Fresh Start on Afghanistan Debate
Manley report: No one gets off easy, and that's good.
Harper: grow a spine.
It just might be that yesterday's report from John Manley's independent panel on Canada's role in Afghanistan will turn out to be the very thing this country needed: a kind of blueprint to build a sensible, non-partisan national consensus about how Canada should conduct itself in that poor, blighted country.
There's still hope.
But for it to happen, Canadians, and especially Canada's political leaders, will have to squarely face the hard, horrible and inconvenient truths that Manley and his panelists so thoroughly canvassed.
The report is essential reading for a clear understanding of what we're up against. It's the most serious and wide-ranging review of this country's engagement in Afghanistan since Canadian soldiers first set foot there in early 2002.
For any sort of national consensus to emerge from this, we're all going to have to start thinking very clearly about how to address the central question facing Canada, which the panel report put this way:
"At its core, the aim of Canadian policy is to leave Afghanistan to Afghans, in a country better governed, more peaceful and more secure. How can Canada, with others, best contribute to accomplishing that result within the limits of Canadian capacity and influence?"
To get to that particular conversation, however, will require a degree of humility, candour and leadership that none of Canada's national party leaders have shown on the Afghanistan question thus far.
To do list for leaders
It means New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton will have to stop the hippie-speak about "George Bush's war" and start brushing up on some basic facts. Reacting to the panel's report Tuesday, Layton's first words, in an official statement, were: "For six years, the Liberals and Conservatives have had Canada involved in a counter-insurgency combat mission in southern Afghanistan." Actually, it was only a little more than two years ago that Canadian soldiers finally moved out of Kabul to take over in Kandahar.
It means Liberal leader Stephane Dion will have to abandon his sophomoric and illogical fixation with a 2009 departure date -- or any fixed departure date -- for Canadian soldiers in Kandahar. He might also dust off some of those stirring campaign speeches he once made about the necessity of a "Marshall Plan" for Afghanistan.
It means the next time Green Party leader Elizabeth May feels the urge to blame "ISAF forces from a Christian/crusader heritage" for the depredations of violent jihadists in Afghanistan, she might first recall that there are hundreds of brave Muslim soldiers from ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in Afghanistan, from such countries as Turkey and Azerbaijan.
She might be reminded as well that Canada has no "crusader" heritage, and that the signatories to the Afghan Compact, which sets ISAF's agenda, include Iran, Jordan, Qatar and several other Muslim-majority countries. And that Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani, is himself a Muslim.
Harper's hash
It also means Prime Minister Stephen Harper will have to suck it up, grow a spine, and fix the mess he's made of the Afghan mission.
Harper has never shown any convincing moral dedication to the mission in the first place, his supine posture to the White House and his now-mothballed "hawk" persona notwithstanding, and he has made a complete hash of it from the outset.
Manley properly excoriated the Harper government for its conduct:
The weird muzzling of Canadian aid officials and diplomats. Ottawa's bizarre inability to engage in anything resembling a straightforward accounting of the mission's risks. Its absurd hobbling of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in Afghanistan. The cabinet's irresponsible inattention to the equipment and transportation requirements of Canadian soldiers on Kandahar's front lines.
And on and on.
My role in new group
Whatever one makes of their criticisms, Manley and his fellow panelists produced a document that doesn't come close to the "stay the course" mandate we were told Harper handpicked them to provide, and which the same pundits even now insist is all the panel produced.
I'm fairly happy with it. And here I make a necessary confession.
I was privileged to co-author a submission to the Manley panel on behalf of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee, a newly formed group of Canadian feminists, academics, campus activists, writers, former politicians, and concerned citizens. Manley's basic findings and recommendations are more than sufficiently consistent with what we recommended.
The Solidarity Committee's several dozen founders are a polyglot bunch: conservatives, socialists, liberals, Muslims, Jews, the lot.
They will have a diversity of ideas about the Manley panel report, and about any number of things. In this column I speak for no one but myself, but one thing all the committee's founding members shared was a simple but important proposition about Afghanistan: Human rights are universal, the United Nations wants us there, and a military component is vital and necessary.
What most Afghans want
There was another thing that united the small group that got the committee going, and it was our discovery that we were all fairly disgusted that all these years since 2002, there was still an almost complete absence of Afghan people, Afghan-Canadians, and Afghan opinion, generally, in Canada's mass media.
Read Canada's dailies and you'd think that the entire country was populated solely by President Hamid Karzai, a bunch of pro-American warlords, hordes of Taliban throat-slitters, and a certain quixotic and romantic personality, Malalai Joya, MP.
So, we set out to find what the Afghan people themselves had to say about their hopes for their country, and about the engagement of soldiers from nearly 40 nations on their soil.
What we found, for starters, was a dozen major national public opinion polls carried out in Afghanistan, along with regional opinion surveys and focus-group analyses. And they all added up to one unmistakable conclusion.
The Afghan people want democracy, they want to control their own destiny, and they want peace, security, and jobs. They're fed up to the teeth with all the savage misogynists and gunmen and religious fanatics who persist in terrorizing them. They don't want the Taliban back. And they want us to stay until we've finished our work there.
'We want you to stay'
Inconveniently, this completely contradicts the fashionable caricature of the Afghan people as incorrigibly reactionary and irredeemably priest-ridden basket cases who want nothing of democracy or modernity and want Canadian soldiers the hell out, fast.
It's something that Manley's panelists also noticed. "Whenever we asked Afghans what they thought ISAF or Canada should do," the panel report states, "there was never any hesitation: `We want you to stay; we need you to stay.' "
This is terribly inconvenient for all the "troops-out" polemicists and their similarly isolationist paleo-conservative chums who have so effectively framed Canada's public discourse about Afghanistan to date.
But it is a fact, nonetheless. And no less inconvenient for the "anti-war" left is the fact that the Afghan people are waging a liberation struggle. They're fighting imperialism -- of an Islamist kind. They're fighting for democracy, for literacy, and for the rule of law, and against barbarism, obscurantism and oppression.
Just ask them.
This truth is especially inconvenient for the left, precisely because this struggle is what used to be called the historic mission of the left. Its fruit, bitter though it has often been, is what the left contributed to human history.
Time for new debate
Funny thing about history. You can't start over.
We didn't choose the cruel alignment of historical and political forces that put our soldiers in Afghanistan. We didn't create the conditions that rendered our penchant for "peacekeeping" moot there.
And we can't pretend that the demand for "negotiations"' with the Taliban is anything more than a mélange of public naiveté and political sleight-of-hand. The Karzai regime, with Canada's backing, had already negotiated the surrender and rehabilitation of nearly 60,000 mujahideen fighters, Taliban militiamen and gunmen of various types long before the notion of talking with the Taliban got all trendy. The door is still open. It never closed.
One important thing we can do, though, is to move to a wholly new kind of debate in Canada about our country's role in Afghanistan. The Manley panel has laid the groundwork for precisely that.
If a new kind of debate emerges, it's got to be firmly rooted in a commitment to the universality of human rights. It's going to have to include a lot more Afghan voices, particularly women's voices. Most importantly, it's got to put behind us the sordid and crippling debates we've been having, for far too long, about how quickly we might simply extricate ourselves from their messy affairs.
There's still hope.
Related Tyee stories:
- Afghanistan: Wrong Mission for Canada
The coolly reasoned case made by a leading expert in international law. - Who's Still for the War in Afghanistan?
Support dwindles among NATO allies. - 'Like Giving Germany Back to Nazis'
A Canadian in Kandahar on why Canada can't leave Afghanistan.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
murdock
23-01-2008
NOT A FRESH START
merely A CONTINUED BAT-BOY for US interests.
The US has long been calling for 'increases' in NATO commitments into Afghanistan. This after they were prepared to 'go it alone' as you were either 'with us or against us'.
Remember "freedom fries"?
Now with US calls for Troop deployments to be 'authorized' into Pakistan (to help clean-up their mess in that nation), we see the Manley Panel say things like:
"we must get more NATO troops and material support...or else we leave"
The Real News has a different take on this report and commentator Margolis says that it reads like it was written 'for' the panel, not 'by' the panel. So far in my analysis I agree. There are enough references to the talking points of 5 months ago, with the US pushing to get more troops and the open statement about authorizing a Marine battle group to be deployed into Pakistan that I suspect this 'report' was timed to become either a supporting 'strut' to that plan or the 'helping hand' to pull it out of the fire.
This way the US gets to say that they are merely sending 'helpers to their NATO allies' by request, rather than more Imperial forces bent on pacifying the Pakistan and Iran flank.
Terry Glavin, I say that you are 'blinded' by your involvement in this report and the idea that this is some sort of a fresh start is blown to bits by your own statement:
No we did not take the actions of 9-11, nor did we have to send more than JTF-2 into Afghanistan when the whole situation got started.
We did not have to stay after the 'mission accomplished' was declared.
We still do not have to stay simply because some local Afghans near where we are currently are saying "We want you to stay; we need you to stay."
If this is the real truth, then we should not have anything to fight against. We are having to stay because we are in a civil war, being used as cannon fodder by the Karzei puppet masters.
Time to get out of Afghanistan before, as Nikolai Lanine (a Soviet veteran of Afghanistan) puts it:
Mark my words 100% casualties.
BC Mary
23-01-2008
The extraordinary duplication of Manley 3 months ago ...
Don Newman and Jim Travers were almost high-fiving today on CBC Newsworld as they rejoiced over "the grown-ups" being in charge of the Afghanistan file, as evidenced by The Manley Report.
But look what The Galloping Beaver had to say under the headline: Did we pay for this?
The report from the Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan, a.k.a. The Manley Report, is now available to the public - all 40 pages of it. (Plus some pretty maps, a glossary of terms, some glowing biographies and a list of contacts).
Honest to gawd, if I had been sent on a fact finding mission for three months and produced such a piece of fluff I would have been torn to shreds ... The report is completely devoid of details and provides nothing, absolutely nothing, that we haven't already heard before. There are no footnotes; there are no direct quotes from interviews and there is nothing that would indicate that this document was the result of three months worth of direct contact with principle figures in the Afghanistan conflict.
Because of its lack of references and detail, there is nothing whatsoever to support the conclusions of the "Independent Panel". And the conclusions are the same as we've been hearing from Harper since he started cheer leading this fiasco.
Manley suggested there were no clear answers and he's made sure he didn't provide any. He (and his parade) conveniently overlooked the fact that NATO was lied to by the Bush administration as to the state of security and political stability when they were coerced into taking over from US forces.
The "Panel" identifies an issue with which we are all aware: That Taliban fighters are using Pakistan as sanctuary. His conclusion? We should "monitor" that closely ... Good sized chunks of this new report were views Manley held before he was ever appointed by Harper to head up this "Independent Panel".
Scott Ross has discovered the October edition of Policy Options and an article by Manley which was published before Harper appointed him.
Go ahead. Read Manley's article and then read the report he handed Harper. Or go read what TSR has discovered. It's not just similar; it's the same.
TSR concludes:
In looking at the extraordinary duplication of Manley's personal opinion three months ago, to the now Panel's Report Forward, I find it difficult to differentiate what Manley had concluded three months prior to the report, to what the Panel actually concluded and if they are actually different.
I hadn't expected much from this contrived "Independent Panel" but now it's a complete farce.
From http://TheGallopingBeaver.blogspot.com/
dorothy
24-01-2008
That was not a good cut...
"If, in wilful or blind ignorance, we do not challenge our government to change the role of our troops from aggression to genuine peacekeeping and reconstruction, we are all responsible for the Afghan and Canadian lives about to be lost."
That was the full quote, and correct me if I am wrong - did Canadians not start out in Kandahar as peacekeepers, but ,eh, some other agents did not prefer peace, and so every attempt at doing something constructive got bombed the hell into the ground, schools razed, teachers assasinated, etc. What peace? It looks as if they had to become peacemakers, before they could be peacekeepers, and it was not a considered 'choice of role', but an imposed set of conditions courtesy of the Taliban. Yes, the Taliban were originally given a mandate, but so is every person or institution, which later evolves into tyrannny. Does that mean we should get stuck with the monster? We did feed it after dark and let it get wet, or some such thing, so now we must clean house for the people on the ground, so they can have their life back. Kindly tell me, if you think we should hand them over to the Taliban, to be flogged in public for their socks showing, or beheaded for teaching females how to read, or losing extremities for speaking two words to a man not their relative. Or is that 'all propaganda', just like the gang-rapes of Scandinavian women in their own countries, where they dress and behave according to their own custom, but some newcomers of the same ilk as the Taliban think they are 'sluts' for doing so, and so they are subjected to abuse?? Get real.
Fiat lux
24-01-2008
Manley is a political
Manley is a political disaster area, who's been pushing the OECD's secret MAI treaty in 1996, and lately "deep integration" into and finally absorption of Canada by the USA. In his ministerial days, he couldn't open his mouth without the word "competition" coming out. So much for his brains and intentions.
The Canadian and other NATO troops are doing nothing in Afgh., except wasting huge resources to kill a few and lose a few, without any wide reaching, tangible results, apart from the small pockets they occupy.Even there they're getting bombed.
Their number is about 1/4 of what the Soviet occupation forces had there and they lost anyway, with serious casualties.
The USA and the corporate mafia were very happy with the Taliban, disgusting bunch of oppressors and murderers as they are, financing and feting them, until they balked on the pipeline project, and then they suddenly became the enemy.
So, if the Taliban oppression was OK before, why is the hue and cry against them now? Does any country have the right to interfere with the internal affairs of another?
Hitler marched into Russia in 1941 to "free the Russian people from communist oppression".
Of course, the Afgh. people want democracy and freedoms, who doesn't, but we're losing them even here, as we're being gradually turned into fascist dictatorships with these phoney "free trade" etc. "harmonization" treaties demanded by the corporate mafia.
Pushed by Manley here and now. What are the multinational mafia's plans for Afgh. ?
As far the military potential is concerned, it is a bloody lie and the officers know it, but it gives them a chance to demand more resources to make more and bigger bangs. To turn that country around would need 500,000 troops for 50 years, located on foot in every village.
So, who's willing to do it?
Ed Deak.
G West
24-01-2008
Don't think so dorothy
.
That was the original mission - toward Kabul in the north - we haven't been peacekeepers since we moved down to Kandahar - you can check it out here:
http://www.sfu.ca/casr/ft-maloney1.htm
We're just another cog in a Yankee program called 'enduring freedom'.
Sorry to disillusion you.
murdock
24-01-2008
Dorothy's lost after drinking the whitehouse coolaid...
for Dorothy
This is the continued Canadian public delusion, JTF-2 was sent into country (Afghanistan) first, they went in with the US right from the start. JTF-2 makes the old airborne look like boy scouts. They are trained in every nasty technique that humanity knows of. They are part of that unit because the like killing, that was why General Hillier was certain they would be killing scumbags. This mission has NEVER been about "peacekeeping" as it has been known prior to 2000, it has always been about 'regieme change' and 'search and destroy' terrorist(s).
"Had to"?
NO
They were in there from the start to punish the Taliban government.
Think about that statement then very carefully examine the state of the 'democracy' in Canada.
Why must we be stuck with this monster here?
The state of tyranny is Uzbekistan is just as bad if not worse than anything the Taliban were doing in Afghanistan, yet they are 'allies'. Pakistan has been a basketcase for years and getting worse...yet they are still our good terrorist fighting 'friends'?
Take your head out of the hole you are used to and really LOOK around the whole of the globe.
For a start stop watching any television news, and start checking out 'inde' broadcasts like: The Real News
WHY?
more to come...
murdock
24-01-2008
telling things to dorothy
Yes, yes I do think we should let that exactly happen, unless you and more than 51% of the rest of the Canadian population VOTE to send 1 million men armed to the teeth for 100 years into the region!
No, sadly it is not 'propaganda'. Humanity has used all sorts of reasons to excuse their bad behaviours. What excuse are you proposing for Canadians blasting homes with artillery, armour, and aircraft?
I am real about this.
Like fiat lux, I know that unless we are prepared to act like the monguls did to Kwarizam or the Macedonians did in the 3rd Century BCE and roll over the mountainous country with 300,000 to 700,000 men literally putting anyone that resists for 10 years to the sword. Recognized leaders that do not totally submit to our rule are executed immediately.
Can we support this?
Never.
This means that a military solution (like the one that will work here) is not in the correct mix.
Did Canada fare so well for 10 years after the Quebec act was passed in 1760? No, there were all sorts of problems with the inclusion of so many Catholics in the British rule.
In fact by 1776 there was another invasion attempt from the south, pissed off by the 'intolerable' acts the New England colonists went to war!
Not unlike what has gone on in Afghanistan, the Pashtun tribes (the majority of the population) have been largely cut out from the government!
Imagine how 'peaceful' our nation would be if tomorrow we said that no more english speakers could serve in the federal government!
Skywalker
24-01-2008
All Canadians are doing...
By being in Afghanistan all Canadians are doing is propping up the American adventure for control of oil in Iraq. If the U.S. had completed what they started in Afghanistan there might be some point to the Canadian sacrifice and it might actually have remained a peace keeping mission but the US should have been told to curb there thirst for Iraqi oil or they would have to do it alone.
Manly's report is a great disappointment but then he's part of what got us there in the first place and Harper, lackey to U.S. interests, will keep us there. If you want to know just how perverted the whole exercise in this part of the world has become read Greg Palast's book Armed Madhouse.
The brain
24-01-2008
And way down the thread...
What is Afghanistan really about? It was once a UN mission that has since changed to NATO and even these motives are now being questioned, as they should be...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1oPEfa9Lws&feature=related
This next link is hokey (and funny) but accurate and worth a listen. After a while, one begins to understand why animation is the best way of delivery.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Khut8xbXK8
A link in helping us to understand PNAC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aepfsJfWxV0&feature=related
This guy knows his stuff. It starts slow, but it goes somewhere. Well worth the watch...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRo5jdWQPDI&feature=related
After watching this video, one can gather why this action of the Conserative government is found to be rather… offensive?
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/01/19/torture-manual.html
Especially in light of Republican presidential candidates openly discussing particular kinds of torture on political prisoners, Guatanimo Bay, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine which hosts the largest prison (1.5 million Palestinians surrounded by walls Israel built with expropriation of Palestinian lands) in the world.
And the true reason why the U.S. is in Iraq and threatening war with Iran?
Two must watches on Peak oil
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-692345864094255167
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caDpfAXBEro&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caDpfAXBEro&feature=related
This is a must watch, the reason why the U.S. is in Iraq and wants to invade IRan. The first link sets up all the rest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6_0SQo8c10&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSPqto796Lc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSPqto796Lc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4tYb9nv6Zk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulszmnTbwjM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwJqAKIG_c8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhzlEX9GQAE&feature=related
If you get through these links dear readers, you’ll know why it makes no sense to back anyone who backs a loser and that loser is the nation that starts the next world war. Who in Canada backs George W. Bush and PNAC? And there are flaws within this report, folks... statistically and otherswise, they are there. I'll leave it for another comment.
Please... take the time to go through these links. Its no waste of time.
The brain
24-01-2008
Somewhere deeply hidden in a thread pt 2!
We are spending to much on Afghanistan. We have almost as many soldiers as Germany there and will likely have more then Germany if Harper gets his way. Why are we doing trying to outspend the worlds largest national economy on Nato contributions? (it is Germany to the surprise of many)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/afghanistan/bythenumbers.html
2500 soldiers are poised to leave for Afghanistan from Western Canada to relieve the 2500 that are there, but its likely that Canada’s troop contributions will continue to grow and if they do grow, Canada will be second to the U.S. in troop numbers.
This clip from the above link:
“The military costs for the mission in Afghanistan reached $2.6 billion in March 2007, or nearly $1.3 million per day of the mission. The costs are projected to reach about $4.3 billion by the planned end of the mission in February 2009.
Canada’s spending for development in Afghanistan up to May 2006 was $466 million. By 2011, it is expected to reach $1 billion.”
All told, roughly a 1.5 billion was spent under a Liberal government in Afghanistan with a billion spent on the military over 4 years, while roughly 3.8 billion including 3.3 billion spent on the military will be spent under the Conservative government. (these are ball park numbers from myself, I might add)
Following U.S. foreign policy is costing us money and lives and honestly, will it make a difference? I think most of you know the answer to that one.
And its more than just defence spending on Afghanistan alone. Spending on defense has gone way up regardless of Afghanistan expenses. Some of it was necessary. And some of it… I don’t have the numbers yet but I’m certain Canadians would like know besides myself what the the numbers are for defense spending overall. If there’s a department to chop spending on, I’d say defense is a real good place to start.
Unfortunately, buying votes has already begun by the New Conservatives.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/01/16/planes-hercules.html?ref=rss
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2008/01/22/aerospace-east.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2008/01/21/contracts-quebec.html
The brain
24-01-2008
Manleys Afghanistan Report:
Re: Manley’s Afghanistan report
Kady O’Malley in her Maclean’s blog pointed out some interesting differences between the Manley report released a couple days ago and the piece he wrote in October. Turns out he lifted much of it word for word. But what is telling are the differences, where he excludes all mention of the rampant corruption in Karzai’s government that the Harper government is actively supporting as a peon of burgeoning democracy and through our military presence.
An very interesting observation. And a shame.
http://forums.macleans.ca/advansis/?mod=for&act=dip&tt=&pid=101799&tid=101799&eid=48&so=&ps=&sb=&tso=&tps=&tsb=
The report itself has a number of major errors, mainly with the timeline of troop numbers reported on page 23 of Manley's report. The graph simply isn't accurate. Both the numbers of troops and the financial involvement between the change of the federal governments from Liberal to Conservative should be outlined and they haven't been.
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/013003/f2/013003-1000-e.pdf
Clearly, things have changed since we entered into Afghanistan from a UN mission to a Nato mission in 2005.
2005 was the year we went from the traditional role of peacekeeping with the UN to Nato and a changed role to military missions from peacekeeping in early 2006. This change led to highly increased causalties in Kandahar which any good should have known we would take. In the 3 years previous, 8,000 U.S. troops took 300 casualties in 3 years in Kandahar. Harper should have known? He did know. Its not a far reach to suggest that he may as well have pulled the triggers himself for sending our sons and daughters into harms way, especially in light of the possibility that our reason for being in Afghanistan, the reason for our alliance with Nato being the U.S. was attacked on 911, could very well be based on a lie by their own government to stage a war on Iraq and later, Iran for imperical, empire driven motives (oil). As such, Afghanistan would need to be stabilized, as well as Pakistani leadership military presence remaining neutral during the U.S.'s multi theatre war campaign. There is alot of progaganda out there, alot of theories, but two things are certain about the U.S. involvement with Iraq and Iran. The war with Iraq is illegal, as it is to even remotely threaten war with another nation like Iran without just cause. The consequences? An inditement of the chief whitehouse staff for war crimes in the years to come. The outcome? Bush and Cheney for the rest of their lives, will not be able to travel freely in the world and eventually, even leave freely from their own houses and thats assuming they don't lead us into a world war first...
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/013003/f2/013003-1000-e.pdf
biscotti
24-01-2008
Michael Byers on Manley
Carol Off interviewed Michael Byers about the Manley panel on As It Happens last night (Jan. 23) on CBC. You can hear the interview (duration 7:54 minutes) via http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/asithappens/20080123-aih-2.wmv
Or go to http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/latestshow.html and select Part Two.
Worth a listen.
dirk
24-01-2008
Terry said...
Terry said..."I was privileged to co-author a submission to the Manley panel on behalf of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee, a newly formed group of Canadian feminists, academics, campus activists, writers, former politicians, and concerned citizens. Manley's basic findings and recommendations are more than sufficiently consistent with what we recommended"....
Well who the heck are you what the hell do you know about Afghanistan.More to the point all the founding members of the newly created"Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee" what do they know.For example Johnathan Narvey ?
I,indeed others are supposed to what,just take your word for it,somehow believe that you and the other members know something we, do not?
To top it off you say and I quote..."and a certain quixotic and romantic personality, Malalai Joya, MP"...
WTF ?
So unlike Joya you and the members of C-A Solidarity,know what,more than her?
Unlike her you guys have access to the "facts"?
Pretty unconvincing I have to say,indeed rather quixotic.
The day a solidarity org set up by members of the chattering class,journalists,media personalities,tenured professors etc etc all in all a pretty privileged bunch that profit and live quite comfortable & secure lives, actually contribute some real and tangible to making this world a better place will be the day I eat my hat and repent for everything I believed or thought.
Until that day I will just trust reality,change comes from the bottom from the ordinary peoples/working class.It always has and alway will.There are no heroes or shining knights in white Armour that are going to ride to the rescue.
Particularly when those "knights" come from the West which is all about possessive individualism.The West just does not do selflessness.
You are always talking about how delusional the "left" has become,well the knife cuts two ways.
One other thing Terry I know you always blog about journalist in Iran that are being persecuted(and rightly so) but I notice when it comes to Afghanistan and that governments persecution of journalist you have nothing to say.Basically the guy made the was being critical of the warlords and corrupt officials in the Afghan government,for that he was sentenced to death.This is not the first incident of its kind in Afghanistan either.This despite the fact the West has been inside for Afghanistan for 7 years.I guess the members in the Afghan government are not quick studies.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ir_nVfK4lypJtUCo37h_LjjpicWQD8UBQ37G1
lynn
24-01-2008
Trevor Williams and Paul Cottle
Just a nod to Trevor Williams and Paul Cottle...a rare breed who refuse to participate in a global war machine dressed up in the guise of democratic, environmental, and scientific goodness.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/01/23/mda-quit.html?ref=rss
bpither1
24-01-2008
Terry is brilliant but...
"The journalistic vision sharpens to the point of maximum impact every event, every individual and social configuration; but the honing is uniform." George Steiner
Terry is consistent as the astute commentator on everything, using his excellent writing skills to convince others of his deep knowledge of several events, although there are some real whoppers such as a Georgia Straight article he wrote in August, 2006 where he made the comment that Israel's attempt to crush the Hezbollah in Lebanon as "Israel was fighting for her very life "
http://www.straight.com/article/stopwars-peace-is-about-opposing-israel
You might want to rephrase that Terry if you want to remain a keen advocate of human rights. I don't think that dropping a million cluster bombs the size of oranges in south Lebanon so that dirt poor farmers won't send their children into the family grove has much to do improving human rights. It just gives the Hezbollah the hero status they do not deserve and the recruits come marching in ...