Massive casualties

The commander of Canadian forces in Afghanistan has said that a "flurry" of activities will occur in the fall and into next year.

When I read this, my heart sank - just when I thought it couldn't sink any further.

'Massive activities' from Canadian troops coming in Afghanistan: Lieutenant-General

"There’ll be a flurry of military operations starting with the major ones this fall, (and) there’ll be other ones certainly in the winter and spring," said Lt.-Gen. Lessard, head of Canadian Expeditionary Force Command. "We’re ready to launch."

Massive activites will lead to massive casualties but they don't seem to care.

Then comes the usual crippled logic for the whole thing.

If Canadian troops do not improve conditions in the districts before leaving next year, their sacrifices since 2006 will have been wasted, he suggested.

I can't believe that anybody with more than two functioning neurons is still using that stupid justification for mass death - of civilians and of soldiers.

What if they gave a war and nobody came?

We need a few, no maybe a lot, more guys like this.

From Dahr Jamail's dispatches about a soldier who refuses to deploy to Afghanistan.

U.S.: "There's No Way I'm Going to Deploy to Afghanistan", by Dahr Jamail

Meanwhile, on the home front, our finance minister, Jim Flaherty, is being urged to quit.

Ohhh, nice idea, several years too late.

"The Liberals are expected to call for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's resignation today in the wake of revelations that the federal government will run a record $50-billion budget deficit this year."

I wonder why no one has ever thought of the un-military option to tackling our huge debt. Since the war in Afghanistan is hugely expensive and completely useless, we could put a huge dent in that deficit, say $28B worth, by scrapping the whole idea. In case someone argues that some of this money has already been spent, I suggest that the cost will probably be twice that once the budget overshoots and "unforeseen costs" are factored in.

Since John Manley's panel of specially picked hawks advised the Cons to prolong the war, his extra equipment costs (if that sounds obscene, it's because it is) are expanding like a member on Viagra.

So, who wouldn't want to be Bob Thirsk, the latest Canadian astronaut to blast off into space for a six month mission on the Space Station - on a Russian Soyuz rocket, no less.

Sell a war that nobody wants and try not to kill so many civilians

Since the Harperites haven't been very successful in convincing Canadians that the Neverending War in Afghanistan is a good thing, they're letting the loudmouthed Rick Hillier do it for them.

Great strategy!

From Harper Index - Hillier, Rick - brassy top soldier does what government can't

Chief of staff used as booster and stalking horse for government military policies

In selling the war in Afghanistan to Canadians, Hillier is merely "doing what the government has failed to do," according to historian and McGill University Professor Emeritus Desmond Morton. "I don't think the Tories have to give him a car or promises of a Senate seat," says Morton. "He enjoys doing it."

He is critical of Stephen Harper's June announcement of the planned purchase of naval patrol vessels..."They have promised to build little ships, but they haven't promised to build icebreakers, just cheap little ones. Their procurement strategies are not based on any kind of cold rational strategic analysis. Why would you want boats in the Arctic that can't get through the ice?"

Morton disagrees, as well, with purchases such as four Boeing C-17 military transport aircraft, at a cost of $3.4 billion. "Normally you don't own these aircraft, you rent them," at a cost of a few million per trip as opposed to "several million per minute," in the case of ownership. A hangar alone for these giant aircraft will cost $800 million, says Morton. Owning these aircraft "is like keeping a transport truck in your back yard," for use when you move. Purchases like these may keep top commanders like Hillier onside with the government.

Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan, NATO is trying not to kill so many civilians.

From the Australian Sun Herald:

NATO will use smaller bombs in its campaign against Islamist Taliban rebels in Afghanistan to try to limit rising civilian casualties, the alliance's chief says.

Brilliant!

They can kill...but they can't count

As more and more Afghan citizens are pulverized by air strikes, the military admits that it doesn't know how many Afghans have been killed, and they don't seem to care.

Over 230 Afghan civilians have been killed this year by NATO troops, the U.S.-led coalition and/or Afghan forces, according to one recent report. But an Associated Press tally says the number's actually 203. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission contends 380 civilians have been killed, though adding that Western forces were only responsible for half of those deaths.

...[B]ut judging from statements made earlier this month, the U.S. military doesn't either. "It's difficult for me to believe that you can actually capture an accurate number," U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Perry Wiggins told a Pentagon news briefing.

Meanwhile, the giant brain that is the secretary of state for foreign affairs shifts the blame, even though we are the ones holding the guns and rockets and ordering in the U.S. air strikes. I hate to tell you this Helena, but we are the ones responsible for the carnage. Maybe if she spent more time reading real reports and less time on her hair, she might see what's going on there.

...[H]elena Guergis, secretary of state for foreign affairs, told a conference in Rome this week. "It's important to remember that the Taliban extremists forcefully oppose efforts to improve the life of the Afghan people, and it is they who must be held responsible for bringing violence to the Afghan people."

Foreign Affairs doesn't count either. After all, they might actually have to accept responsibility.

...[A] spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs in Canada admitted to Macleans.ca that the department doesn't keep an official tally. "This isn't something that we would monitor, since there are a number of ways they could be killed or injured," she said. "It wouldn't necessarily be linked to us."

They'd never get away with this sloppiness in any "first world" country.

...[A]dded Sloboda: "Clearly it's a natural impulse of people to want to know who died. And if you look at what you might call more 'official' disasters, like 9/11 or rail crashes or air crashes, no one disputes that what we need to know is the name of everybody who died. It's absolutely what you have to have."

So, exactly what kind of education are we dealing with here?

So how many people have died in Afghanistan this year?
"In complete honesty, nobody knows," Kahl said. "These are all educated guesses."

I'm pretty sure that most Afghans would rather be alive under the Taliban than dead under rocket fire and the lethal rain of bombs. Freedom ain't much good if you're dead.

From the article in the Nation about treatment of civilians in Iraq by U.S. military personnel:

Last September, Senator Patrick Leahy, then ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, called a Pentagon report on its procedures for recording civilian casualties in Iraq "an embarrassment." "It totals just two pages," Leahy said, "and it makes clear that the Pentagon does very little to determine the cause of civilian casualties or to keep a record of civilian victims."

Maybe the officials in Foreign Affairs Canada who can't or won't count the civilian casualties should take note. You people are an embarassment too.

Civilian casualties

An article in the Nation reports that Iraqi civilians are the victims of atrocities at the hands of U.S. soldiers much more often than has been reported.

This line stood out, and could as easily be applied to the increasing civilian deaths in Afghanistan.

"Occupying armies with little knowledge of the local culture, fighting guerrillas who mingle among the population, have usually meant disaster for civilians."