More For The War
July 27, 2008, Matthew Good According to Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson, Canada may be expanding its role in Afghanistan from 2,500 members of the Canadian Armed Forces to 2,700. The additional 200 troops would, according to Emerson, be deployed to service six Chinook helicopters that are destined for the theatre as well as unmanned aerial drones.
The majority of the Canadian contingent of ISAF is stationed in the southern Province of Kandahar where they have suffered one of the worst casualty rates of the conflict. That is a fact that seems to get lost when many examine the size of our force in Afghanistan, but it remains a fact nonetheless. We have, given the size of our contingent, paid dearly.
In the end it will have been for nothing – I firmly believe that. Those who have given their lives in the line of duty, doing their jobs, will be rendered victims of policy, and that is also something that should not be overlooked. We are, to put it lightly, pawns in a game of global hegemony that think ourselves anything but, and it is high time that we woke up to that fact.
Of course, the counter arguments are many, though steeped in contradiction. The Taliban, whom I would never dream of defending, had to be stopped. Mind you, they only had to be stopped after 9/11. Prior to that the Canadian government did nothing of significance regarding the suffering of the people that endured their rule. The same is true of the United States. In fact, prior to 9/11, US oil giant Unocal was in negotiations with the Taliban in an attempt to secure the rights to build a natural gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea into Pakistan, a project that is, not surprisingly, currently being lauded as one of the country’s economic saving graces. Hamid Karzai, the current President of Afghanistan, was, at the time, a corporate consultant for Unocal, having turned down an offer from the Taliban to act as their Ambassador to the United Nations.
Representatives of the Taliban visited the United States twice during the Presidency of Bill Clinton and once during George Bush’s Presidency prior to 9/11. On all three occasions it was made very clear that the United States did not recognize the regime as the official government of Afghanistan. After all, these were people responsible for using tanks to crush individuals to death in football stadiums. Recognizing them as the legitimate government of Afghanistan was never an option. But allowing them to be courted by a major US oil giant was.
On the first two visits to the US the Taliban’s delegation met with representatives of Unocal, actually visiting the home of Unocal’s Vice President during the second visit. During the third visit, Said Ramatullah Hashemi, then the Taliban’s Foreign Minister, met with State Department officials as well as the Afghanistan desk officer for the Office of Counter Terrorism. During that visit he delivered a letter to the Bush Administration calling for improved relations. Following the meetings Richard Boucher commented that they did not represent any US recognition of the Taliban and that the United States did not recognize any government in the country at all. That said - and this should not be overlooked - during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 the United States employed the Northern Alliance as a proxy force.
Historical reality shows that the Pakistanis have played a significant role in supporting the Taliban. It was covertly funded in the past by the government of Benazir Bhutto, a fact that was conveniently overlooked upon her return to Pakistan and certainly overlooked when she was being sainted after her assassination. But as Steve Coll’s ‘Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden’ accurately points out…
“Benazir Bhutto, who was secretly authorizing the Taliban’s covert aid, did not let the Americans know. She visited Washington in the spring of 1995, met with President Clinton, and promoted the Taliban as a pro-Pakistan force that could help stabilize Afghanistan… During her visit and for many months afterward Bhutto and her aides repeatedly lied to American government officials and members of Congress about the extent of Pakistani military and financial aid to the Taliban… Bhutto had decided it was more important to appease the Pakistani army and intelligence service than to level with her American friends.”
It is no mystery that tensions have increased along the Pakistan-Afghan border of late, with cross border raids occurring in Pakistani tribal areas. While certain prominent voices within Pakistan have warned that unilateral operations conducted inside Pakistan represent a serious breach of the country’s sovereignty, the country’s new Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, claimed yesterday…
“Extremism and terrorism are our own problems. This is our own fight. This is our own cause”.
…an indicator that Pakistan is not open to obliging Western forces in Afghanistan with regards to independent military operations against the Taliban that include incursions into Pakistan itself.
There are several million Pashtun refugees still displaced along the Pashtun belt, providing the Taliban with a resource pool from which to draw. Given what they are prepared to pay those willing to fight, the economics of poverty have played a significant role in the Taliban’s reconstitution. Of course, the Taliban’s financial resources are not simply appearing out of thin air, another indication that aid from within Pakistan, be it from sympathetic groups within the country’s tribal areas or, dare I say, even the ISI itself, most likely represents the majority of their assistance.
If anything, the Taliban, if even uneasily, remains a Pakistani proxy force in the region, one that can be used to further Pakistan’s interests with regards to Afghanistan. To discount such ambitions is, in my view, to seriously underestimate the view that many within Pakistan’s military apparatus hold – that they are a significant player within the region and not one to be trifled with or treated as lackeys by foreign powers.
In the midst of this mess are several thousand Canadian combat troops, all of whom have been fed post September 11th propaganda without a serious study of the region’s conflict history entering into the equation.
This little symbol lets you @ another comment
“The Taliban, whom I would never dream of defending, had to be stopped. Mind you, they only had to be stopped after 9/11. Prior to that the Canadian government did nothing of significance regarding the suffering of the people that endured their rule.” Yes. Like hearding women into stadia to be shot like cattle.
Fab post, as usual.
Matt you have often criticized the West’s occupation in Afghanistan, as well as the war in Iraq. Most of them have been enlightening, well-informed articles. However, of all the articles of yours on these subjects i’ve read or skimmed through over the years, i cannot recall you ever offering what in your opinion is the alternative solution other than simply pulling the military out of these countries.
So Matt, I challange you to write an blog entry (or hell, just point me to somebody else’s argument if you want) explaining what is the best solution/strategy the West should follow regarding Al-Qaeda & the Taliban etc. Is it simply to pull all of our military forces out of these countries? Its cleary a much more complicated matter than that.
To be blunt, its easy to criticize the actions & decisions of others. Its much harder to create a well-reasoned, workable solution of what the alternative should be. I’m eager to hear it.
The alternative to fighting to solve a conflict is diplomacy. But that doesn’t fly in the world of Bush’s war on terror. We won’t negoitiate with the Taliban because they’ve been deemed terrorists, when it’s closer to the truth to say they’re one side in a multi-factional conflict that has been going on since the late 1970s in it’s current encarnation. As unpleasant as it’s going to be, the only way out of the quagmire of Afghanistan is to get EVERYBODY involved together and try and hash out some compromise.
NATOs Afghanistan mission is a counter-insurgency overlaid on a civil war. Trying to solve the problems there is with ouside military force is a little like trying to cure skin cancer with acne cream.
[quote comment="59619"]Matt you have often criticized the West’s occupation in Afghanistan, as well as the war in Iraq. Most of them have been enlightening, well-informed articles. However, of all the articles of yours on these subjects i’ve read or skimmed through over the years, i cannot recall you ever offering what in your opinion is the alternative solution other than simply pulling the military out of these countries.
So Matt, I challange you to write an blog entry (or hell, just point me to somebody else’s argument if you want) explaining what is the best solution/strategy the West should follow regarding Al-Qaeda & the Taliban etc. Is it simply to pull all of our military forces out of these countries? Its cleary a much more complicated matter than that.
To be blunt, its easy to criticize the actions & decisions of others. Its much harder to create a well-reasoned, workable solution of what the alternative should be. I’m eager to hear it.[/quote]
I have, use the search.
[quote comment="59645"]
I have, use the search.[/quote]
Well right before i went to repsond you had written more to what i just quoted from you, but i guess you decided to delete it. I will plow through the archives, thank you.
As for what you had written, i agree with you in regards to Afghanistan. I don’t understand why NATO, and the U.S. especially, is against negotiating with the Taliban. I also agree in a full withdrawal from Iraq for a myriad of reasons.
However, there is always the chance that negotiations with the Taliban would fail, as well as Iraq going to shit once the U.S.-led forces leave & Al-Qaeda & other anti-West extremists gaining some sanctuary there. That’s why i firmly believe that a much better option to spending all this money on these foreign occupations would be to spend some of that money to better secure our own countries from attack. More money for law enforcement, intelligence, border/coast guard security etc.
And of course getting our militaries out of these Muslim countries will certainly give Muslim extremists (both foreign & homegrown) less of a reason to want to kill us, as you have written about before.
The solution, as it often is with anything, is to treat the matter with urgencry, respect and dignity within the same realm as you would wish to be treated. To go to the UN and be equal. To eliminate the power of vetoing and giving true democracy it’s rightful position in what should be the worlds way of coming together and determining what’s right. It’s where the larger countries stop acting like they can commandeer any situation that arises without the backing of the UN. Not pick and choose what rules to follow and what rules they impose on others and ignore when it’s convenient or for the supposed good of someone else. It’s when these super powers stop using sanctions and economical shutouts as leverage to put down anyone who opposes them.
Yeah, decency and equality can go a long way. But who wants power so they can be equal?
That’s my take on it, criticize me all you like.
[quote comment="59646"]
However, there is always the chance that negotiations with the Taliban would fail, as well as Iraq going to shit once the U.S.-led forces leave & Al-Qaeda & other anti-West extremists gaining some sanctuary there. That’s why i firmly believe that a much better option to spending all this money on these foreign occupations would be to spend some of that money to better secure our own countries from attack. More money for law enforcement, intelligence, border/coast guard security etc.[/quote]
There’s also a chance they would succeed, which would call into question the Bush policies of the last seven years.
Iraq has already gone to shit. It’s a failed state under US domination, with Iran having more control over the Shiite militias in the south and Sunni and Kurd forces controlling the central and northern regions. All out civil war will probably be the result when it becomes too financially and politically expensive to keep the US occupation going. And that won’t be long, the US economy is bleeding red under the current administration.
I think a much better idea to dealing with foreign based terrorism is to change some of our foreign policies that have pissed so many people off for decades and more (the US more than Canada). Instead of backing thugs who keep the oil (or precious metals, agricultural products etc) flowing, we need to actually back up all the rhetoric about freedom and democracy that’s been spouted for so long.
[quote comment="59646"] That’s why i firmly believe that a much better option to spending all this money on these foreign occupations would be to spend some of that money to better secure our own countries from attack. More money for law enforcement, intelligence, border/coast guard security etc.[/quote]
I don’t think you realize how much money is spent on foreign occupations. I don’t know the figure for Canada, but the US spends about $700 billion dollars a year on “defense,” compared to $40 billion per year on law enforcement. They fund about 1000 permanent bases overseas, with hundreds of thousands of servicemen, bureaucrats, and mercenaries, countless high-tech war toys, and inflated reconstruction contracts. It would not be possible to spend that much money on genuine security.
“In the midst of this mess are several thousand Canadian combat troops, all of whom have been fed post September 11th propaganda without a serious study of the region’s conflict history entering into the equation.”
Nor, dare I say, without a serious investigation into the events of 9/11. In fact, NO investigation whatsoever by the Canadian government, despite the fact that 24 Canadian citizens were killed on 9/11. Isn’t high time we had one ?? Surely their deaths, the subsequent deaths of 86 soldiers and countless innocent Afghanis warrant that?
[quote comment="59673"]
There’s also a chance they would succeed, which would call into question the Bush policies of the last seven years.
Iraq has already gone to shit. It’s a failed state under US domination, with Iran having more control over the Shiite militias in the south and Sunni and Kurd forces controlling the central and northern regions. All out civil war will probably be the result when it becomes too financially and politically expensive to keep the US occupation going. And that won’t be long, the US economy is bleeding red under the current administration.
I think a much better idea to dealing with foreign based terrorism is to change some of our foreign policies that have pissed so many people off for decades and more (the US more than Canada). Instead of backing thugs who keep the oil (or precious metals, agricultural products etc) flowing, we need to actually back up all the rhetoric about freedom and democracy that’s been spouted for so long.[/quote]
Yes of course there is a chance for it to succeed. I’m for the withdrawal, I’m just saying we must prepare for the worst-case scenario. Iraq is a mess now, but if the U.S. pulls out sometime in the next couple of years a rational person should realize that it could easily get much worse (at least in the short-term). All-out civil war, another repressive regime gaining control of the gov’t, a large influx of terrorists taking refuge in the country, or (while somewhat far-fetched) Iran invading the country or somehow taking control of the gov’t.
As for your last paragraph, i completely agree.
[quote comment="59674"]
I don’t think you realize how much money is spent on foreign occupations. I don’t know the figure for Canada, but the US spends about $700 billion dollars a year on “defense,” compared to $40 billion per year on law enforcement. They fund about 1000 permanent bases overseas, with hundreds of thousands of servicemen, bureaucrats, and mercenaries, countless high-tech war toys, and inflated reconstruction contracts. It would not be possible to spend that much money on genuine security.[/quote]
I’m very aware of the ridiculas amount of money the U.S. spends on its military. If you re-read what i wrote you’ll notice i said that we could use “some” of that money towards domestic security. It would definately be both nearly impossible & asinine to use all of that money towards security.
I’m sure both the U.S. and Canada could better use that money on crazy things like “healthcare” and “the envirnoment”.
I have a growing number of friends (mostly media) who’ve been to Afghanistan. One friend decided to go back to see if the situation has changed significantly from his last tour. Each time, they return to Canada with a different viewpoint. You may have answered this already (sorry I don’t know or have not searched out the answer) but I wonder if you would visit Afghanistan if the opportunity presented itself . . . I ask mostly because I’ve been surprised by how first hand exposure on the ground changes one’s perspective. (please note, I’m not saying your views are right or wrong . . . just wondering if you would go to Afghanistan)