Stephen Harper's Afghan Deception - Mar.15.2006
By Gary Morton at http://CitizensontheWeb.ca

    Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the debate over our 2,200 troops in Afghanistan is over, but the fact is the debate never really happened. 

   His visit to Kandahar shows him to be a perfect general; one so overweight that he couldn’t cut and run without being in danger of a heart attack. Yes he says we won't run but despite his assurances of Canadian goodwill the high point of his visit has been the killing of an innocent Afghan rickshaw driver by our trigger happy forces.

   This year 11 Canadian soldiers have been injured in Afghanistan. Two are dead. The casualty list will grow. The US experience there shows at least 220 U.S. military personnel have perished in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. Afghanistan is as dangerous as Iraq from a soldier’s perspective. Canada’s current role is in assuming a nine-month command of the international military force. The key duty is in hunting down militants. The United States is reducing its troops from 19,000 to 16,000. Our troops are trying to gain freedom of movement over a wide area as they flush out Taliban fighters. 

   Tinhorn Canadian troops face a deteriorating security situation with Taliban attacks up. The enemy has launched 23 suicide bombs in the past six months. Foreign and local troops, a Canadian diplomat, police and many civilians have been killed. Most foreign aid groups have left Afghanistan, viewing it as too dangerous. Kidnapping is now on the rise and contractors are targeted. Civilians face a steep increase in violent robbery. Two hundred schools have been burned or damaged and violence is expected to escalate. 

   Canadian soldiers patrolling in light-armoured vehicles are sure to take hits and casualties. There is no way around it when the enemy deals with rocket attacks and roadside bombs. Ever-present landmines are also a problem. Our federal government has placed our troops in Afghanistan's most hostile area. Kandahar is part of Taliban lands and the warlike residents won’t see a difference between Americans and Canadians. 

   Historically all wars and invasions involving Afghanistan have ended in disaster. Tribal warlords have been locked in combat for centuries. The Russians invaded in 1979, and withdrew in 1989. Now Canada may repeat history as General Rick Hillier suggests that our troops could be in Afghanistan for ten years.  

   They will be ten long years and Mr. Harper and his embedded reporters from the CBC and Canadian Press expect Canadians will have little to talk about or debate when the body bags come home. We’ll want to keep silent as our troops are slowly wiped out in combat. 

   In his latest article Eric Margolis notes that “2,100 Canadian troops have ended up in a nation in which Canada has absolutely no strategic, commercial, cultural or emotional interests.”  

   We have no genuine role in Afghanistan and there is already opposition from some relatives of the soldiers. The mother and aunt of a Newfoundland soldier killed in Afghanistan (Cpl. Jamie Murphy) want Canada’s role reconsidered.  

   NDP Leader Jack Layton points out that we have never discussed the mission on a parliamentary level. Our government doesn’t say why we are in Afghanistan. 

   After a poll showing a large majority of Canadians against the Afghan mission military and press spin docs struck back with statements on how Canadians need tough talk on how our military role has changed. We are search and destroy terrorist hunters and not peacekeepers and humanitarian aid people.  

   When the attacks began and troops began to die the press was filled with spin on how we are there to help the Afghans, provide aid and ensure world peace and security. 

   After a Canadian soldier was axe attacked in an Afghan village the media told us his attacker was a Taliban militant. Later we find he was a 16-year-old town boy. Trevor Greene of Vancouver was attacked in a setup that involved the whole town. While the military men were meeting town leaders in supposed peace, all the children were quietly removed so the suicide attacker could strike, crying god is great as he swung his axe. 

   It was an attack that made it clear that we are up against the locals and not just Taliban militants. 

   Harper’s point man, Peter Mckay says we would jeopardize our troops in Afghanistan if we were to discuss the issue at home. Taliban militants (most of them illiterate and far from Western media) would be emboldened. Mckay believes we have to show that we will finish what we started. 

   Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh wants parliamentarians as representatives of Canadians to stand up in the House and provide a compelling rationale for why we're there. 

   Why we are there is still a big question. We thought we were peacekeepers, but peacemaking has changed to a war on terror Canadians have not approved. The attacks of September 11th are now named by Harper as a reason for killing local people in remote areas of Afghanistan.  

  The PR offensive to win approval of our role is to come from government, embedded reporters and the soldiers themselves. It is already underway and soon returning vets will hit the media circuit local to national to win support for the Afghan mission. This PR effort will not mention real conditions in Afghanistan. It won’t speak of a place with a shattered economy where 24 million people are totally dependent on foreign aid. It won’t inform us that opium poppy cultivation is the largest industry to redevelop since the West invaded. 

   Our troops are battling and imprisoning men who say they have seen nothing from the Kabul government of Hamid Karzai. They say that the new government ministries do nothing. They speak of four years with no real change. Hamid Karzai is a fake Afghan president . He imprisoned 700 of his political rivals in the weeks before the election and announced his election before voting took place. His puppet presidency assures us that money will always be spent on military missions and not aid. Afghanistan’s status as poorest of the poor will not change.  

   The Taliban and many locals believe America is there to destroy their country and that Canada is part of the mission. We are helping to impose U.S. rule and guard routes for planned oil pipelines. They want an Islamic government and in the end they are sure to get it. The West’s tenuous control of a collection of fiefdoms run by cruel local warlords won’t hold and neither will the reign of a government that holds no real power outside of Kabul. 

   Perhaps Stephen Harper is correct when he says the debate over involvement in Afghanistan is over. We’ve made a whopper of a mistake and our government is going to hold us to it. The only prize for us in Afghanistan is body bags and we’ve already won some of it.
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Note: A solid majority of Canadians oppose our involvement in Afghanistan.

See also -Canada’s real role in Afghanistan : Canadians are spilling their blood to prop up a corrupt, vicious, and undemocratic puppet government

See also - Harper Support from Big Oil