Harper's War Agenda

From Rabble.ca by Derrick O'Keeffe

Expanding foreign military bases serves Harper's war agenda

"Canadian fighter jets have flown more than 400 sorties over Libya thus far, and NATO's air campaign is intensifying. The Canadian planes have been operating from a NATO base in Italy. To fight wars from the air, you need to have the use of foreign bases.

Last week, Le Devoir broke the news that the Canadian government had completed agreements for new foreign bases in Jamaica and Germany, with talks ongoing to establish bases in Kuwait, Tanzania and several other countries."

The piece includes a link to the Canadian Peace Alliance and a statement against Canada's garrisoning of the planet.

"The Canadian Peace Alliance condemns the plans of the Harper government to establish new foreign military bases for Canada. This is a policy that has been in the works for some time but, like so much else about Canada's foreign policy, it was completely excluded from the discussion during the recent federal election

...The announcement about new foreign bases came at the same time as a request to keep Canadian Forces on the ground in Richelieu, Quebec to help with flood relief was being ignored. The Harper government continues to encourage costly and unnecessary deployments of the Forces abroad, while showing little interest in using its resources at home for disaster relief.

Foreign bases have nothing to do with Canadian security, and everything to do with the Harper government's desire to be able to participate in future military aggressions like the ones ongoing in Afghanistan and Libya."

Murray Dobbin: Canada in Afghanistan - the Big Lie

Our country's leaders are lying to themselves, to us and to the rest of the world. They implicate us in their lies, so, as Canadians, we become part of the big lie. If we refuse to swallow the lies or go along with them, we are called un-Canadian, unpatriotic or lovers of terrorists or terrorism. Just because lots of people sign on to the Big Lie doesn't make it true. Just because leaders of "democratic" governments skate over, ignore or refuse to see the illegality of their actions, it does not make them legal.

I always imagine Murray Dobbin standing on a mountaintop during a storm, calling out to Canadians to warn them of the danger they face - and very few can be bothered to listen.

Canada in Afghanistan - the Big Lie

Our tragic and pathetic Afghanistan adventure is a dramatic commentary on the state of Canadian politics and democracy. Despite all the evidence that continuing to stay in this benighted country is worse than pointless, despite the fact that the majority of Canadians want to get out sooner rather than later and despite the fact that even Stephen Harper recognizes that the Karzai regimen is one of the most repugnant and corrupt Canadians have ever been asked to support we are unable as a nation to extricate ourselves from this deadly mess.

In spite of all the blathering about the common sense of Canadians, politicians, except for New Democratic leader Jack Layton, who has never supported and does not support the Big Lie, do not listen to us. We are expected to pay up and shut up.

And our country is being ruined.

The Afghan war/occupation not only further corrupts and destroys Afghanistan; it corrupts Canadian politics by obliging everyone to be involved in a Big Lie. We have to lie about everything: the likelihood of improvement, the objectives of our partner, the US; the building of democracy, the role of oil and gas pipelines, the liberation of women, Afghanis’ attitude towards Canadian soldiers, our commitment to the Geneva Convention, and the story we tell Canadian soldiers about why they are there. Nothing but lies and everyone one of them corrosive of our political culture and international image.

Whistleblowers, whether they be diplomats like Richard Colvin, translators like Ahmadshah Malgarai, or members of JTF2, who report wrongdoing by members of the Canadian Armed Forces are ignored, bullied, or have their integrity or their motives questioned.

The legal maxim, "Cui bono?" or "Who benefited?" should indicate that a diplomat, translator or member of the armed forces is unlikely to advance his career if he exposes the wrongdoing of the government or military brass. Clearly the bureaucracies have much to lose if the truth is told and everything to gain if it is simply swept under the rug.

Dishonourable wars – and most are – dishonour everyone involved and make liars out of the most senior people justifying the conflict. This war is incredibly destructive not only of the country being attacked and occupied but it corrodes every Canadian institution involved: the military, the civil service, Parliament, political leaders, the media and those in academia recruited to supply justification for an unjustifiable war.

Canadian soldiers dying for Karzai and Mullah Omar

Using our soldiers as pawns in new Afghan game

Thomas Walkom at the Toronto Star

Karzai is playing a carrot and stick game. The carrot is a place for the Taliban in the Afghan government. The stick is using Canadians and others to kill them (and be killed by them) if they don't go along with it.

The carrot Karzai is offering his adversaries, including Taliban leader Mullah Omar, is a major role in the country's government. Canada and other NATO countries willing to have their soldiers die for the Afghan regime constitute the stick.

Somehow, Canadians dying for the Afghan regime doesn't really have a very good ring to it, does it?

...His problem, however, is that Canadians – even those who now support the war – may not be willing to have their soldiers used as pawns in this new great game.

I never was, and I'm not now.

We have been given many reasons for going to war.

Sometimes, the federal government says we want to ensure that Afghan girls can go to school. Sometimes, it says the aim is to defeat the Taliban so as to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist base. At yet other times, we are told we are fighting to avenge the 9/11 attacks.

They use whatever they think might work at the time.

Chief of defence staff Gen. Rick Hillier says the aim is to kill the "scumbags."

Always a classy guy, Hillier. Nice to know he's the face of the Canadian military around the world. Makes me proud. (Sarcasm dripping from every word.)

All of these reasons are simple and powerful.

And powerful to the simple. Unfortunately, they're lies.

The argument that we are fighting the Taliban abroad so that we don't have to fight them in downtown Toronto may be wrong. But it has resonance.

However, when the rationale for war is simply to buttress the negotiating position of an obscure foreign leader, will Canadians be as amenable?

...I applaud Karzai for his attempts to end Afghanistan's nightmare through negotiation. Ultimately, a political solution is the only way out.

But at the same time, I wonder how the parents and husbands and wives and girlfriends and boyfriends of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan will feel if he succeeds – if Mullah Omar becomes Karzai's prime minister; if, as part of a coalition deal, more severe forms of sharia law are imposed on women; if the very few gains Afghanistan has made in the field of human rights are reversed.

Won't they wonder if the whole thing was a waste of time? Won't they suspect their lovers and sons and daughters died for nothing?

Yup.

And they'd be right.

Disappearing the wounded

Although every military death in Afghanistan is reported, even though Stephen Harper and his New Canadian government did its best to keep photographers and news people away, it seems like the rapidly increasing numbers of the wounded - some severely - aren't reported anymore.

If you want to keep a war going, even the war with less and less support every day, you just keep the disturbing statistics away from Canadians. If we really knew, then support might drop futher.

What the hell. Who cares about democracy? Certainly not the department of Defense, which is becoming less and less about defense and more and more about agression. Since CSIS is now CSIA, when will the DoD become the Hexagon or the Octagon?

More Canadians injured, fewer reported

[T]hat tells a tale now rarely talked about: a great many Canadian soldiers are being injured in Afghanistan. And we’re not hearing about it.

[A] new policy has clearly emerged. Deaths are still reported but injuries are not, unless one of two scenarios exists. The first is if the injury is so severe, it may very well result in death. The second is if journalists already know about it.