Oh, what a funny war!

From Counterpunch, a scathing review by Stanley Heller of "Charlie Wilson's War", or how to make war funny and appealing now that Iraq is yesterday's news.

"...Imagine, they made a funny movie about how the US helped turn Afghanistan into a killing field...To be sure it was the Soviets who did most of the killing...Yet the evidence is that the US government wanted the Soviets to invade and did what it could to provoke it."

But wait... it gets even funnier.

"Mike Nichols who directed the movie had very little to say about the fact that the weapons we [the U.S.] gave the mujahadeen ended up being used in a long and bloody Afghan civil war once the Soviets left and that the mujahadeen/warlords mutated into the Taliban and al-Qaeda."

And Canadians are killing and being killed to try to wipe out the U.S. creation.

"...This movie glorying in our "triumph" in Afghanistan fits well in Washington's current climate where Democrats fall all over themselves saying Iraq was a mistake, but we should be sending more money and troops to Afghanistan. Sure, we really need to sacrifice more American lives for a warlord "Northern Alliance" government that is so hated that the Taliban is making a comeback."

And this is the government that is telling Canada how important it is that we keep troops there forever to keep it in power.

I'd rather listen to RAWA (Revolutionary Association of Afghan Women).

"..Instead of defeating Al-Qaeda, Taliban and Gulbuddini terrorists and disarming the Northern Alliance, the foreign troops are creating confusion among the people of the world. We believe that if these troops leave Afghanistan, our people will not feel any kind of vacuum but rather will become more free and come out of their current puzzlement and doubts. In such a situation, they will face the Taliban and Northern Alliance without their national' mask, and rise to fight with these terrorist enemies. Neither the US nor any other power wants to release Afghan people from the fetters of the fundamentalists."

But is Stephen Harper listening? I doubt he's ever heard of RAWA. Besides, what would they know? It's their country, their history and their future. It is therefore best decided by puffy white conservative guys in Canada.

Not too surprising though. He doesn't care much for the welfare of Canadian women either.

And he wonders "whether Canada really gets Afghanistan".

"...Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he is uncertain whether Canadians at large understand the importance of remaining involved in Afghanistan..After demoting Gordon O'Connor from defence to the revenue portfolio as part of a broader cabinet shakeup, Mr. Harper seemed to get a firmer grip on the direction of the war, enough for the Conservatives to boldly suggest in their fall Throne Speech that Canada should remain deeply involved in Afghanistan until 2011...In June, a Canadian Press-Decima Research survey found 67 per cent of those asked believed the number of casualties in Afghanistan is unacceptable when weighed against the progress that made in reconstruction and keeping the Taliban at bay in Kandahar..."

Oh, we get it, Stevie. You'll do what you want, "punch above your weight", ignore the wishes of most Canadians and more people will die.

Couldn't have said it better myself...

From the Harper Index

I think the Harper government is one of the most loathsome, mean-spirited, self-serving gang of rogues I've ever witnessed.

...Harper's a different breed. He's a nasty fellow who stealthily dismantles small programs over time, thereby eroding and ultimately washing away some of our cherished programs.

Now I'm SURE we're doing something wrong

Praise from the Liar-in-Chief and his cohorts doesn't warm the cockles of my heart, I'm afraid.

"President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Canada and other allies Thursday for their combat roles in Afghanistan while saying the U.S. administration is worried NATO countries will eventually tire of the mission and leave."

I'm afraid I'm still not too sure I know what this mission is. What are we doing there, again?

"...Canada also wanted to know whether more U.S. troops would be available for Afghanistan as they leave Iraq. The response was that it won't happen in the short term; a point U.S. Defence Minister Robert Gates has been making."

Sorry, but you're on your own. Afghanistan is important for the U.S., but just not important enough to send soldiers. NATO countries can die for the U.S. war, and should be PROUD to do so.

"...Earlier in the day, Bush mentioned the Canadians - along with the British, Dutch, Danes and Australians - at a news conference, thanking them for their "contribution of shooters, fighters, people that are willing to be on the front line."

Hey, what happened to humanitarian intervention, schools, women's rights, all that stuff? (Don't worry - I never believed that snowjob anyway.)

"It's a dangerous mission but it's a mission that we're proud of," said Bernier, noting the Conservative government is hoping to stay longer.

Most Canadians aren't proud. They're angry, confused and sad. And the Egyptians already told us what the Conservative government has in mind. Anybody who doesn't have their head buried in the sand or up their own fundament knows that this is Stevie's War, and he won't let anyone leave while there's still a man standing.

"...Rice called Canada "an extraordinary partner" making an "invaluable and effective" contribution to what is an "absolutely essential mission ... crucial to the future of the United States, Canada and all civilized nations."

The only one Rice is worried about is the U.S., and she's done such a wonderful job so far, Americans are terrified. When did Canada become a U.S. colony? Praise from Condoleezza Rice makes me acutely uncomfortable.

"... It was the United States that was attacked on Sept. 11th..."

She's starting to sound like Giuliani - the Sept. 11th mantra, over and over and over...

And - oh, yeah - Afghanistan did not attack the U.S.

"...Canada also raised concerns about U.S. rules that prohibit military manufacturers from employing dual nationals and foreign-born citizens on American projects in Canada."

This could be a good thing. Why should we be manufacturing the materials of slaughter?

Does Harper read Egyptian newspapers?

Has Stephen Harper accepted what the Egyptians already know? (Bold typeface is mine.)

"Thirty-eight countries have supplied troops to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force but most of them, including those from Germany and France, are precluded by their governments from combat operations. Different national contingents have different rules of engagement.

Troops from the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, Canada, and Australia have been engaged with the Taliban in the southern provinces. However, public support for the troop presence is not strong in those countries apart from the United States. The Netherlands just committed to keep its troops in Afghanistan till 2010 only after a contentious public and parliamentary debate that threatened to break up the governing coalition.

But here's something interesting. We're committed until 2010? When did Harper go to parliament to debate this, as he promised to? (Ha! Promises! I'm not deluded enough to believe any promises that come from the secretive New Canadian Government.)

...Dutch troops will definitely pull out in 2010, and the Canadians and Australians may well follow suit.

It's wonderful to have to read an Egyptian editorial to find out what's happening.

Child soldiers in Afghanistan

Another reason for not handing over people captured in the field to Afghan authorities. Children are being recruited by government forces, Afghan police and militias who support them, and private security companies. They are sexually abused, used for hard labour, or sent to fight.

The Taliban use children to fight or carry out suicide missions.

AFGHANISTAN: Child soldiers operating on several fronts

KANDAHAR, 19 December 2007 (IRIN) - Children are being recruited and in some cases sexually abused by the Afghan police and/or various militias that support the police, as well as by private security companies and the Taliban, according to human rights and provincial officials.

...Some children are recruited for military and non-military purposes by local militias who are paid by the government to supplement the fledgling ANP in volatile southern provinces. However, due to lack of proper monitoring and accountability mechanisms, and the informal nature of the auxiliary forces, the use and abuse of child soldiers remains undocumented.

"Children are used for different purposes," Noorzai said. "The majority of them experience sexual abuse, others do all kinds of jobs such as cooking, cleaning, day patrols and even fighting," he said.

...Under-age males have also been seen working for private security companies, particularly in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, said a senior government official who insisted on anonymity.

...Afghan officials also accuse the Taliban and other anti-government elements of deliberately using children for various military and illegitimate purposes. The Taliban use boys as foot soldiers and force children to engage in violent acts, they say.

Torture? Mais non, we know nothing about it (part deux).

Sounds like a plan to me, but I don't think they meant it that way.

A top military commander says in a sworn affidavit Canadian troops would have to quit fighting the Taliban if they could not hand prisoners over to Afghan authorities.

Maybe they shouldn't have been so gung-ho to charge in there, then.

..Although Canada is waging its biggest war effort in more than half a century, the 2,500-soldier commitment to Afghanistan has only a limited capacity to hold prisoners temporarily. That is by design. "The Canadian Forces has no capacity or ability to hold detainees other than for transfer purposes," says Gen. Deschamps, an air force general who once commanded the Camp Mirage logistics base in the Gulf.

Doing the right thing, only after they've been found out, as usual.

..Despite intensive follow-up inspections, arranged by the Harper government only after The Globe and Mail published harrowing detainee accounts of torture and abuse in Afghan prisons, a significant number of transferred prisoners still say that they have been tortured after transfer.

This whole thing makes me sick.

And it's 1,2,3...what are we fighting for? (part quatre)

Khalilzad, Karzai and the "government" of Afghanistan - is this what young Canadians are dying for?

Khalilzad and the Gangs of Afghanistan

by Bahlol Lohdi

In an article last year, The Economist wondered how an inept individual like Hamid Karzai had managed to obtain the post of president of Afghanistan. The answer is found in the development of the relationship between Zalmay Khalilzad and Hamid Karzai.

...The period between the signing of the Bonn Accord and the installation of a transitional government in Kabul should have been used to effect a similar process, distancing the Afghan mujahedeen warlords and their criminal gangs from the levers of power.

...Unfortunately, the various loya jirgas, or "grand assemblies," attended and choreographed by Khalilzad as George Bush's special representative, instead of bringing forth the required apolitical, technocratic regime in order to begin the country's physical and social reconstruction, only served to entrench the status quo set in Bonn.

...The Afghan government is now widely described as being made up of various competing mafia groups.

...The relationship between Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, and Karzai, the Afghan president, was described in graphic and cringe-making detail in a New Yorker piece. And though it accurately portrayed the Afghan "leader" as a servile and ridiculous moron whose every action was being choreographed by the American plenipotentiary, it was a gratuitous insult to Afghan national pride.

Too bad Canada didn't have the "understandable reluctance" to pour lives and money into propping up this corrupt regime.

...But with the British military failure in Helmand, and an understandable reluctance by many NATO allies to expend blood and treasure to ensure the survival of a kleptocratic regime, Karzai's mantle of power began to look increasingly threadbare.

So, our soldiers are still fighting "Taliban", killing "Taliban", and getting killed, while our glorious leaders have known for a long time that it was a waste of time.

...a giant step forward was taken when it was admitted that there is no military solution to the Afghan problem. The British trumpeting of their preparations to "destroy the Taliban," thus "securing the back end of the country" and reordering things in Kabul so that it would "cut the mustard," and their subsequent rude awakening from such neo-imperial dreams, at least served this useful purpose.

Now, could we stop with the "punching above our weight" crapola from the Harper crowd?

.

..A final assumption that must be discarded, before moving on to consider the factors essential for a viable political solution, is the shibboleth that conflates NATO's future survival with that of its success or failure in Afghanistan. From the shrill and persistent vocalization of this meme, one would think that the NATO acronym stands for North Afghanistan Treaty Organization!

I wondered about that, too. Karzai and his pontificating about how thankful he was that Canadians were dying to keep him and the rest in power. I couldn't believe my ears.

Time to go, as quickly as possible.

...Unfortunately, the presence of Western forces on Afghan soil has become part of the Afghan problem and therefore can no longer be considered part of any future solution. Despite the ridiculous claims of a deluded Afghan ex-minister while in Canada, the Afghan civilian population neither appreciates nor forgives being bombarded, even by mistakenly dropped "friendly bombs."

I'm not sure who he's speaking about here - perhaps Malalai Joya. I don't remember her saying the Afghan people were happy about being blown up, but maybe I missed something.

Going the wrong way up a dead-end street

I wonder if it's a gift or does it have to be learned.

I'm talking about the Harper government consistently backing the wrong horse, or whatever metaphor you might want to use.

"Critics at the Bali climate change conference are lumping Canada with the U.S., which they say is refusing to commit to deep emissions reductions, thereby hijacking the conference."

We are lumped in with the U.S., thanks to the Harperites and their forelock-tugging to the almighty Bush administration. Harper backed the invasion of Iraq, he thought the mining of southern Lebanon with unexploded cluster bombs by Israel was a "measured response", and now he thinks that backing Bush in his destruction of the planet is a good idea.

"There is a wrecking crew here in Bali, led by the Bush administration and its minions. Those minions continue to be the governments of Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia and others," said Jennifer Morgan, of the Climate Change Network."

Canada is a key part of the dispute, Chao said. On Thursday, Environment Minister John Baird told members Canada is feeling first-hand the effects of climate change, but said the proposed targets are impossible for Canada to achieve.

Of course we can achieve them, but the oil and gas business might take a hit, and the major polluters would have to put some of their gazillions in profit into cleaning up their act. Can't have that. Profit is king, and they paid to get this government elected. They OWN it.

The plan being proposed by Baird would reduce emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 regardless of what comes out of the Bali conference. But the reductions would be from 2006 emissions levels, instead of 1990 levels, which many nations agree is a good starting point for emissions reductions.

"So right after this speech, Bangladesh's representative came out to call Canada's position immoral, dishonest, working against the interests of the planet and working against the interests of individual Canadians," Chao said.

I'm glad to see the rest of the world hammering the Canadian delegation. Do they know that they only represent a little over a third of Canadians? And that's whom they're protecting. The rest of us can just drown in their effluent or choke on their emissions.

"The members, on learning that Canada was trying to set targets at 2006 levels, said that Canada was being misleading and trying to undermine the trust of the talks here among nations," Chao said.

Don't worry. It's all under control.

Michael Klare says what all Canadians kind of thought anyway.

Thanks, Stevie, for further selling out the country.

From Thursday, Nov. 28th Democracy Now podcast:

Michael Klare, Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College. He is author of several books including “Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum.” Klare’s latest article for the Nation is called Beyond the Age of Petroleum.

"Well, there’s a lot going on all at once that ensures that this oil crisis is qualitatively different from those of the past. And this is much more long-lasting. And one of the qualitative differences is that we have used up, over the past thirty years, most of the remaining oil in the global north—in the United States, in Canada, in Europe and other places that are near at hand and relatively under our control."

Well, Professor Klare, you might have Stevie and the boys (and a few of the girls) under your control, but you don't have the majority of the Canadian population under the imperialist thumb...yet.

The Tinkerbell Solution - Canada's asshat-pirational climate change goals

Nice going, Stevie. You've managed to bully the commonwealth countries into adopting a toothless environmental policy. Proud of yourself?

Canada gets its way: Commonwealth climate deal drops binding targets

Canada appears to have got its way at Commonwealth talks on climate change.

The 53-member organization has produced an agreement stripped of any reference to binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions.

Canada and Australia had been the lone holdouts against an earlier resolution that would have included such targets - and the Australian government has just been defeated in an election.

...The final Commonwealth deal says all countries should contribute to reducing emissions within a non-binding global target.

It's a problem, they all agree. They just hope something will happen ...somehow. I think they're called asshat-pirational goals...sorry - aspirational goals. Just like Tinkerbell - if we all hope really hard, the earth will recover.

"Instead the Lake Victoria Commonwealth Climate Change Plan points out the seriousness of the earth warming but recommends no targets or timelines for tackling greenhouse gas reduction.

The watered down plan is seen as a victory for Canada which is opposed to setting standards for industrialized polluting countries and not all polluters such as India and China."

But after all, Canada and Australia are behind this, aren't they? Hold on - a minor problem has occurred. Howard has been decisively booted out of office in Australia, and the new guy, Kevin Rudd, has said that he will sign Kyoto immediately.

Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd swept to power in Australian elections Saturday, ending an 11-year conservative era and promising major changes to policies on global warming and his country's role in the Iraq war.

...Rudd, a 50-year-old former diplomat who speaks fluent Chinese, urged voters to support him because Howard was out of touch with modern Australia and ill-equipped to deal with new-age issues such as climate change.

...But one of the biggest changes will be in Australia's approach to climate change. Rudd has nominated the issue as his top priority, and promises to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.

Kind of lonely up there on your mountain top, is it, Mr. Harper? Maybe you won't be there for long.

That's my aspirational goal.

Morally superior slaughter in Afghanistan

The dead are equivalent in one way. They're dead - no matter who killed them, and their relatives still mourn, even if they were killed in a morally "superior" way.

NATO feels that it holds the moral high ground, however. The slaughter that it perpetrates is somehow morally superior to the slaughter attributable to the Taliban.

This is the stupidest and most morally vacant thing I've ever heard.

"Nato head Jaap de Hoop Scheffer says its forces are doing all they can to avoid Afghan civilian casualties.

After a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, he said that Nato forces had changed their procedure to reduce the threat to civilians.

...Gen Scheffer appealed for understanding on this issue and said there was no moral equivalent between the civilians killed by the Taleban and those killed by Nato."

Señor Harper, ¿por qué no te callas?

If Colombia is suspending human rights and accepting massive aid from the U.S. as Bush's bestest friend in América del Sur, then the best thing for Canada to do is push through a free trade deal with them.

"In July Harper visited Colombia and scoffed at the suggestion Canada should withhold support for a trade deal due to human rights abuses. "We're not going to say, fix all your social, political and human-rights problems, and only then will we engage in trade relations with you," said Harper, at the time. That's a ridiculous position."

If Pakistan has suspended civil liberties and locked up dissenters, then the best thing for Canada to do is suggest that they be suspended from the Commonwealth.

"Canada has called for Pakistan's suspension from the Commonwealth following the anti-democratic crackdowns imposed during its emergency rule."

Punching above our weight, are we, Stevie? Let's just push a Pakistan teetering on the edge of a disaster over the edge, shall we? Got any more brilliant ideas?

I have a suggestion for you.

Señor Harper, ¿por qué no te callas?

Tolstoy on war

From Tolstoy's War and Peace:

“A thought that had long since and often occured to him during his military activities -- the idea that there is not and cannot be any science of war, and that therefore there can be no such thing as a military genius -- now appeared to him an obvious truth.”

Torture? Mais, non. We know nothing.

From Reuters:

Canada brushes off allegations of Afghan torture

Canada brushed off allegations on Monday that Taliban members captured by Canadian troops and handed over to Afghan authorities had been tortured, saying the militants often made false claims of mistreatment.

...But the French-language daily La Presse said on Monday it had found three prisoners who alleged inmates had been beaten with bricks and cables, given electric shocks, deprived of sleep and had their nails torn out."

White guys with guns: Canada's military in Afghanistan

White guys with guns: Canada's military in Afghanistan

by Dave Markland, a member of the Vancouver Parecon Collective, organizes with StopWar.ca and contributes to their blog chronicling Canada's war in Afghanistan: www.stopwarblog.blogspot.com

Some quotes from the article. Lots more where this came from, fully referenced.

"In total, some 2500 personnel make up the conventional forces deployed in Afghanistan. Additionally, an unknown number of JTF-2 special forces work alongside special forces from the US and other countries as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Very little is known about their role."

The one Canadian member of the JTF-2 who was killed hardly even made it onto the public radar. I found the guy's name by accident (Master Corporal Anthony Klumpenhouwer) on a military uberfan's blog when I was trying to find out who he was and what he was doing. They said he fell from a communications tower. What was he doing up there? Sniping, perhaps? We'll never know. But there was no ramp ceremony, no pictures of the body's return, no publicized military funeral. Really strange.

"...A Norwegian newspaper caused a stir early this year when it reported on sworn testimony by several US interrogators who had worked at the [Kandahar] base and described some of the goings-on, including the widespread use of torture."

Everybody else is doing it. I don't see any reason why Canadians would be an exception, especially since there is so much joint training with the U.S. military.

"Another soldier reports vengeance and geopolitics as his motivator: "I have absolutely no problem killing them," asserts a battle group sergeant. "They started this on September 11. We're just bringing the fight back to them"

Wonderful - ignorance of what's really going on combined with unfocused rage and a gun. Only good could come out of that.

"Shortly after arrival in Kandahar, members of the Van Doos regiment "étaient un peu frustrés de participer à une mission de reconstruction et auraient préféré combattre à leur arrivée en Afghanistan." ("were a little frustrated to be taking part in a reconstruction mission and would have preferred to fight upon their arrival in Afghanistan").

I guess all those "Fight...fight...fight" recruiting ads for the Canadian military have worked. Always attracts the best and the brightest.

"If all this Rambo-style readiness sounds to some like an echo of American military bravado, there may be good reason for it. Working in close quarters with their US counterparts seems to have caused a certain mindset to rub off on Canadian officers..."

Great role models.

"One of the key tools in Canada's version of "peacemaking", the British-made M777 Howitzer gun, which can shoot 6 inch-diameter bullets a distance of 30km (22 miles), has reportedly been dubbed the “Desert dragon” by insurgent fighters. Acquired by the Canadian Forces in the fall of 2005, the weapon has gained a devoted fan base among military brass. "When the infantry, for example, come up against a couple of houses where they would suffer casualties going in and clearing that house of the enemy, even though they would win, it's sort of nice to be able to stand back and turn to the tanker and say, 'Take that house out.'" So explained retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie, who has been doing near full-time public relations for the war. Afghan bystanders, ceaselessly endangered by NATO operations, might disagree with MacKenzie that the experience is "sort of nice".

Winning hearts and minds, one atomized Afghan at a time.

And we're even hiring our own mercenaries. Is this the proper use for Canadian's money? Would they agree if they were asked? I doubt it. That's why we're not asked.

"Canadian forces, too, are getting in on the action. "For five years Col. Toorjan, a turbaned, tough-as-nails, 33-year-old soldier, has been working alongside U.S. and Canadian forces in Afghanistan as a paid mercenary commander," reports Canada's National Post. "Today, his militia force of 60 Afghan fighters guards Camp Nathan Smith, the Canadian provincial reconstruction team site (PRT) in Kandahar, and guides Canadian soldiers on their patrols outside the base." Toorjan and his armed men "wield significant influence in Kandahar's complex security web", making him a treasured ally, though before 9/11 he was "in effect a warlord", said the second-in-command of Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team."

The use of mercenaries, it should be noted, runs counter to the International Convention on Mercenaries (1989). Canada, however, along with the USA, the UK and many others, is not a signatory to that treaty.

Just like the Americans. Never sign treaties that might prevent you from doing horrible things. That way, your ass is covered.

Learning to hunt Afghans

From TomDispatch by Nick Turse

"...Earlier this year, according to an article by Kimberly Johnson of the Marine Corps Times, Col. Clarke Lethin, chief of staff of the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) -- a unit based in Camp Pendleton, California that took part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and will be returning there soon -- indicated that its commanders "believe that if we create a mentality in our Marines that they are hunters and they take on some of those skills, then we'll be able to increase our combat effectiveness. The article included this curious add-on: "The Corps hopes to tap into skills certain Marines may already have learned growing up in rural hunting areas and in urban areas, such as inner cities, said Col. Clarke Lethin, I MEF's chief of staff."

...While the colonel's language -- defended by some -- did seem to suggest that inner-city dwellers lived in an urban jungle of gun-toting hunters of other humans, none of the letters, pro or con, considered quite a different part of the Colonel's equation: the implicit comparison of enemies in urban warfare, today largely Iraqis and Afghans, to animals that are hunted and killed as quarry."

...From the commander-in-chief to low-ranking snipers, a language of dehumanization that includes the idea of hunting humans as if they were animals has crept into our world -- unnoticed and unnoted in the mainstream media.

Since Canadian soldiers were being sent to Blackwater to learn sniping skills, I wonder if the "big game" metaphor is used there too? After all, Blackwater used to have a bear paw on a black background centred in sniper-scope crosshairs until its murderous tendencies came to light. Now the black background and the crosshairs are gone. Part of its new harmless image, I suppose.

Canadian panel starts its work - but won't consult Canadians

The arrogant Mr. Harper and his advisors have started their work. While they discuss how to continue the war in Afghanistan indefinitely, and then make a report saying what a wonderful idea that would be, they have thoughtfully left out the great Canadian hordes who might object to this.

The Harper War panel - helping to spread "democracy" in Afghanistan while completely ignoring it in Canada. They don't want our opinions, just our money.

This, from an Afghan news source.

A Canadian panel, appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to look into the future of Canadas mission in Afghanistan, has begun its work.

Informed sources told Pajhwok Afghan News the five-member panel headed by former deputy prime minister John Manley had its first meeting over the weekend at its office in downtown Ottawa. Moving at a fast pace, it recruited officials from the government.

As details of the meeting were not immediately available, sources indicated the panel discussed the process to be adopted to carry forward its mandate and submit recommendations to the Harper administration before the deadline of January 2008 expired.
The panel is believed to have decided against holding public hearings to solicit people's opinion on the future of Canadas mission in Afghanistan, an issue that has generated a heated political debate at home.

Due to vocal opposition to the presence of Canadian forces in Afghanistan, the Harper government has been compelled several times to go on the defensive, with his opponents calling for withdrawal of troops from Kandahar.

News from Afghanistan - Oct. 22

11 of a family perish in NATO bombing: Residents

KABUL, Oct 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News): At least 11 members of a family were killed in NATO bombing in Jalrez district of the central Maidan Wardak province, residents said on Monday.

Haji Janan, chief of the provincial council, told Pajhwok Afghan News the airstrike was carried out in Ismailkhel area of the district last night and this morning.

He said the NATO aircrafts targeted house of a local named Qari. Eleven members of his family were perished while several houses were damaged in the attack, said the people's representative.

Three more villagers named Gulab, Muhammada Jan and another man, were killed in a second strike while they were busy retrieving bodies of those killed in the attack, said Haji Janan.

Another sixteen villagers had suffered injuries in the bombing. They had been shifted to hospitals in the province and the central capital Kabul, he added.

Mir Hazrat, a resident of the area, informed that 14 civilians were killed and 16 injured in the air raid. Hazrat said he himself recovered bodies of four women and seven men from rubbles of a house.

Around seven people were killed and injured in bombing by NATO aircrafts in the same area last week. The area was pounded following a Taliban ambush on a foreign forces convoy.

Press office of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul said they did not know about civilian casualties. However, there was a clash in the area.

Responding to a mail from Pajhwok Afghan News, the press office said: "At this time, we dont have any information about civilians involved in this operation, but I can confirm that there is a firefighting in this area and we have only reports concerning insurgents."

Habib Rahman Ibrahimi/Javid Hamim

Canada's commitment to human rights slipping, thanks to Stevie.

Report on Reuters today:

Canada's commitment to human rights is slipping and the country must work hard to regain the position it once held as an international honest broker, a top United Nations official said on Monday.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, who is Canadian, said she was particularly unhappy that Canada had voted against a nonbinding U.N. declaration of rights for indigenous peoples last month.

Her comments were aimed at the Conservative government, which took power in February 2006 and has shown less interest in multilateral diplomacy than its Liberal predecessor.

Amazing that there's lots of money and hot air for "humanitarian intervention" in Afghanistan (really sucking up to the U.S.) while the terrible conditions some aboriginal people in Canada live in are completely ignored, and their basic rights are voted against in a U.N. resolution by the Canadian delegate. They make us all look like fools.

There's outrage against human rights violations in Burma and concern for the Falun Gong in China, but not a word against the slaughter in Iraq or Bush's obscene push towards a war with Iran.

Conservatives a "savvy prowar party"?

Chalmers Johnston, while reviewing books about the Iraq War, makes this observation:

Holmes' argument that "a savvy prowar party may successfully employ humanitarian talk both to gull the wider public and to silence potential critics on the liberal side" ...[i]s worth considering.

Sounds like the pro-war Conservatives. Have they managed to gull the wider public? Certainly the ones who come out to the pro-war rallies (cleverly call "Support the Troops" rallies) have been fooled, as have the ones who stick the yellow ribbons on their cars.

The critics of the Afghanistan war have never been fooled by this stuff. There is no discernable "humanitarian" result from the use of all the guns, tanks and soldiers in the area. A lot of dead people though - on every side.

"...[T]hus, insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, two devastated, poor countries, have managed to fight one of the most powerful American expeditionary forces in history to a virtual standstill. In short, "America's bellicose response to the 9/11 provocation was not only dishonorable and unethical, given the cruel suffering it has inflicted on thousands of innocents, but also imprudent in the extreme because it was bound to produce as much hatred as fear, as much burning desire for reprisal as quaking paralysis and docility. Some of the sickening effects are unfolding before our eyes. That even more malevolent consequences remain in store is a grim possibility not to be wished away."