afghanistan? If you are going to debate, 'humanitarian intervention', why no debater who has fought in Afghanistan under that same flag with the Soviet army? If you are going to debate whether Canada should withdraw its military now and what it should have done from the beginning of the "war on terror", why no anti-war activist to share their analysis?

There are informed people locally to provide all the above voices.

In sum, by your description the speakers are not experts and in my opinion your "debate" hardly qualifies as such. So what exactly is it you are attempting, or perhaps attempting to avoid?

Sincerely,

mordecai....

Good points Mordecai, enjoyed your post.

I think the "debate" does have merit though perhaps it needs to be called a discussion by journalists and activists.

Also, as you point out, there really does need to be more discussion on the Canadian Military's targeting of marginalized youth in it's recruiting.

For example, I was on the ferry recently and there were some Canadian Military trucks on board. I was shocked to see the composition of the troops was mostly visible minority young men, there was one "white guy" in the group.

The Military is being granted access to our high schools to do active recruiting there.

Speaking of which...

Why isn't anyone from the military or government going to be there?

ov, are you trying to say that the loss of

the heroin trade could possibly be among the reasons for the disenchantment with the Taliban, who had all but wiped it out?

You're treaded dangerously close to being called a conspiracist, ov.

But, of course, you're right.

The Mexicans tried to protect themselves from the narcokillers and corruptors, too, by legalizing small amounts of narcotics.

Somebody got to Vincente Fox, who vetoed the legislation although the Mexican parliament had the votes to enact it.

http://www.serendipity.li/cia/blum1.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12535896/

And ov, of course you're right again

about this (as comedy), apparently by clo3:

"Politicians have very little to gain by pandering to multi-billion dollar weapons manufacturers and oil companies."

In fact, I would suggest that this statement is the most naive fantasy ever posted on the Tyee forum.

Clo3, you have heard about Eisenhower's warning about the danger of the IMC, haven't you?

I might as well go ahead and tell you guys, as the fake debaters won't be mentioning anything remotely ressembling the truth.

There's was no reason for any of the major wars in the twentieth or this century--except that the IMC and various global cabals needed them to entrench their wealth and control of the world, of which they assume ownership.

Terry Glavin

In today's Georgia Straight, Glavin says about peace activists:

"This is war, and these people are not on our side."

Will Terry Glavin spell out what he would have done with the 50% of Canadians who want troops withdrawn from Afghanistan? Should we intern them or just ban their right to free speech and to free assembly?

"There's was" isn't good, though.

I guess I'm going to have to do some previewing work.

Glavin-unworthy

Well his latest comment about peace activists is no suprise.

He called anti-war activist and mother who lost her son in that war, Cindy Sheehan, "shrill" in his last column.

I guess when dealing with an ethical, principled woman that's the best he can come up with.

He is a waste of time.

Survey says...out of Afghanistan

A Globe and Mail/CTV news survey of Canadians released today says 61% now say "the casualty rate is too much to bear."

When asked "How long should Canadian troops stay in Afghanistan?" the results were as follows:

-Return as soon as possible: 46%
-Stay as long as it takes: 24%
-Finish 2007 commitment: 18%
-Finish 2009 commitment: 8%
-Don't know: 5%

That makes for 70% in favour of getting out of Afghanistan by the end of 2007. And yet Terry Glavin tries to portray peace activists as extemist "enemies within". I guess Glavin, like Hitchens in the States, is just mad that his views are increasingly in a minority...

Bad math

Sorry, that makes 64% in favour of getting out of Afghanistan by the end of 2007. Pretty significant majority.

numbers

Pretty significant majority.

67% is a good majority, particularily considering that it is a "motherhood & Applepie" issue.

You are likely to be fingered as a traitor for pointing out that we are wasting lives and money here!

What sort of numbers would you deem convincing that the people are fed up?

Governments have fallen on smaller percentages!

Lies, Damn Lies and Polls ...

gramscian,

It all depends on 'how the question is asked'.

If presented as a negative option, for instance:

Do you not want Canadian Soldiers dieing in a foreign land after 2007?

or a positive option, for instance:

Would you support Canadian actions in defence of human rights in Afghanistan to continue after 2009?

HOW the question is asked is as important as the answers and how they are related to one another.

Take any modern poll with an immense SALT LICK, since pollsters cannot access the ever increasing number of cellular telephone #'s, not to mention the constantly increasing amount of hang-up's they must be getting....

Interesting points, Murdock. However,

if there are a sufficient number of people who are stupid enough to be mislead by transparent, supposedly misleading wording, there are also enough people stupid enough to believe the official stories about why we're in Afghanistan.

So, following syllogistic logic, the same people who are fooled by the tricky wording would be fooled by the good Samaritan pretenses.

Therefore, the polls are fairly accurate, in spite of the intentions of the surveyors.

Michael Byers, who wrote "Torture: Hands

Off, Wash Hands," about torture, for the Tyee, Dec 12, 2006 appeared on the CBC a few minutes ago in a ten second spot living up to his reputation as a defender of human rights by saying that our government might just be guilty of war crimes--regarding knowingly handing over prisoners to torturers.

Good work, Mr. Byers!

why? pipelineistan

Back to the original title, the Canadian "mission" in Afghanistan is to enable US and petro-cowboy domination of Caspian Sea oil and gas, the Boratstans and the Pipelineistans.

Along the planned route of the pipelines in southern Afghanistan, Canadian troops are to do the dirty work. And the cheerleaders willing to trade favours with the military, Conservatives, and anyone else paying out, are flocking to be heard in the media. First it was collecting pencils to take to the children, then women's rights, a scalping or two, and now NATO types are reconstructing or something the hydrostation and Kajakai dam (repeatedly bombed by the US in October 02).

If Canadians are there to support women's rights, we'd better consider the thousands of widows and homeless children efforts like Operation Medusa made possible. Trashed farms, orchards, vineyards, livestock, "mud huts" (google cob real estate Devon), raisin drying towers (fortresses with slits for shooting soldiers through), ancient hand-hewn underground tunnels to bring water from hills to make arid areas bountiful (for the "Taliban" to hop in and out of to shoot at decent people) --- these treasures, these accomplishments, agriculture as culture, do not count.

Let'em eat timbits. Bang go the camels and donkeys and bicyles, so save up and buy a truck like a Canadian. Screw shade-dried raisins and the best pomegranates on the planet.

Does Hillier have the foggiest idea yet what to do with a pomegranate? Hey, these scumbags are so devious they grow bombs on trees, red, like apples. Fake apples. Blast away.

And the blue burqa book crowd should open their eyes. So far, collaborators with the occupying forces get access to a wide arrange of gizmos offering satellite porn. Steam on, eh.

The US bases in Afghanistan are getting bigger and bigger. Canadian troops are stationed at the Kandahar air base, which is now 400 square kilometres, complete with an abandoned mosque, as shown in picture #10 on the Veterans' Memorial, etched in granite no less, "Mission Apollo, 2002" it says. Weren't we told Canadian troops were in Kabul, at Camp Julian, in 2002? Then Camp Nathan Smith at Kandahar, where apparently our fellows had to let US troops ring the place with landmines because our silly former govenment had signed the treaty against landmines.

pipelineistan, more

Of course, it's not all about Caspian Sea oil and gas and the transport, it's the contracts and the subversion of what Afghanistan used to do so well. In the 60s and 70s, Afghanistan was paradise, with an abundance of everything people needed, mainly for the gathering, plus huge surpluses for export. The people told the so-called "Green Revolution" where to stuff it.

Now, here it all comes, with stupid aid packages of "better" seeds and shiny new shovels, and plans to "help" them grow onions and potates and tomatoes that are all the same size...not for themselves or their neighbours. The world famous vineyards will be replaced with vines to grow the sort of squash-ball grapes that can travel thousands of miles as if just picked. Yukh. Shame!

While Canadians grapple with the hundred mile diet, the villages our troops have destroyed enjoyed something like a 5 kilometre diet, with luxuries we've never heard of and we are, by proxy, condemning them to timbits. The obscenity of blasting farms to pieces, along with the irrigation systems, and a photo-op of a shiny new shovel, leaves me missing in amazement.

For a really good time finding out what just a fraction of this pipeline facilitation, airbase expansion,
slaughter and destruction are costing Canadian taxpayers, head to

http://www.admfincs.forces.gc.ca/pd/contracts/reports_e.asp and go for the third (Sept to Dec) quarter every year, that's when our guys go shopping.

For example, last December 15,
15-12-2006 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY (TRADOC) Educational Services, N.E.S. $5,175,000.00
15-12-2006 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY (USASAC) Guns, Through 30 mm $6,325,000.00
15-12-2006 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY (USASAC) Guided Missiles $28,593,062.00
15-12-2006 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY (USASAC) Ammunition, Through 30mm $7,292,224.00

plus..., notice the no -name vendor

20-11-2006 Guided Missiles $13,543,200.00

and then there's my all-time recent favourite, notice the vendor name...

Vendor Name
Reference Number W8472-01MQ01/016/USW
Contract Date 24-11-2004
Description of Work Guided Missiles
Delivery Date 25-11-2004
Contract Value $55,437,549.00

Check it out, cheerleaders, we are not in Afghanistan to hand out pencils. It's Pipelineistan and our troops are the patsies. Let's bring them home. It's utterly wrong, it's not about running away.

thank you margot!

I could not have said it better!

Dolphin, 1 drop of blood is more than a bloodbath

Dolphin, maybe you play too many bloodbath rated video games and have become immune to suffering, do you not think the families of these soldiers fear even a stumle from their children, brothers and sisters?
One drop of Canadian blood in this conflict of lies is too much.

I rather pray the Canadian public get involved and would duke it out in the streets at the homes of our MP's who would send children to war for a pack of lies and a promise of a piece of the pie.

dogmatic supressionist universities

Wow sure a lot of people just want to bury their heads in the sand and hope the bogeyman goes away. Most of the views here are right out of the dogmatic supressionist universities in this country.