Category Archives: Afghanistan

Afghanistan, Canada, Conservative Party of Canada, Imperialism, International Relations, Morality, Neo-Conservatism, Neoliberal Economics, Psychology

Harper: War Yes! Veterans No!

8 Comments

From the building rhetoric of Canadian troops staying in Afghanistan [but leaving Kandahar, according to the specific words of our commitment to “leave”], to news that Harper will not bother to attend Canadian Remembrance Day ceremonies because he’s away at a G20 meeting, it is clear that while Harper loves war, he has little respect for the people who fight in his wars, as the government undermines the financial stability of our veterans:

All Canadians owe a great debt to our veterans, one that cannot truly be fully repaid. We can, however, ensure veterans who have been injured or disabled while defending this country have a financially secure future when they return to civilian life.

via Letter from Paul Moist: reinstate full pensions for injured veterans < Health and safety, Pensions | CUPE.

I am ashamed to be part of a country whose leader chooses to delegate attendance at Remembrance Day ceremonies because the global neoliberal agenda needs tweaking. Clearly, though, I am not surprised at his priorities. They are unacceptable on so many levels.

9/11, Afghanistan, Canada, Conservative Party of Canada, Imperialism, International Relations, Neo-Conservatism, Vancouver

Canada Won’t Leave Afghanistan Next Year

9 Comments

It was less than a month ago when I explored the soft media push for how awesome it would be for Canadian troops to stay in Afghanistan after our Kandahar mission ends next year. That provided good cover for the announcement that we’re now considering just that.

Canada is considering NATO and allied requests to keep troops in Afghanistan past 2011 to conduct non-combat training missions, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Sunday.

Mr. MacKay said the government would likely make a decision in the coming weeks in the run-up to the Nov. 18 NATO leaders’ summit in Portugal.

Mr. MacKay stressed that any such mission would take place out of Kandahar province, where fighting is fiercest and would be “behind the wire” — military parlance for non-combat mission.

via Canada reconsiders post-2011 Afghan military presence: MacKay – The Globe and Mail.

The overall context of this government’s view of the Canadian Forces, which isn’t really all that different from the Liberals’, shows up quite succinctly in Twitter:

Lest we forget: Harper & CPC support war, they do not support troops. #cdnpoli #veterans

via Twitter / @jimbobbysez: Lest we forget: Harper & C ….

In reality, with all the news about our government’s neglect and abuse of veterans and troops, it’s clear that the government is a troop basher and manipulator.

And as we all start wearing our poppies this month, we should do more than find ways of keeping them from falling off. We should walk the talk of supporting our troops.

Whether or not we support the current or any future missions in Afghanistan, Haiti or elsewhere, we owe something to the people who are willing to risk their lives for Canadians, or for whatever mission our politicians send them on. That means respecting their needs, supporting the chronic PTSD, not criminalizing them and acknowledging that as a society we appreciate selfless sacrifice. And as a small symbol of recognition, how about giving veterans more than one week of free civic parking each year.

9/11, Afghanistan, Canada, Conservative Party of Canada, Imperialism, International Relations, Liberal Party of Canada, Neo-Conservatism

Expect Canadian Troops to Stay in Afghanistan After 2011

7 Comments

The National Post appears to have begun supporting Canada’s military presence in Afghanistan beyond the end 2011. Don’t expect us to leave. At all.

Do you remember when we were absolutely, positively going to leave by 2009? So naive. And do you remember that we went there to catch that Osama bin Laden fellow?

This week we see the jingoistic tone emerging in the National Post which can create cover for a decision by an imperialist Harper and a likely nod of support from his Con-Lib coalition co-leader, imperialist Ignatieff:

  • On Tuesday we read on the front page, above the fold, that a mother of a dead Canadian soldier wants us to keep fighting. [see below]
  • In the same article we read the word “adamant” to describe Harper’s commitment for our troops to withdraw before the end of 2011. Adamant makes Harper look like he doth protest too much.

And today we have a war correspondent style review of our engagement there.

Also, a couple months ago in McLean’s we read about some key cracks in our commitment to leave next year, and their resulting developments:

  • The March 2008 motion is for Canadian troops to leave Kandahar, not Afghanistan.
  • Ignatieff is suggesting we leave some troops behind to train Afghans, and I suppose quietly “advise” them as well.
  • Peter McKay called that idea interesting, but in an attempt to appear to disagree with those Liberals, he says the government will respect the “letter of the motion” which, again, only requires us to leave our mission in Kandahar.

Ultimately, expect NATO or Karzai to request that when we leave Kandahar we step up to some new mission elsewhere in the country. And please be disabused of the notion that we’re actually committed to leaving. It just means you’ll be dizzy from the spin.

Consider the excerpts from those two stories below [emphasis is mine, unless noted]

The mother of a soldier who died in Afghanistan made a poignant appeal yesterday to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to keep Canadian troops here beyond next summer.

…

“I think the military is doing a fine job and he should reconsider pulling out next year.”…

The mission in Kandahar is scheduled to end in 2011. The deadline was set in a March 2008 vote in the House of Commons. Nothing in the House motion would prevent Canada from assuming a different military mission elsewhere in Afghanistan, but until now the Prime Minister has been adamant that all Canadian troops will be out of the country by the end of next year.

via EXTEND MISSION: MOURNING MOTHER.

And some more insightful and subtle analysis of the vibrant loopholes in this whole issue from John Geddes at Maclean’s:

The Liberals propose ending the Kandahar combat mission as scheduled, but leaving some of our troops to train Afghan forces elsewhere in the country.

MacKay allows that the Liberal idea is “all very interesting.” However, he stresses that the government remains bound by the March 13, 2008, House of Commons motion that set that 2011 exit date in the first place. “We’ll respect the letter of the motion,” MacKay says.

But the letter of the motion, it seems to me, is often lost in this discussion. Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggests the House demanded a complete end to the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan. Harper reiterated that by now familiar interpretation as recently as June 4.

That’s not what the motion says. Its key clause dictates that the government must “notify NATO that Canada will end its presence in Kandahar as of July 2011, and, as of that date, the redeployment of Canadian Forces troops out of Kandahar and their replacement by Afghan forces start as soon as possible, so that it will have been completed by December 2011.” (My emphasis.)

As far as I can see, there’s nothing in the motion that says Canadian troops must clear out of Afghanistan altogether, just Kandahar. If the government plans to “respect the letter of the motion,” then, that would seem to me to allow a fair bit of flexibility.

Activism, Afghanistan, British Columbia, Canada, Democracy, Justice, Media, Olympic Games, Soft Fascism, Vancouver

CBC’s Annoying Olympics Boosterism

Leave a comment

Yesterday, the CBC’s annoying Olympics boosterism was complemented with weak reporting on agents provocateurs and missing an opportunity to nail the IOC on rule of law hypocrisy.

I have only slightly more ability to tolerate the CBC over corporate media when it comes to promoting the Afghan occupation and how amazingly, incredibly awesome the Olympics are.

But yesterday, they ran this story: Protesters target Olympic torch run. It included this weak bit of journalism:

The protesters said Monday their group had been infiltrated by undercover police and said the infiltrators might try to cause trouble so that uniformed police could crack down.

VANOC admitted they had infiltrated a protest group a few months ago. There was no ruse “tried” at Montebello; there was no “alleged” in the agents provocateurs, especially those carrying rocks. Video footage at Montebello captured the “protestors” being confronted by real, peaceful protesters and then “arrested” by the police. After the video went viral on YouTube, the police admitted to planting agents in the crowd.

I hope CBC Olympic boosterism did not directly lead to this story’s watered down facts.

Connected to an easy ride on scandalous police tactics, the CBC missed some flagrant hypocrisy from the IOC.

When the IOC rejected women’s ski jumping from the Olympics, they violated our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. BC courts, however, rightly recognized they have no jurisdiction over the IOC, which is a wholly unaccountable international organization which answers to no government and will gleefully violate women’s rights in Canada because of whatever policy they hold on which events to include in their games.

Yesterday’s CBC piece, however, neglected to mention that evidence of the IOC’s flagrant disregard for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Instead, they merely wrote this:

“We have to accept protests and there will be some and fine, let’s leave it. We are used to that,” said Gerhard Heiberg, a member of the IOC’s executive board, at a Vancouver news conference Monday.

“For us, it’s not an issue. We accept protest, we accept people protesting,” said IOC president Jacques Rogge.

“This is free, democratic freedom of expression,” Rogge said.

“What we want is no violence and we want the people to respect the laws of the country and then there is no problem.”

It takes a special kind of gold-medal gall for the IOC president to expect protesters to adhere to the laws of the country while his organization itself trampled the very same laws with respect to the female ski jumpers.

I am not surprised by this kind of nonsense from the IOC president, but I have a higher standard for the CBC. We simply cannot let this kind of IOC hypocrisy go unchallenged and we cannot let the CBC play down police use of agents provocateurs.

Our society cannot handle these kind of compromises. The Olympics is bad enough, but we need civil vigilance if we expect to retain the kind of democratic values Jacques Rogge so disingenuously speaks of.

9/11, Afghanistan, Colonialism, Corporations, Democracy, Economics, Environment, Executive Overdrive, Imperialism, International Relations, Iran, Iraq, Neo-Conservatism, Neoliberal Economics, Society, Soft Fascism, USA, Venezuela

How Many More Wars Do You Want, Anyway?

1 Comment

Pick a number, then vote McCain:

Some context:

Sarah Palin said two things which can be pegs for an attack ad of this kind:

1. War with Russia could happen over the Georgia conflict

2. Soldiers going to Iraq are fighting the people who killed thousands of Americans on Sept. 11.

Afghanistan, Canada, Conservative Party of Canada, Democracy, Journalism, Liberal Party of Canada, Media

The Prime Minister Is In…Again!

Leave a comment

In his ongoing disdain for openness, accountability, transparency, and the “free” press in a democracy, and on a day of great manufactured import, Prime Minister Steve has given the national media a whopping 17 minutes notice for his statement to the press.

Artificial confidence motions around the crime bill and Afghanistan mission extension couched Parliament Hill today. Yet in keeping with Steve’s reluctance to permit the media any real access to him, the PMO or cabinet, his communications staff sent an email [below] giving all media in the country 17 minutes to get to the Commons foyer for a Steve statement. Hurry! Hurry hard!

I can count on two hands the number of times Prime Minister Steve has stooped to speak to the media in 2 years. The last time Steve did this was in October. Then he gave 67 minutes notice. Perhaps now he has effectively trained the media so they only need 17 minutes lead time.

——– Original Message ——–

Subject: Notice
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:43:03 -0500
From: PMO
To: ALLNEWS_E@LSERV.PMO-CPM.GC.CA

From the Prime Minister’s Web Site (http://www.pm.gc.ca/)

Public events for February 12, 2007

February 12, 2008
Ottawa, Ontario

Public event for Prime Minister Stephen Harper for today, Tuesday February 12th is:

12:00 p.m. – Prime Minister Stephen Harper will make a brief statement.

Foyer
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON

*Open to media*

The Prime Minister’s Office – Communications
[Note: You are receiving this e-mail for information only, and because you have subscribed to our distribution list. To modify your subscription or to have your name removed from the list, go to: (http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/subscribe.asp?login)]

Activism, Afghanistan, Canada, Class War, Colonialism, Deep Integration, Democracy, Imperialism, International Relations, Justice, Soft Fascism, USA

Crossing the 49th: Dangerous for the Majority of Canadians Now

6 Comments

Alison Bodine had it right when she explained the intimidation intent of the Canadian Border Services as they nabbed her the other day: “This was a bit of a test, to see what happens when they arrest someone who isn’t agreeing with their current foreign policy.”

Carrying literature opposing Canada’s occupation of Afghanistan and an extremely threatening book of Ansel Adams photos, she was detained by Canadians. Her possessions were confiscated a few days ago when she was entering the country. When she returned to claim them, they arrested her with no intention of releasing her before her September 17th hearing. After a significant impromptu rally and her participating in radio interviews from jail, it appears the feds’ red faces found the gumption to actually release her.

Since the majority of Canadians oppose our presence in Afghanistan, driving south then returning with literature critical of our mission there may land any of us in the pokey.

Border Services claim she was misrepresenting herself. Perhaps she was. Perhaps it was all just a misunderstanding. If it wasn’t, it is intimidation…and a warning to us all to toe the line.

And after the agents provocateurs in Quebec last month, the establishment doesn’t have a great deal of goodwill to waste here.

9/11, Afghanistan, Canada, Colonialism, Conservative Party of Canada, Democracy, Imperialism, International Relations, Media, Neo-Conservatism

What is Your Definition of "Easily" and "Overwhelmingly"?

12 Comments

On the homepage of Robbins Sce Research, it says:

“Harper popular as PM, Canadians easily support Afghan extension. Jun 29, 2007”

The poll it links to says Canadians support an Afghan extension based on this question:

“The United Nations is desirous of having Canada extend its participation in Afghanistan past the current term ending in early 2009. Are you agreeable to extending Canada’s involvement?”
Yes 52 %
No 48 %

I have a hard time seeing how 52-48 “easily” supports anything. Plus, every other poll I’ve seen in the last several weeks has support for Afghanistan about split.

But then it gets worse. On the commentary of that poll it says:

“Canadians overwhelmingly support an extension to Canada’s participation in Afghanistan.”

OVERWHELMINGLY! 52-48?

Astonishing.

And then the commentary continues:

“The PM may want to change his Defense Minister. ROBBINS likes current Conservative House Leader Van Loan for the job. Although non-descript, he is excellent in the House of Commons and can articulate a reconfigured Canadian involvement in Afghanistan.”

How is this unbiased polling? The first thing that popped into my head is that the third sponsor of this poll, requesting anonymity, is Van Loan.

So, what do you think they mean by “easily” and “overwhelmingly”?

9/11, Afghanistan, Canada, CanWest, Colonialism, Conservative Party of Canada, Democracy, Imperialism, Media, Soft Fascism, USA

Harper: Canada to Leave Afghanistan in 2009…You Missed it, Right?

Leave a comment

Well, after a weekend to thoroughly digest Prime Sinister Harper’s speech to mark the end of Canada’s sad and waning 39th parliament, I feel moved to grumble about something he didn’t bother to mention formally and officially.

I was going to talk about how he frames taxation as slavery from which we need emancipation, despite all the rich social, educational and health services we receive and largely take for granted: “Largely as a result of our tax reductions in budget 2006, tax freedom day arrived Wednesday, four days earlier than last year.”

Instead I want to comment on what he said in a rare moment when he stooped to speak to the press. So many emails from the PMO describe Harper’s upcoming schedule. “Photo op only” has become scripture.

So instead of in a formal political speech to end the session of parliament, Harper, on a Friday at the end of the week’s new cycle, mutters that Canada will leave Afghanistan in 2009.

Huh? I kid you not:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who once insisted that Canadian troops will stay in Afghanistan until the job is done, now says the military mission will end in February, 2009, unless the opposition agrees it should be extended.

The acceptance that the mission’s lifespan may be limited comes as the Prime Minister faces growing opposition to Canada’s combat role in the Afghan south – a decline in support that has been particularly pronounced in Quebec.

“This mission will end in February, 2009,” Mr. Harper said yesterday at a rare House of Commons news conference held to mark the end of the spring sitting.

Isn’t this major news? The most significant Canadian military mission in decades, the most controversial episode of Canadian imperialism will end because Harper said quietly that we’ll stay past 2009 only if all parties in parliament agree.

The NDP is opposed to our presence. Unless they see the light of imperialism in the next dozen or so months, our support for our troops will be supporting them home.

The Globe and Mail covered it on Saturday. Thanks.

But the volitional decision to end our occupation of Afghanistan and cease our imperial agenda there was not plastered all over the front pages of the Sunday and Monday morning papers.

This is a major victory for sanity in Canada. It is also a major reversal of Harper’s militarism in the face of growing national opposition to the stupidity of what we have been trying to convince ourselves we could do there.

And Harper’s embarrassment over his decision to radically change his entire war prime minister image made him squeak it out on a Friday afternoon in Ottawa in front of reporters, for whom he holds shocking and tremendous disdain.

Thank God for Harper that they haven’t skewered him for it. Lucky man.

Maybe Harper’s American Idol speech ending “God Bless Canada” has returned to save him from having to blush over changing his over-inflated sense of his military legacy.

The poor fool.

Afghanistan, Canada, CanWest, Colonialism, Conservative Party of Canada, Imperialism, Media, Soft Fascism, USA

More "Support the Troops" Brainwashing on CanWest Global

1 Comment

I’m glad I “support our troops” because if I didn’t, maybe I’d be a threat to the free world or something. And since I’m not as talented as the 22 Minutes folks who quite effectively ridicule [see “I support our troops”] all the rhetorical sheep claiming to support the troops, let me just say that disagreeing with government policy in Afghanistan/Haiti/wherever does not mean I hope our soldiers there get slaughtered. Unless you’re intellectually stunted, I mean.

So here is a domestic news story with a military angle. A farmer has a legitimate disagreement with the government regarding his neighbour, a military base.

It has nothing to do with Canadian imperialism in Afghanistan or the creep of Soft Fascism up from w.Caesar land. It has to do with ditches.

And in the end, the reporter, thank god, lets us know that the farmer still supports the troops. I suppose the alternative would be that because of a ditch problem, he hopes the Taliban slaughter all Canadians in Afghanistan, kill all literate female Afghans, blow up more North American corporate and military imperial landmarks, outlaw anything other than radical Islam and invade and occupy Canada because they hate our freedom. Or something.

The effect of the “support our troops” lunacy is to separate us from them: those who support the soldiers from those who wish them all to die. No. Not at all. The job of that phrase being used in the corporate media and government is to make sure that anyone who questions the government policy of the current and previous political party taking part in the Afghan debacle is seen as someone who wishes the troops to all die. The troops are employees of our government, following orders to go here or there and do this or that, not forcing now 3 prime ministers at gun point or anything to send the Canadian Forces somewhere.

The illogic is astounding. But the continued use of this phrase is part of the Soft Fascism creep of the truly evil people in our country.

And the fact that it goes largely unchecked in our country means they are winning. Its smooth inclusion in this issue that is totally unrelated to Canada’s presence in Afghanistan, is part of the brainwashing of corporate media.

It’s time to read 1984 and Brave New World again, eh.

=====

Farmer takes government to court; [GLOBAL NATIONAL Edition]
KEVIN NEWMAN. Global News Transcripts. Toronto, Ont.: Apr 5, 2007. pg. 1

KEVIN NEWMAN: They’re known as Canada’s elite fighting force – highly trained, deployed in a moment’s notice with stealth and deadly force. Tonight, an update on a story that we first brought you two years ago. A farmer from the Ottawa valley who dared do battle with Canada’s commandos, and won, kind of. Here’s Peter Harris.

RON MAYHEW (Farmer): Starting all over again.

PETER HARRIS (Reporter): Ron Mayhew found out the hard way, how difficult it could be to take on Canada’s elite fighting force, JTF2.

MAYHEW: Everybody around here thought it was the RCMP musical ride moving in here beside us. Thats what we were told.

HARRIS: He’d owned this land since 1984. In the early 1990s, Canada’s secret military unit, Joint Task Force 2 moved in next door.

MAYHEW: I have no idea how it escalated the way it did. I just don’t understand it. It makes no sense to me. You’re being watched there now, too.

HARRIS: Ten years ago, the government came on to his property and dug these two trenches. Hundreds of metres long, because they had water problems on their land. It’s like a creek.

MAYHEW: Well, it’s about four feet deep. Five feet deep along here they dug.

HARRIS: And this digging led to piles of clay on his land where he hoped to grow vegetables.

MAYHEW: This is just grey subsoil, grey clay. And when they dug it out, they took it and spread it over, or at least, oh was it twenty, twenty-five feet.

HARRIS: After years of promises and threats to take his land, and nobody cleaning up these ditches, Ron Mayhew took the government to court.

MAYHEW: Well, they jerk you around, I guess. They keep jerking you around and jerking you around. Finally I said, well, partly because of my age, I said I can’t continue this on much longer. I want to leave something for my kids.

HARRIS: They finally settled, enough to cover his costs, to repair the land and fill in the ditches that have been left for so long.

MAYHEW: There’s the finality about it. That chapter is done and now we can go on and do repairs, do what we have to do, and enough to do what I wanted to do ten years ago.

HARRIS: Despite his fight against the government, he still supports the troops, but is glad this fight is finally over. In Ottawa, this is Global National’s Peter Harris reporting.

NEWMAN: And that’s Global National for Thursday. I’m Kevin Newman. Local news is next on most Global stations.