Three pieces of note this morning which should be read if you have the time. The first is by Gabriel Kolko and is entitled Mechanistic Destruction: American Foreign Policy at Point Zero. Kolko’s opening of the piece is, in my opinion, extremely poignant…

“The United States has rarely lost any conventional military battle since at least 1950. Nor has it, at the same time, ever won a war. It has successfully overthrown governments through interventions or subversion but the political results of all its efforts – as in Afghanistan in the 1980s and Iran in 1953 – have often made its subsequent geopolitical position far, far more tenuous. In a word, in international affairs it bumbles very badly and it has made an already highly unstable world far more precarious than it otherwise would be if only the U.S. had left the world alone. No less important, Americans would be far better off thereby. Because – to repeat a critical point – it has failed to attain victory in any of the real wars it has fought since Korea. Its adversaries learned as long ago as the Korean War that decentralization would stymie America’s overwhelming firepower, which was designed for concentrated armies, and provided a successful antidote for massive, expensive technology.

All this is very well known. The real issue is why the U.S. makes the identical mistakes over and over again and never learns from its errors.

At the present time it is losing two wars and creating a vast arc of profound strategic and political instability from the Mediterranean Sea to South Asia, it has resumed the arms race in Europe, and it is making Russia an enemy when it could easily have been friendly. Economically, it has run up the biggest deficits in American history, brought on the decline of the dollar, and wherever one turns this administration has been at least as bad as any in two centuries of American history – perhaps even the worst. We now have an unprecedented disaster in the conduct of American power, both overseas and at home, in part because of the people who now rule – ambitious men and women who calculate only what is best for their careers – but also because the imperatives and inexorable logic of past policies and conventional wisdom have brought us to this critical juncture. All the old mistakes have been repeated; nothing had been learned from the past, and official myopia is timeless.”

Such historical realities are something that every American should be exposed to. As Kolko goes on to articulate, the Bush administration is not alone in American history for repeating such mistakes. While the foreign policy doctrine named after him is, most certainly, one of the most overtly dangerous in US history, the repetition of global mistakes is something that, for some strange reason, doesn’t seem to make an impact on those in power. Kolko’s assertion that that has more to do with political ambition than reason is therefore of significant import. In fact, foreign entanglements, Vietnam being the most prevalent example, have often resulted in two very different realities – one being domestically inclined and the other, often vastly overlooked by many, is the international ramifications, predominantly to do with those publics that have fallen victim to US interventionism. No matter the realities of such interventionism, domestically the supposed importance of them is convoluted and presented the American people as necessity, and therefore just, given the view that most hold regarding their country and what it stands for. Thus, such action is commonly warped in a domestic sense to propagate the belief that such actions are moral and for the betterment of others, casting those that would feed on such distortions for domestic political gain in a favourable light. One need only look at the positions of many of the current Democratic presidential nominees to see this phenomenon in action.

The second article of note comes from Simon Jenkins of The Guardian and is entitled It takes inane optimism to see victory in Afghanistan. Jenkins begins the article…

“This war against the Taliban is part of a post-imperial spasm. The longer it is waged, the graver the consequences.”

Well, at least someone’s said it.

Second…

“Paddy Ashdown returned recently from Kabul consumed with imperial zeal. On these pages he admitted the current chaos, a city awash with thousands of troops and aid workers from some 36 countries, all supposedly involved in “security and reconstruction” and almost none able to leave the capital by land. A reputed 10,000 NGO staff have turned Kabul into Klondike during the goldrush, building office blocks, driving up rents, cruising about in armoured jeeps and spending stupefying sums of other people’s money, essentially on themselves. They take orders only from some distant agency, but then the same goes for the American army, Nato, the UN, the EU and the supposedly sovereign Afghan government.

In the provinces, the Americans are running a guerrilla army out of Bagram, trying to kill as many “Taliban” or “al-Qaida” as possible, while the British heroically re-enact the Zulu wars down in Helmand. Neither takes any notice of President Hamid Karzai, whose deals with warlords, druglords, Iranians and Taliban collaborators are probably the best hope of stabilising Afghanistan when the foreign occupation is over. But since that is claimed by Britain to be virtually never, the only certainty is a rising tempo of insurgency.”

Not to beat a dead horse, but – at least someone said it.

Third, and last, is another article in The Guardian about new restrictions being implemented by the British Ministry of Defense with regards to what British soldiers can and cannot do or say as it pertains to their service. An excerpt…

“Sweeping new guidelines barring military personnel from speaking about their service publicly have been quietly introduced by the Ministry of Defence, the Guardian has learned.

Soldiers, sailors and airforce personnel will not be able to blog, take part in surveys, speak in public, post on bulletin boards, play in multi-player computer games or send text messages or photographs without the permission of a superior if the information they use concerns matters of defence.

They also cannot release video, still images or audio - material which has previously led to investigations into the abuse of Iraqis. Instead, the guidelines state that “all such communication must help to maintain and, where possible, enhance the reputation of defence”.

All of this comes in the wake of the HMS Cornwall sailors being offered payment for their stories upon their return to the UK from Iranian captivity.

The article continues…

“The MoD document, circulated last week, covers “all public speaking, writing or other communications, including via the internet and other sharing technologies, on issues arising from an individual’s official business or experience, whether on-duty, off-duty or in spare time”.

The rules have provoked consternation among the ranks, with human rights lawyers saying yesterday that they could be in contravention of Article 10 of the Human Rights Act, which allows for freedom of expression. The rules apply not only to full-time forces but to members of the Territorial Army and cadets whilst on duty, as well as MoD civil servants.

Service personnel are currently bound by Queen’s Regulations, which mean they must seek permission before speaking to the press but are free to blog and take part in online debates. However, many have spoken out anonymously on issues such as poor kit, housing and the treatment of wounded service personnel evacuated from combat zones. Criticism of the RAF in Afghanistan and the state of the ageing vehicles being used there have all appeared in the press.

An unofficial soldiers’ website, arrse.co.uk, was full of angry debate about the issue yesterday. One poster said: “Why does it not occur to MoD that if it did things properly, and treated its people well, they wouldn’t feel the need to bring things into the public arena quite so often, and they wouldn’t need to spend so much time covering-up?”

Another suggested that the rules were intended to silence the average “tommy” while senior personnel were free to speak to the media without fear of reprimand. “Every single leak of significant information to the media, certainly in the last six months, has come from the top down. Not the other direction,” he said. “Should Cpl Bloggs, or Major Good Bloke in some Platoon House in downtown Helmand-on-Styx complain in a private letter that he hasn’t enough ammo to despatch the Queens’ enemies, or the RAF really should try harder to deliver it, it’s ‘March in the guilty B*stard’ and ‘conduct prejudicial to good order’ and discipline and finger-wagging all round.”

There is one way to ensure that mistakes are not made public, and that is to ensure that those who have the ability to expose them do not have the legal right to do so. This speaks to the restrictions placed on our own soldiers, who, when they enter the ranks of the CF, are bound by a code that limits their ability to openly comment on operations. Thus, when asked if they are for the mission in Afghanistan, there can be only one answer – the one the military has provided them.

Given that our current Defense Minister was an arms lobbyist for “28 firms, including five of the world’s top 10 defense contractors”, I don’t really see how this can come as a surprise. Don’t get me wrong, it should concern Canadians immensely, but given Mr. O’Connor’s past, something of this nature should have been expected.

The report (.pdf) was written by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which was, of course, referred to as ‘left-leaning’ in the CBC article quoted below…

“Ottawa awarded more than 40 per cent of its military contracts over the last year without fully competitive bidding, and the value of these contracts has doubled over the past two years, says a report released Monday.

The report by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found more than $16 billion in major military equipment contracts had a “limited tendering process.”

The centre relied on publicly available information from a database of federal contracts awarded by the Department of Public Works and Government Services on behalf of the Department of National Defence.

The report also slammed Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor for his work as a lobbyist for 28 firms, including five of the world’s top 10 defence contractors, “almost all seeking government contracts during the period just prior to his appointment as defence minister.”

“This report raises the alarm on the use of public dollars, and the need for greater transparency and federal accountability in military contracting,” executive director Bruce Campbell said in a news release.

The report’s authors urged the government today not to sign any new military contracts valued at more than $100 million pending reports by the auditor general and the Commons Standing Committee on National Defence, expected by the end of the year.

They also urged that ministers involved in defence contracts, especially the defence minister, should wait at least five years after leaving the department before accepting work with government contractors.

The issue of defence procurement has been in the news since the Conservatives announced last year $17 billion in new equipment spending.”

One wonders what a ‘right-leaning’ report would look like. Allow the government the right to award no-bid contracts to anyone it pleases, no matter their past connections to the current Defense Minister? Hell, if his friends can cut us a deal, and we can line their pockets at the same time – how isn’t that a win-win?

Democracy is especially fantastic as it pertains to the citizens of a country having absolutely no say in how their money is spent on defense. Given that this nations hasn’t been invaded since, hmm, let’s see, 1775, one wonders why we’re spending money to fight a war half way around the world on the behalf of others when there are people in this country without roofs over their heads or food in their stomachs. Those are the people that ‘right-leaning’ people tell to go and get a job when they’re asked for spare change.

To quote President Dwight D. Eisenhower twice…

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

“I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”

He was a smart one, that Ike.

If freedom is worth fighting for, then surely peace is its greatest vice.

Since the end of the Second World War, every conflict that the West has involved itself in has been justified by claiming it necessary to safeguard freedom and liberty. Of them, how many have?

It could be argued that the Cold War was fought in numerous ways to protect the free world from the ravages of Communism. Interestingly, there are only a handful of examples that the West can point to as actual successes in that regard, Afghanistan being one of them. But even then, one must examine the aftermath of that victory with regards to current global events.

The Korean War failed in its purpose, as did Vietnam. In fact, during the Cold War, not one hot war resulted in what could be considered a victory against what the West perceived as their global enemy. On the other hand, covert operations, employing unethical methods and pay-rolling murderers and radicals, tended to produce far better results. Afghanistan falls into that category being that those who supported the Mujahideen and The Northern Alliance in their struggle against the Soviets never involved themselves militarily. They acted as financiers, advisors, and gunrunners - nothing more. And, of course, Afghanistan is not the only example of this method being employed. Western powers have colluded with a variety of groups and individuals whose ideologies were, and are, entirely counter to the principles of freedom and liberty. In the context of covert operations, the goal is not to promote an ideology, rather to ensure that those you oppose are dealt with by whatever means necessary, and that you protect your interests no matter who happens to be willing to secure them.

In truth, that is the global legacy of the West in the latter half of the 20th century. Those conflicts that have involved sacrificial lambs of our own are not what are commonly referred to by others abroad when they attack Western complicity, or, for that matter, Soviet complicity. Their primary source of animosity lay in what the general public knows little of, the secret actions undertaken by their own governments and the ramifications that they have had abroad.

While there are numerous examples that can be sited, Chile provides an adequate demonstration.

The Nixon administration worked diligently to overthrow the government of Salvador Allende, their reasons being the usual – he threatened to nationalize aspects of Chilean industry. The result was, of course, the eventual seizure of power by General Augusto Pinochet, whose regime was responsible for mass human rights violations during his tenure as the head of the country’s military junta. Thousands disappeared during the Pinochet era, tens of thousands were jailed and tortured, others were simply disposed of, and all of it was overlooked by the United States who supported Pinochet’s economic reforms (see: Chicago Boys) and enjoyed continued access to Chilean markets. Of course, Allende was a member of Chile’s Socialist Party, and therefore provided ample cause for alarm.

All of that said, who is Chile’s current President? Well, it so just so happens that it’s Michelle Bachelet, the leader of - you guessed it - Chile’s Socialist Party.

Many Chileans have not forgotten Pinochet’s silent partner, nor their hypocrisy. Because while 30,000 Chileans were forced to flee Chile for their lives after the coup that placed the junta in power, the American people, even disenfranchised by the Vietnam War, still believed that theirs was a country that stood for something other than aiding and abetting murderers. It is also very important to remember that Allende’s government was, by no means, a pawn of the USSR. Afghanistan, on the other hand, was, prior to their invasion of it in 1979.

Pin The Tail On The Donkey

What do we possess that compels us to think it applicable the world over? If it’s the perceived enjoyment of living in free societies then, I’m afraid, it’s time we saw an optometrist. The truth is that our own freedoms aren’t even of serious import to us. Were they, we would be far more vigilant than we are, far more critical of government, and even more critical of the use of military force, let alone our own apathy. Any society that claims itself free and possesses the ability to influence government, because the citizenry represents the true base of power, does not offer up excuses as to why it cannot be vigilant. Because that is only the freedom to be ignorant, a liberty that has come to supercede all others in our society.

In the struggle to maintain that which we claim to hold dearest, our freedom, we have only exercised our right to embrace ignorance on unprecedented levels while turning our backs on the very rights that we possess to ensure that our freedoms cannot be diminished. We are, in a sentence, the authors of our own undoing. Reason, it seems, has no place with us.

On September 10th, 2001, how many Canadians cared about Afghanistan, the plight of its people, its government, or how much Naan bread was going for in the typical Afghan market? Who even really cared about poppy production?

Be honest with yourself – very few.

And yet, by the 1st of October, 2001, it became a target the size of the sun itself, the lean-to of international terrorism, a country tyrannically governed by the very same radical despotic regime that a month earlier few even knew about, let alone cared about. But because of the trauma caused us by the attacks of 9/11, reason was thrown out the window in favour of something far more comfortable – vengeance, which, not surprisingly, is steeped in the ease of ignorance.

On that terrible day in 2001, not one Afghan national took part in the attacks. That didn’t matter, mind you, because the author of the attacks had been a guest of the country’s government since his expulsion from Sudan, and therefore it seemed only logical that military action against Afghanistan was warranted. On the 12th of September, 2001, President Bush declared that the attacks themselves represented an act of war, even though no nation, and I emphasize ‘nation’, had declared war on the United States following them.

Of the 19 hijackers, 15 of them were Saudi. Of the remaining four, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was Egyptian, and one was Lebanese. None of the men were members of the Taliban, none of them were Afghans, and in no way did the attacks that day constitute an act of war on Afghanistan’s behalf because only three countries in the world even recognized the Taliban as the country’s legitimate government, all three of which – The United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia – also supplied them aid.

Given that, a few contradictions should be noted:

Saudi Arabia, during the reign of the Taliban, afforded the United States military bases and purchased arms from them. This, of course, was the same government that exiled Osama Bin Laden for his views, but would eventually recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, the very regime that Bin Laden helped finance.

Following the attacks of 9/11, Pakistan conveniently became an ally in the new War On Terror, their past support for the Taliban quickly fading from memory. The United States was afforded military accommodations in Pakistan from which to launch operations against Afghanistan while it’s President, General Pervez Musharraf, lied to the Pakistani people about the financial costs incurred during Operation Enduring Freedom.

The United Arab Emirates is home to the USAF’s Al Dhafra Air Base, from which U-2 and Global Hawk flights operated during OEF.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Afghanistan was the perfect target - one of the poorest countries in the world, little to no conventional military might to speak of, and politically fractured. Of course, the author of the attacks, who would initially deny involvement only to be contradicted by video tapes found in a house by US troops on which he displayed foreknowledge of them, was also there and had colluded with the country’s radical regime – one which the United States itself did not recognize as the official government of the country, though that would not stop them from taking the position that 9/11 constituted an act of war against the United States and that Afghanistan could be held responsible because of the Taliban’s relationship with al-Qaeda’s leadership.

It is here that the disconnect occurs.

How does one hold a nation responsible for the actions of a radical group within it? In the eyes of the United States, and many others, Afghanistan was a nation still in the midst of civil war, as the Northern Alliance was still resisting the Taliban. Thus, if one faction within a nation has benefited from the financial assistance of a radical organization, as the Taliban did, how do the attacks of 9/11 constitute an act of war against the United States by the nation of Afghanistan? Further to that, if a nation such as Saudi Arabia, from which most of the hijackers came, and who recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government, can’t be viewed as suspect, then how could Afghanistan, as a whole, be?

The answer is – it couldn’t.

The reality is that we did nothing to sort out the puzzle pieces, nor did we bother trying to entertain the fact that there might exist complexities that would make the matter less direct. The enemy was in Afghanistan, a little under 3,000 people had just perished in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, so Afghanistan would be made to pay.

And pay it has.

Price Tags And Body Bags

As I write this, combat operations in Afghanistan have taken the lives of 55 of our countrymen. Their sacrifice has been spun to legendary proportions by those that would use their deaths for the purpose of justifying our presence there. It is not wrong to honour them, nor their commitment to our country, but it falls to those left behind to look beyond their singular role at the larger picture. Because if we fail to do so, if we’re to simply buy into the solemnity of their sacrifice, then we dishonour not only them, but that for which they perceived to fight – freedom.

Canadians should make no mistake, we are a country at war. And in doing so must also realize that the war in which we are involved does not deter those that might seek to attack us using unconventional means. If anything, it provides them justification and heightened motivation. When dealing with terrorism, as the British can well attest, containment is not something that works with regards to deterring terrorist attacks. Were that the case, their presence in Northern Ireland would have resulted in decreasing IRA bombings in England, something that it did not do. If anything, it only increased operations outside of Northern Ireland.

The simplicity given the face of the enemy in Afghanistan is a weapon, not a fact. While Canadian forces face a revitalized Taliban bolstered by newcomers that have hitched their wagons to the Taliban’s horse because of their desire to see their country rid of foreign occupation, they do not represent those that planned or carried out the attacks of September 11th. In all probability, those of that ilk that remain have long since fled into Pakistan where they are most likely being sheltered by the likes of the Pakistani ISI and those sympathetic to their cause. Thus, we are not fighting in Afghanistan to disenthrall those responsible for 9/11, only what remains of the largely unrecognized governing regime that existed prior to the invasion. And even though that regime was supported by Osama Bin Laden, along with the likes of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (now both allies in the War On Terror), it has been able to sustain itself despite the presence of Western forces and the continued operations of their Northern Alliance allies. That is not to say that theirs is an ideology that isn’t irreprehensible, only that the realities of that ideology are often overlooked by those struggling against what they perceive as foreign invaders, and that that fact should not be disregarded. There is a reason why Hamid Karzai is referred to as ‘The Mayor of Kabul’, and it has everything to do with the ineffectuality of his government and the process that led to its formation, a process hurriedly undertaken to gratify our own sense of accomplishment rather than one that took into account the long-term effects that it might have on the Afghan psyche regarding the virtues of the democratic process.

Freedom, you see, is not something definable by a single people’s view, despite the definition available in your dictionary. It is, like most things, a complicated matter that involves a myriad of factors dependant on culture, religion, and history. To force the world to conform to a single understanding of the term will only produce resistance, not magically open eyes that will suddenly see the relevance of having a McDonald’s on every second corner. Freedom, in the context of a national movement, has to be something sought by those that would have a government created to represent its application. It is not something that can be forced on a people who have had no populist stake in the struggle for it. Ironic as it may seem, most would fight for the right to retain their own bad government than see a foreign power instill one, no matter how it is packaged and sold them. NATO’s current struggle against the Taliban is representative of this in that it has attracted support from amongst those that view their struggle not entirely as a radically religious one, but one of self determination.

Layer Cake

As Jim Miles recently pointed out in an article about Linda McQuaig’s book Holding the Bully’s Coat – Canada and the U.S. Empire…

“The first chapter covers a series of mini-themes that exposes the American empire at the same time implicating Canada in its complicity with American actions. Familiar topics arise with Canada as they do with America abroad in the world: Canada’s recent implicit support of torture in Afghanistan by ‘rendering’ prisoners to Afghanis bases; military plans of attack, in this case against Canadian the 1930’s, such that it would cause “devastation” and include “chemical warfare”; a view of American “exceptionalism”, another word for ignoring international norms, laws and institutions (illegal wars, torture, nuclear weapons double standards, UN, ICC, Kyoto, ICJ, Biological weapons); in other words a generalized withdrawal from international law and conventions.

McQuaig recognizes the incongruity of the U.S. “defending” itself against many created foes, focussing her arguments on the Persian Gulf, reiterating the American tale of woe about “vulnerability”, of America being under attack. While the majority of Canadians do not want to be a part of this militaristic exceptionalism, the “media, academic and corporate worlds – pander to Washington.” The elite see Canada as a renewed power, as an energy superpower, but what sort of superpower would give all its energy resources to another country before its own needs are guaranteed, leading to the author’s conclusion that Canada would not be viewed “with anything but contempt, as the bully’s unctuous [great choice of word – “simulation of affected enthusiasm” based on the root meaning of anointed with oil] little sidekick.”

Oil and free market economics flow via the Canadian elites “fiercely resisting such [social] planning in the Canadian national interest.” As Canada’s social services diminish and its resources are sold off liberally and cheaply, the reality is that “there is little connection between a country’s level of social spending and its ability to compete in the global economy.” Examples are evident for this, with Norway being the most successful, and with the countries of Latin America slowly turning away from the disastrously imposed free market policies.

In the second chapter, “No More Girlie-Man for Peacekeeping” the Canadian popular view of peacekeeping is explored, again exposing the elites, in this case Canada’s own copycat military-industrial-political he-man alliance, as manipulating events towards the American pre-emptive war attitude that searches out strategic control of oil and gas resources, hidden behind the hunt for terrorism, as “America’s vigilance against terrorism…just happens to coincide with its need for oil.” Once again the media come into the picture, a poorly defined picture of “distortion” that has “rendered the suffering of the Arab world invisible to us.” What is viewed in the west is far different than the view seen by others, “the ultimate horror of occupation: the powerlessness of an occupied people against an all-powerful foreign army.”

The argument then turns fully to Afghanistan where Canada is an invading army (and for those Canadian politicians ignorant of the role of oil in Afghanistan, it is a focal point for oil trans-shipment as well as having significant reserves of gas in its north-western provinces in the Caspian Basin), that has committed war crimes by “rendition” and the “collateral damage” of killed citizens. She concludes the section posing the question of security, “Because we realize our security is not actually at stake, and we sense that there is no compelling purpose to this mission….We’re not aggressors [arguable, but perhaps only semantic]. We’re just helping out the aggressor in order to protect our trade balance.”

In summary, McQuaig concludes that “Powerful forces inside the Canadian elite want to move Canada not only away from peacekeeping – as they’ve already succeeding in doing- but also away from an allegiance to the United Nations and the rule of law.” This is a strong statement that Canadians and the world need to be fully aware of.”

No Canadian should ever overlook the importance of those factors that have shaped Canadian foreign policy over the last six years with regards to our cooperation with US foreign policy objectives and the reasons for it. Nor should they take at face value the simplest of explanations regarding our collusion. It has become far too easy to manipulate public opinion, and if one need proof of just how easy it is, look no further than the removal of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 and our role in it…

“Many of the supporters of the Famni Lavalas party and Aristide, as well as progressive and independent observers worldwide, denounced the rebellion as a foreign controlled coup d’etat orchestrated by Canada, France and the United States (Goodman, et al, 2004) to remove a publicly elected President.

The argument is that the governments of the United States, France and Canada were interested in the removal of Aristide from power because of his populist tendencies. For example, in 2003, Canada hosted a meeting of Haïtian opposition leaders called the Ottawa Initiative which concluded that “Aristide must go”. At the same time, the United States, France and Canada were funding the rebel groups, via opposition NGOs and the International Republican Institute, and provided the necessary military and logistic support for the rebellion. Rebel leader Guy Philippe has been trained by U.S. forces and had been on the CIA payroll. Other prominent rebel figures had also been previously trained by the U.S. despite their participation in previous rebellions and terrorist acts with some living in the U.S” (Wikipedia)

As far as The Ottawa Initiative is concerned, you might be surprised to discover…

“The Ottawa Initiative on Haiti or simply the Ottawa Initiative, was a conference that took place in Montreal on 31 January and 1 February 2003, to decide the future of Haiti’s government, though no Haitian government officials were invited. The conference was attended by Canadian, French, and U.S. and Latin American officials. What exactly transpired is difficult to say, since Canada is keeping the documents that came out of this conference secret.” (Wikipedia)

When asked during an interview with Naomi Klein for The Nation why he was removed from power, Aristide responded - privatization, privatization, and privatization.

We were, of course, sold a different story. An age old story that involved freedom fighters and an emerging despot that threatened freedom itself. And most Canadians, those who even knew about it, bought that version of events.

This, of course, exemplifies our right to be freely ignorant rather than employing vigilance with regards to the principles that we are so often eager to champion at the drop of a hat. In such cases, we do not examine our own complicity as citizens of a nation whose government would act illegally, and in doing so have helped create a reality in which government doesn’t hope to succeed in avoiding condemnation but relies on public apathy to ensure that those undertakings that are suspect are never widely examined. And those that do bother to point fingers are easily dismissed as a variety of things, from radicals to hippies and so forth.

Afghanistan is, of course, no different. With regards to the recent scandal involving the rendition of detainees to Afghan authorities known for their use of torture, the public was diverted away from two very important truths – that members within our government and military were aware of it, and that despite knowing did nothing serious to deter it until it became news. Of course, when it did become news, it was challenged by claims that by debating the issue Canadians were somehow undermining our troops and emboldening the enemy, that to attempt to critically examine what had occurred and who knew about it was entirely counter to our military efforts.

Now I ask you, is it not our democratic duty to debate this topic? Is it not the right of every Canadian from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland to look at the realities of this issue without it being impressed upon them that to do so for more than five minutes is somehow detrimental those fighting in Afghanistan to supposedly ensure that Afghans have that very right?

Furthermore, for the sake of the integrity of our democracy, is it not our responsibility to hold those responsible accountable and have them removed from their various offices and commands? Unfortunately, as long as our love affair with the right to be freely ignorant continues, we remain a reliable horse on which to bet.

In all probability, Canadian troops, under the same make-shift banner of half-assed legitimacy, will remain in Afghanistan for years to come. Public opinion will, of course, only be swayed once the body count reaches a significant enough level to cause alarm, and by then who knows whether the showcase democracy gifted it will still be around, or whether, like the Russians and the British before us, we will find ourselves trapped in a foreign land fighting a determined enemy that has always been willing to give up more for their cause than those that have always arrogantly believed otherwise.

The lesson of 9/11 will never be learned because to admit that it was a lesson is to admit something that we simply never will. That what we do for our own benefit, projected in the diminishing light of our own freedom, has been responsible for creating monsters. In the shadow of The Second World War and the predominance we have placed on its victorious resolution, we have, in many ways, fallen prey to that which we sacrificed to deter. And the most overwhelmingly important aspect of that is our continued belief that our way of life not only represents the pinnacle of civilized society, but that to refuse it is to entertain perfidy.

When, where, who - these are merely peripheral questions surrounding our complicity in the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities known for their use of torture.

The primary question should be, and should remain – why?

Despite the ambiguities of this affair, the answer to that question is the same one that one would get were they to question the rendition of detainees by the United States and its allies to countries known for their use of torture.

Why are detainees sent to Syria and Egypt? Why are they sent to Ethiopian jails where abusive techniques are known to be practiced? Why is any detainee, secretly or otherwise, transferred into the hands of known human rights abusers? The answer is quite simple, actually – intelligence.

Both sides of the House can spend all the time they’d like yelling at one another about this issue. The Opposition can demand to know why if the Harper government knew it was occurring that Parliament wasn’t informed, just as members of the Government can scream back at them things such as…

“Earlier, Van Loan said it is time for the opposition to show its support of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, instead of focusing on the detainee issue, a focus he suggested is undermining soldier morale.

“It’s time for the opposition to get onside,” he shouted.

“For once, for once!” he added, his voice rising and his face reddening. “Support the good work that they are doing.”

Be it the Opposition’s use of this issue to attack the government or the all too typical convolution of policy and service that Van Loan employs, the point is that there is a specific reason that detainees are transferred to Afghan authorities, and it is not simply to keep them comfortably secured in jails while NATO troops continue to fight the good fight. We, along with everyone else in the country operating in a military capacity, transfer detainees to the Afghan authorities because we can wash our hands of the responsibility of having to do the dirty work of using illegal methods to acquire intelligence. High level targets are, of course, disappeared into the US system, where they are denied every right under international law, including access to the International Red Cross. But with regards to acquiring intelligence regarding enemy operations, the use of the Afghan authorities, and their ability to ignore international standards, is a win-win.

Let’s say, for example, a farmer is detained under ‘suspicion’ of either aiding the Taliban or being affiliated with them in some way; perhaps through a family member, maybe through others. Given that that farmer may possess information about enemy movements, not to mention information that he may have inadvertently been exposed to, detaining him and allowing the Afghans to beat him senseless in a cell until he divulges information is, in truth, in the best interest of NATO forces.

Let’s not bullshit here, nor pretend ourselves so innocent not to face facts. This is the hard, cold, reality of what occurs when conventional forces are faced with combating an enemy that does not adhere to the use of conventional tactics. During Vietnam, the United States did the exact same thing, and used South Vietnamese ‘interrogators’ to do their dirty work while intelligence operatives stood in the corner of the room, looking on.

When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, there were numerous reports of US intelligence, Israeli intelligence, and contractors routinely visiting the prison for purposes of extracting and gathering intelligence. They may have used the guards to do their dirty work, they may have used Iraqis. The point is that the commander of the prison acknowledged that such individuals were active at the prison, and they certainly weren’t there to use the shower facilities.

In the case of Afghanistan, even our demand to check up on detainees transferred to Afghan custody is basically meaningless primarily because we, the Canadian public, have absolutely no clue what those visits will entail. In the case of one detainee that was handed over by Canadian forces to Afghan authorities and then tortured, what occurred when he was ‘checked up on’ by the Canadian military was not surprising in the least. From Graeme Smith’s article published by the Globe And Mail on April 23rd…

“His tormentors were the Afghan police, he said, but the Canadian soldiers who visited him between beatings had surely heard his screams.

“The Canadians told me, ‘Give them real information, or they will do more bad things to you,’ ” Mr. Gul said.”?

Gul was a farmer and could very well have befallen the exact hypothetical that I detailed above. And let’s face it, the reaction of our representatives in his case was not to complain about his treatment or demand his release into their custody, but to urge him to divulge information so that the beatings would stop. We played the good cop to their bad cop, an arrangement that is not something that happens by chance, but rather one that is put in place by policy – even if not directed by ‘official policy’.

This issue isn’t about supporting the troops, nor is it about anything that could be construed as the deliverance of freedom to a beleaguered people. This is about something far darker, and something which the majority of Canadians do not understand. That we are at war against a highly skilled and highly motivated guerrilla force, and that it is a well known fact that conventional military might, by no means, infers success. In fact, the revitalization of the Taliban over the winter only proves that theirs is a cause that is attracting more than simply those that agree with their religious ideology, but those that agree with their military objectives.

You can drop all the bombs you want, ship as many tanks over there as you like, and send battalions of infantry into the foothills and mountains to your hearts content. Like it or not, these same people defeated the Soviet Union at the height of its power, and they did it with little more than RPG’s and Kalashnikovs. So you tell me what tactics are left us to combat such an enemy, one that is highly unrestricted in its movement and has the support of a great deal of the region’s civilian population?

Well, for starters, you’re going to try and play hardball with them, which is always the first mistake. Because while the torture of Afghans that have been handed over by Canadian forces has shocked the people of this country, it has done something much worse with regards to those that our armed forces have been tasked with confronting. It has extended their purpose and, in all likelihood, helped galvanize public support for their movement.

When you have the most advanced weaponry in the world and are a part of a task force that consists of others with similar attributes, military arrogance is the first blindfold willingly put on. History is replete with examples of it, from the Egyptians to US involvement in Vietnam.

As I have noted in the past, William Tecumseh Sherman once quipped that ‘war is all hell’ and that ‘there is no use in reforming it’. He was entirely accurate, of course. That being the case, there is no use pretending that the reality of what needs to be done in Afghanistan, given the context of Sherman’s words, requires us to either go all the way with it or abandon our position there in favour of protecting the principles of our nation. For if we are to go all the way with it, then there can be no half measures employed, nor quarter given. Given the context of the conflict, the Geneva Conventions might as well be tossed out the window and our fighting men and women directed to act with unrestricted impunity.

There is, in a war such as this, no middle ground, despite the revamping of engagement criteria over the last decade to supposedly deal with situations exactly like this. Either morality is sacrificed for the possibility of success, or we walk away with our morality intact. That is a lesson that the United States refused to learn in Vietnam, and in the end they sacrificed not only the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese in the process, but the moral high ground which they had assumed in the post war era.

This issue is not a political issue, nor is it one about some self perceived duty of gifting troubled lands reflections of our own society. This is an issue of morality and how far this country is prepared to go with regards to abandoning it.

If one needs proof that the government isn’t in a state of panic over what has occurred in Afghanistan regarding the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities known for their use of torture, one need look no further than the events surrounding the legal battle taking place here at home about the issue.

It began with Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association launching a legal effort to obtain an injunction which would require an immediate discontinuation of the transfer of detainees from Canadian forces to Afghan authorities until a legal case regarding the matter could be heard. The government’s reaction was to call the allegations of torture based on ‘hearsay’ in a 32 page brief written on the subject, thus challenging the validity of the initial story by The Globe’s Graeme Smith who based his piece on interviews with some thirty detainees that had claimed to have be tortured by Afghan authorities after being handed over to them by the Canadian military. The government also claimed in the same brief that Smith’s piece should not be admissible as evidence.

Beyond that, the government also went to lengths to suggest that to discontinue the transfer of prisoners would put Canadians in the field at greater risk, and that those who had been interviewed could have simply fabricated their stories for purposes of propaganda.

And then today, out of nowhere, the government announced that a new deal had been reached with the Afghan government which would allow Canadians access to those detainees transferred to Afghan custody, the timing of which is suspicious to say the least.

Amnesty International’s response to the new agreement was, in my opinion, concise and accurate…

“You don’t prevent torture in a country where it is rampant and systematic, as it is in Afghanistan, by sending in monitors on an occasional basis. It simply doesn’t work,” Alex Neve, spokesman for Amnesty in Canada, told Reuters.”

The suspicious timing of the announcement of the new agreement was also brought up in the House today…

“This agreement was conveniently signed just hours before the start of the federal court proceedings this morning,” said Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh. “Even the judge is said to have remarked on the curious timing on this particular agreement.

“Did the foreign affairs minister push forward the signing of this critical international agreement in order to save this government from a public embarrassment before our courts?”

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay shot back by saying…

“We’ve worked actually very quickly. When the issues came forward we took action to enhance the agreement.”

It’s well known what goes on in Afghan jails, and to feign that the use of such tactics for purposes of gaining intelligence isn’t a known reality is simply ludicrous. That, in the end, is really what all this is about. We just happened to get caught with our hand the coookie jar.

The issue of Canadian forces rendering detainees to Afghan authorities known for their use of torture heated up again today as The Globe & Mail continued to delve into the complicity of high ranking Canadian officials with regards to their knowledge of such practices or unwillingness to ensure that detainees being transferred were being treated properly.

According to the Globe…

“The Department of Foreign Affairs was pushed to the sidelines when Canada struck its detainee-transfer deal in Afghanistan, two senior government sources have told The Globe and Mail.

“We were not consulted,” said one, adding that Foreign Affairs was shunted aside by the Department of National Defence and Canada’s top soldier, Rick Hillier, when he signed the accord in 2005. The deal has become mired in controversy because it includes no follow-up role for Canada on the fate of detainees in Afghanistan’s notoriously brutal prison system.

Another senior foreign-service officer gave a longer explanation: “Hillier went to Kabul thinking of them [the detainees] as ‘scumbags’ and made the deal. Hillier wanted to sign it; he insisted on signing it,” he said. “Defence took the file and messed it up.”

The comment played off a remark General Hillier, Chief of the Defence Staff, made in July, 2005, when he set off a national debate by referring to the Taliban as “detestable murderers and scumbags.”

It should, for purposes of objectivity, be stated at this point that at the time the government of Paul Martin was in power, not that of Stephen Harper.

The article continues…

“Some of the backlash from Foreign Affair officials is a response to a harsh condemnation of them by a defence official last week, who said they were too busy eating canapés to rally to embattled Defence Minster Gordon O’Connor under fire for the detainee-transfer agreement.

“The bureaucrats at Foreign Affairs resisted getting stuck with this issue,” a defence source said. “They don’t want this hornet’s nest. They are happy going to their cocktail parties and eating little shrimps.”

One angry diplomat said the Defence Department seemed to have forgotten Glyn Berry, the diplomat killed in a Taliban suicide attack soon after Canadian Forces moved into Kandahar.

Now the interdepartmental spitting match has spread to include the matter of whether Gen. Hillier included, or should have included, Foreign Affairs in his original deal-making.

The Foreign Affairs source said the department did have concerns about the Hillier deal, particularly with respect to the level of monitoring of detainees that Canada would be allowed.

“Check the comparative assurances that the Dutch, for example, had compared to what we had. They had a higher level of oversight,” he said.

The Dutch agreement, negotiated within weeks of the Canadian deal, allows for both Dutch diplomats and Dutch military officers to make unlimited follow-up visits of transferred prisoners to ensure they aren’t tortured or abused or made to disappear; all of which occur in Afghan prisons.

The Defence officials who helped draft the Canadian agreement included then-judge-advocate-general Jerry Pitzul, a major-general, and a colonel on his staff, both of whom had experience in the laws of war and international humanitarian law, said a source involved with the discussions. Although the agreement did not include the right of Canadians to directly monitor detainees transferred to Afghan control, the military argued that it was not practical for the Canadian Forces to monitor detainees on the ground, because they did not have the capacity to carry out the task.”

Today the Prime Minister defended Hillier in the House of Commons stating…

“The information I have would indicate that General Hillier is correct and The Globe and Mail is wrong,” he said.

“It’s my understanding that such an agreement had to be discussed and approved by the ministers of the day in the Liberal Cabinet.”

NDP Defense critic Dawn Black commented during today’s question period…

“It’s impossible to get to the bottom of really who’s responsible. The issue is not how it was signed any more, or when it was signed, under whose authority. The issue is human rights, the allegations of torture and abuse, the fact that we should not be transferring now detainees over to Afghan authorities until we can ascertain for sure that they’re not in danger of being tortured and abused. That’s the issue.”

Her statement would be the most pragmatic point raised in the House today without question. But it should also be noted that…

“During Commons debate, the Liberals accused Mr. Harper of misleading the House of Commons over the alleged torture of Afghan detainees.

Mr. Harper told the House on Tuesday that Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day disclosed information last week regarding Corrections Canada reports alleging detainee torture, citing Commons transcript as proof.

But a review of the transcript of Mr. Day’s comments shows no mention of the corrections officers reporting allegations of torture.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion noted that the first time anyone heard about the reports was on Monday, when Mr. Day was pressed by journalists.

The issue of whether Canadian officials reported torture claims is key to the federal government’s defence in a lawsuit by human rights groups, which seeks to halt the transfer of captured insurgents to Afghan authorities.

Calls for Mr. Harper to sack Mr. O’Connor met brisk resistance from the Harper Government, although Mr. O’Connor again spent most of Question Period silent as other government members parried Opposition blows.

“The Minister of Defence is undertaking very important action on behalf of the Canadian military, rebuilding our Canadian military after years of neglect and denigration by the party opposite,” Mr. Harper said.

“The Minister of National Defence and all ministers of this government are strong defenders of the Canadian military, unlike the party opposite, and we’re proud of it.”

But Mr. Dion said the Government was doing anything but supporting the troops through its recent actions.

“It’s when you maintain an incompetent minister, it’s when you see seniors officials contradicting themselves in the media, and there’s chaos on the government side, that’s when you’re not supporting your troops,” Mr. Dion said.”

Spin Doctoring

So where is Hillier while all of this is transpiring? He’s in Afghanistan with The Stanley Cup and 19 former NHL players who plan to play a couple of ball hockey games with the troops.

Questioned about the debate transpiring back home, Hillier did what those in his position and profession always do within the context of a society in which the military considers itself above repraoch, he attempted to make it an issue about not supporting Canadian troops, some of whom, he claimed, are ‘pissed off’ that what is transpiring in Canada to do with this scandal is detracting from the ‘positive aspects’ of their mission. Of course, Hillier’s representation of the situation is the only representation available to the public regarding their feelings.

Attempts to defuse this situation have been both swift and monumental. Today Hillier met with the governor of Kandahar who expressed his ‘frustration’ with how the information reaching Canadians about the abuses were not ‘the straight facts’. The governor’s statement thus calls into question the validity of the interviews conducted by the Globe & Mail’s Graeme Smith with some thirty detainees that conveyed to him stories of torture at the hands of Afghan authorities.

So who’s lying here? The Globe? Smith? The detainees? Or a member of an ineffectual government that knows it needs NATO to remain in the country for not only their own protection, but the protection of agreements that they have made with the West regarding Afghanistan’s future that, in no small part, helped them into power?

The Straight Goods

General Rick Hillier can, for all intents and purposes, jump off a bridge as far as I am concerned. Because the last time I checked, he worked for me and the other 30 some odd million Canadians that inhabit this nation – not the other way around.

What has taken place is of monumental importance and Canadians should be discussing it, and without their ability to do so being condemned as ‘not supporting the troops’. The members of our armed forces are in Afghanistan because of policy, and it’s the policy behind their deployment that is the issue, no matter which government initiated it or supports it.

That is democracy. The military leadership, like those appointed by the Prime Minister to key roles within his cabinet, are not above public scrutiny. For if they are, then this isn’t a democracy, we might as well stop pretending that that’s the case, and we shouldn’t be using the promotion of it in foreign locales as a justification for our military presence.

The impetus behind writing this series of entries was sparked by the discovery of Canada’s complicity in handing over Afghan detainees to Afghan authorities known for their use of torture, as detailed in Graeme Smith’s article published on the 23rd of April by The Globe & Mail. I have made a series of entries about this matter, all of which you can find using either the search function and entering the keywords Canada, Afghanistan, Human Rights, and Torture. You can also visit the archives and click on April or May of 2007 and scroll through the results.

Ceasefire Press Release -

This image is linked back to my flickr page, so click here to go to the Ceasefire page prompted by this graphic.

The online advocacy web site, Ceasefire.ca, has launched a campaign using the latest Internet tools to mobilize Canadians who want Prime Minister Stephen Harper to fire Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor and Chief of Defence Staff General Rick Hillier over the torture of Afghan detainees.

Ceasefire.ca is distributing an eCard to its 15,000 supporters today linked to the web site where people can sign and send a letter to the Prime Minister. The campaign is also using the latest Internet tools including Facebook and YouTube to extend its reach to potentially millions of Canadians.

“Canadians are shocked by the reports of torture and the cover-up, and they want the government to hear it” said Steven Staples, Director of the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute and founder of Ceasefire.ca. “Keeping O’Connor and Hiller in their positions is an affront to Canadians’ respect for international law.”?

The web site will add the voice of citizens to many other voices calling for O’Connor’s dismissal, including political leaders and editorialists. Even some senior Conservatives are quietly expressing concerns, according to reports.

A poll released today by the Strategic Counsel shows that twice as many Canadians want the troops brought home as soon as possible (46%), than those who want the troops to stay as long as it takes to rebuild the nation (24%).

The Ceasefire.ca web site is a project of the Rideau Institute, a public policy research and advocacy organization based in Ottawa.

This is a crucial moment for all Canadians, one in which the morality of our nation will be tested. It is no secret that a Canadian played the lead role in the drafting of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, something that should make us, as a nation, extremely proud. But given information that has come to light this year about the transfer of detainees into the hands of known torturers in Afghanistan debases not only our ability to feel proud of the integral role played by Canadians in the drafting of the Declaration, but presents us with a very crucial decision to make. Is our involvement in Afghanistan worth the debasement of our beliefs? And if so, then are we prepared, as a nation of compassionate and selfless people, to abandon our principles because of it?

Recently the Globe & Mail published a piece by Graeme Smith that detailed human rights abuses committed by Afghan authorities on detainees after the Canadian military transferred them to their authority. The report details horrible accounts by detainees at the hands of Afghan authorities…

“None of the abuse was inflicted by Canadians, and most Afghans captured — even those who clearly sympathized with the Taliban — praised the Canadian soldiers for their politeness, their gentle handling of captives and their comfortable detention facility.�?

That, of course, reflects what the standards of this nation are all about. Unfortunately, when there are others prepared to get their hands bloody, the compassionate resonance of this paragraph is quickly erased…

“Mahmad Gul, 33, an impoverished farmer, said he was interrogated for three days in May of 2006, without any meals, at Zhari District Centre, a small town west of Kandahar city.

His tormentors were the Afghan police, he said, but the Canadian soldiers who visited him between beatings had surely heard his screams.

“The Canadians told me, ‘Give them real information, or they will do more bad things to you,’ ” Mr. Gul said.�?

If that is accurate, if Canadians did indeed have contact with him during that time, knowing what was happening, after he had been in Canadian custody and transferred to Afghan authorities which then tortured him, then that is, without question, or even the possibility of arguing the fact, a breach of international law, human rights laws, and actually constitutes war crimes. It should also be noted that, unlike other foreign militaries operating in Afghanistan, Canada has not ratified an agreement that requires them to check up on those they have handed over to Afghan authorities.

According to both Michael Byers and Amir Attaran, two of the most noted legal experts in Canada with regards to human rights and international law…

“Under international law, you are prohibited from transferring to torture. You are prohibited from facilitating torture in any way,�? said Mr. Byers, who teaches international law and politics at the University of British Columbia.

“We’re not simply speaking about the criminal responsibility of individual Canadian soldiers. We’re speaking also of command responsibility, of criminal responsibility that continues up the chain of command, to any superior officer who knew of the risk of torture and who ordered or allowed our soldiers to transfer detainees nevertheless,�? he said.

Of course, like a host of others, we can simply choose to disregard both international and human rights laws under the auspices of the The War On Terror and continue to be complicit in the transfer of detainees into the hands of torturers. It should also not be overlooked that this is not the first instance of our complicity. Canadian authorities basically did the exact same thing to Maher Arar.

Gul’s ordeal was, in comparison to others interviewed by Graeme, a walk in the park. During the two months that he was detained the ‘worst’ that happened was that an interrogator “punched out the teeth on the left side of his mouth�?. So what of others who weren’t as ‘lucky’ as Gul?

According to Graeme, who has agreed to answer questions about the matter from Globe readers…

“Other survivors describe more grisly horrors. At times they pointed to Afghan soldiers or police officers as their abusers, but the worst stories came from Afghans who endured captivity in the cramped basement cells underneath the NDS headquarters in Kandahar.

Most of those held by the NDS for an extended time said they were whipped with electrical cables, usually a bundle of wires about the length of an arm. Some said the whipping was so painful that they fell unconscious.

Interrogators also jammed cloth between the teeth of some detainees, who described hearing the sound of a hand-crank generator and feeling the hot flush of electricity coursing through their muscles, seizing them with spasms.

Another man said the police hung him by his ankles for eight days of beating. Still another said he panicked as interrogators put a plastic bag over his head and squeezed his windpipe.

Torturers also used cold as a weapon, according to detainees who complained of being stripped half-naked and forced to stand through winter nights when temperatures in Kandahar drop below freezing.

The men who survived these ordeals often seem like broken husks. They tell their stories with quiet voices and trembling hands. They can’t sleep, they complain of chronic pain and they forget the simplest things, such as remembering to pull down their pants when they use the toilet.

After interrogation, the NDS often sends Taliban suspects to Sarpoza prison, on the western edge of the city. Detainees who arrive at the facility’s tall metal gates are occasionally so badly impaired that they’re incapable of caring for themselves properly and prison officials and fellow inmates complain that they’re left with the chores of washing, dressing, and feeding them.�?

Perhaps, rather than retaining the position of Defense Minister, Mr. O’Connor might consider resigning and traveling to Sarpoza prison to help take care of those that have been so affected by torture that they have been turned into little more that paralytics. Better yet, perhaps Mr. Hillier can carry his luggage.

Let’s also not forget that in February of this year it was announced that an inquiry by the The Military Police Complaints Commission into the “alleged mistreatment of prisoners in Afghanistan involving the Canadian military�? was being undertaken.

Where are our voices? When do we, as people that believe in the rule of law and decency, stand up and start asking point-blank questions about this? Because the truth is that if we don’t, it will continue, and will, whether you want to believe it or not, irrevocably damage this country.

This is not a discussion that can be dismissed by claiming that by making an entry such as this that I do not support our troops. I am so utterly sick and tired of the limited intelligence employed by those that actually believe that there isn’t a differentiation between the role of soldiers placed in a situation because of policy and policy itself.

Canadians, like others, like to wax sentimental about the greatness of democratic freedoms. That said, make no mistake that the complicity of our government in such affairs does not just ultimately rest with those in office, but by those that voted to put them there, and even those that didn’t that refuse to stand up and demand they be held accountable. For if we are not to believe that that is the reality of true democracy, that there exists a disconnect between our elected officials and the general public, and that we cannot ultimately be held accountable for policies that lead to the torture of others – then we are hypocrites and our entire way of life a fraud.

If you feel powerless, if you feel like there is nothing that can be done, allow me to suggest a few options. The first is to write your Member of Parliament about this issue, as well as those of that hold positions within the cabinet and The Prime Minister himself.

Members Of Parliament

You can find a complete list of the members of Parliament by visiting the official House Of Commons Membership page. Simply use the navigation on the website to find the link to the website of your MP.

The Cabinet

For a complete list of the members of Prime Minister Harper’s cabinet, visit the The Office Of The Prime Minister’s website. If you click on the name of a cabinet member you will be able to discover their riding and then refer to the afore mentioned Members page to contact them.

Of particular importance in this regard are the following:

- Minister of National Defence, The Honourable Gordon O’Connor.

- Minister of Foreign Affairs, The Honourable Peter Gordon MacKay.

The Prime Minister

To contact the Prime Minister’s office directly, you can email Mr. Harper by clicking here. Likewise, you can contact the Prime Minister’s office by mail at the following address…

Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa
K1A 0A2

Action

Though it might sound simple, or even pointless to some, I want to suggest something. If you look at the photograph at the top of this page you will notice that it features my hand with the words Out Now written on it. I would like to encourage everyone to follow suit. Even further, post your own hand on your blog, encourage others to do the same, and even fax pictures of your hand to the Prime Minister’s office, the fax number being 613-941-6900.

If you are unable to use a fax, you can always email a picture of your hand or send one in by mail.

Please also conduct yourselves with the utmost maturity. Agree with them or not, these are Right Honourable members of Parliament and should thus be addressed as such. Do not, under any circumstances, abandon the platitudes of civil discourse as it accomplishes nothing but the degradation of your position.

This is, by no means, a solution, and certainly not something that is going to change policy immediately, but is a way for those who feel they are powerless to begin to make themselves heard. I hope that you will join me.

It’s always nice to see taxpayer money being spent on granting the Defense Minister face time to promote a war…

“From our point of view, this is a noble mission,” O’Connor said.

“We are trying to restore a country that was taken over by a murderous regime, and we are trying to make sure that their government is stable.”

The restoration of that country cost the lives of 10 civilians in a roadside shootout several days ago and another nine yesterday in an air strike, including five women and three children, when US forces dropped two 2,000 lbs bombs in Kapisa. As usual, NATO denied that the bombs had been dropped, only to later change their story, claiming that, in fact, they had been dropped after a NATO base had come under attack. The traditional excuse for civilian casualties was also given – that those responsible for the attack were ultimately to blame because they retreated into an area populated by civilians. Because as we’re all aware, the proper procedure when dealing with guerrillas that have taken refuge in any area where civilians are present is to drop 2,000 lbs bombs. As is usual in such cases, one of the bombs simply struck a mud-brick home, killing nine members of the same family.

The incident follows a recent assault on a US convoy in which marines were attacked by a suicide bomber and ‘coordinated’ small arms fire. In the exchange that ensued, 10 civilians were killed and 35 more wounded. According to the BBC…

“Reports say that as they left the scene along a busy highway, the Americans fired indiscriminately on civilians and their vehicles.�?

It should also not be overlooked that local journalists, including freelance journalists working for the Associated Press, had their photos and footage of the aftermath of the incident erased by US troops. From The Seattle Post Intelligencer…

“A freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and a cameraman working for AP Television News said a U.S. soldier deleted their photos and video showing a four-wheel drive vehicle in which three people were shot to death about 100 yards from the suicide bombing. The AP plans to lodge a protest with the American military.

The photographer, Rahmat Gul, said witnesses at the scene told him the three had been shot to death by U.S. forces fleeing the attack. The two AP freelancers arrived at the site about a half hour after the suicide bombing, Gul said.

“When I went near the four-wheel drive, I saw the Americans taking pictures of the same car, so I started taking pictures,” Gul said. “Two soldiers with a translator came and said, ‘Why are you taking pictures? You don’t have permission.’”

It wasn’t clear why the accredited journalists would need permission to take photos of a civilian car on a public highway.

Gul said the U.S. troops took his camera, deleted his photos and returned it to him. The journalists came across another American, showed their identification cards, and he agreed that they could take pictures.

A Western military official who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to release the information said the troops were Marine Special Operations Forces, the Marine Corps component created in February 2006 of the U.S. Special Operations Command.
“The same soldier who took my camera came again and deleted my photos,” Gul said. “The soldier was very angry … I told him, ‘They gave us permission,’ but he didn’t listen.”

Gul’s new photos were also deleted, and the American, speaking through a translator, warned him that he did not want to see any AP photos published anywhere. The American also raised his fist in anger as if he were going to hit him, but he did not strike, Gul said.

Lt. Col. David Accetta, a U.S. military spokesman, said he did not have any confirmed reports that coalition forces “have been involved in confiscating cameras or deleting images.”

Khanwali Kamran, a reporter for the Afghan channel Ariana Television, was in a small group of journalists working alongside Gul. Kamran said the American soldiers also deleted his footage.

“They warned me that if it is aired … then, ‘You will face problems,’” Kamran said.

Taqiullah Taqi, a reporter for Afghanistan’s largest television station, Tolo TV, said Americans were using abusive language.

“According to the translator, they said, ‘Delete them, or we will delete you,’” Taqi said.

A freelance cameraman for AP Television News said that about 100 yards from the bomb site, a U.S. officer told him that he could not go any closer to the scene but that he could shoot footage. The cameraman asked not to be named for his own safety.

“Then I started filming the suicide attack site, where there was a body and U.S. soldiers, and farther away, there was a four-wheel drive vehicle in which three people were shot to death,” he said.

As he was filming, he said, a U.S. soldier and translator “ordered us not to move.” The cameraman said they were very angry and deleted any footage that included the Americans, as well as part of an interview from a demonstration. Hundreds of Afghans had gathered to protest the violence.

Reporters Without Borders condemned the actions of the U.S. forces, saying they dealt with the press poorly.

“Why did the soldiers do it if they don’t have anything to hide? The situation is very tense in Afghanistan, and the media should be able to report about it freely and safely,” said Jean-Francois Julliard, a spokesman for the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.�?

And here I was under the idiotic impression that the fourth estate was a quintessential part of any free society. Unfortunately, as we’ve witnessed over the last five years in particular, it’s been used to lie to the people far more than it has to inform them.