verbena-19

Afghanistan to be debated in House of Commons - contact your MP

doug brown wrote:
From: "doug brown" band@cogeco.ca
To: "Burlington Association for Nuclear Disarmament" band@cogeco.ca
Subject: Afghanistan to be debated in House of Commons - contact your MP
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 14:03:40 -0400


Dear Friends

Next week, the House of Commons will have a debate on Canada’s role in Afghanistan. Although the government has said they will not allow a vote on Canada’s combat role, it is important that MP’s take a stand against our large military intervention. (General Hillier and other officials are saying we will be in Afghanistan for more than 10 years!). It is important that we encourage our MPs to call for Canadian combat troops to be removed from Afghanistan. The real goal of the mission is to appease the U.S. after Canada’s refusal to formally join in the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq (we did help the U.S. with embedded soldiers and with logistical support). The U.S. objectives are the control of Central Asian oil and gas resources through the construction and control of pipelines.

There are many other reasons to call for the removal of Canadian troops related to the brutal nature of the occupation and to the corrupt Afghan regime we would be supporting. The conduct of the occupation forces led by the United States has resulted in abuses of human rights. The US has operated secret prisons in Afghanistan and has been involved in arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and extrajudicial killing of Afghan civilians. Canada must cease all support for the US occupation under these circumstances.

Members of the Afghan parliament are being financed by opium cultivation. The Taliban had many faults but they had eradicated opium production as of June 2001. The resurgence in poppy cultivation, which has come because of the invasion, is now more than double the amount of internationally dispensed aid. The warlord groups that now make up more that 60% of the Afghan parliament are the main organizers of that trade. We are supporting the drug trade in Afghanistan if we support the Afghan State.

More reasons for opposing Canada’s military role in Afghanistan are provided in the attached letter from the Canadian Peace Alliance to the NDP Caucus and in the recent Toronto Sun article by Eric Margolis.

Please call or email your MP as soon as soon as possible (before Monday!) and ask her or him to call for the removal of Canada’s troops from Afghanistan.

Salut

Doug Brown
Burlington Association for Nuclear Disarmament
______________________________________________________

The Canadian Peace Alliance is thankful that the New Democratic Party is raising the debate about the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. This is a combat mission that is causing more violence and suffering for the Afghan people. Any clarity that can be gained by a debate will be helpful yet we are concerned that the NDP has not yet raised the call for troops to be removed from Afghanistan. It is, in our view, the only moral choice for ending the conflict and allowing for real democracy to flourish.

We are calling for troops to be removed for a series of reasons. The role of Canadian forces is to extend the influence of the central Afghan State in Kandahar province. The nature of that state is rarely discussed but it must be addressed. The Government of Afghanistan was founded on a deal struck between the warlord factions, the US and Hamid Karzai in Bonn Germany in December 2001. The deal was a power sharing agreement that has entrenched in power of some of the worst warlords and human rights abusers in the nation’s history. The documentation from human rights groups has consistently shown that the warlords are the chief source of violence and corruption in the country. We are supporting these warlords, which ensure that Canadians will continue to be attacked.

The conduct of the occupation forces led by the United States has resulted in abuses of human rights. The US has operated secret prisons in Afghanistan and has been involved in arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and extrajudicial killing of Afghan civilians. Canada must cease all support for the US occupation under these circumstances.

Members of the Afghan parliament are being financed by opium cultivation. The Taliban had many faults but they had eradicated opium production as of June 2001. The resurgence in poppy cultivation, which has come because of the invasion, is now more than double the amount of internationally dispensed aid. The warlord groups that now make up more that 60% of the Afghan parliament are the main organizers of that trade. We are supporting the drug trade in Afghanistan if we support the Afghan State.

It is often argued that we would help the people of Afghanistan if we change our tactics. Peacekeeping in support of the warlords is no better than combat in support of the warlords. We are supporting a government controlled by US forces in conjunction with drug runners and former Taliban commanders. How we support that government is not the issue. Any support for these enemies of democracy in Afghanistan has the effect of increasing violence. Recruitment for the Taliban and Al Quaida has increased in Kandahar since Canada arrived. Strangely, our military leaders seem clear on this issue. Major General Andrew Leslie said at the Couchiching conference last summer, "each time we kill a man overseas we are creating 15 more who will come after us".

There have been many interventions in Afghanistan over the past 30 years and none of than has had the best interests of the Afghan people at heart. Whether it was the invasion by the USSR or the US support and arming of the Taliban, each intervention has made life worse for the citizens of the country. Canada is now fighting alongside groups the US armed 5 years ago and against groups the US armed 10 years ago. The people of Afghanistan have had enough of that type of international help.

US foreign policy towards Afghanistan has been dominated by need for the Trans Afghan Pipeline. Dick Cheney while an executive at UNOCAL Corporation lobbied the Clinton Administration to support the Taliban because they supported the construction of the pipeline. The new pipeline project signed in spring 2002, called the Turkmenistan Afghanistan pipeline (TAP) has Canadian corporate involvement as well. Canadian oil and gas companies have signed multi-million dollar deals with the governments of the Caspian region for projects associated with the TAP. The person who signed those deals for the Canadian companies was none other than Jean Chrétien, our former Prime Minister and the man responsible for sending more than 8000 Canadian soldiers to Afghanistan. There is only one stumbling block to completion of TAP. The route, which goes through Kandahar province, has to be secured.

The people of Afghanistan want peace. The US and Hamid Karzai want oil. We are legitimizing that occupation by supporting the US and the Afghan State. There is not a shred of hope that either the Harper government or the Liberals have any interest in changing the nature of our involvement in Afghanistan. While Canadians debate potential changes in the intervention our soldiers continue to create more violence and anger in Afghanistan. The only choice is to call for the troops to be removed.

There are democratic forces in Afghanistan which are trying to bring about real change there but they are consistently undermined and attacked by the very state we are supporting. Malalai Joya, an MP from Farah province has just finished a tour of North America where she exposed the true nature of the Afghan State. She has received death threats for being outspoken and while she was here the government of Hamid Karzai cut her security funding. We can support these grassroots groups in Afghanistan but not while Canadian soldiers kill to support their enemies. We hope that our friends in the NDP can aid us in this our call for the troops to be removed now.

Sincerely

Syd Lacombe, Coordinator, Canadian Peace Alliance

CONSERVATIVES

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Canan.R@parl.gc.ca
Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca
Carrie.C@parl.gc.ca
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Casson.R@parl.gc.ca
Chong.M@parl.gc.ca
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Davidson.P@parl.gc.ca
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Miller.L@parl.gc.ca
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Warkentin.C@parl.gc.ca
Watson.J@parl.gc.ca
Williams.J@parl.gc.ca
Yelich.L@parl.gc.ca

LIBERALS

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Bell.D@parl.gc.ca
Bennett.C@parl.gc.ca
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Brown.B@parl.gc.ca
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Cannij@parl.gc.ca
Chamberlain.B@parl.gc.ca
Chan.R@parl.gc.ca
Coderre.D@parl.gc.ca
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Fry.H@parl.gc.ca
Godfrey.J@parl.gc.ca
Goodale.R@parl.gc.ca
Graham.B@parl.gc.ca
Guarnieri.A@parl.gc.ca
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Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca
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Kadis.S@parl.gc.ca
Karetak -Lindell.N@parl.gc.ca
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Neville.A@parl.gc.ca
Owen.S@parl.gc.ca
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Patry.B@parl.gc.ca
Peterson.J@parl.gc.ca
Proulx.M@parl.gc.ca
Ratansi.Y@parl.gc.ca
Redman.K@parl.gc.ca
Regan.G@parl.gc.ca
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Rodriguez.P@parl.gc.ca
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Silva.M@parl.gc.ca
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Telegdi.A@parl.gc.ca
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Wilfert.B@parl.gc.ca
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Zed.P@parl.gc.ca

NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Angus.C@parl.gc.ca
Atamenenko.A@parl.gc.ca
Bell.C@parl.gc.ca
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Black.D@parl.gc.ca
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Martin.P@parl.gc.ca
Martin.T@parl.gc.ca
Masse.B@parl.gc.ca
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Nash.P@parl.gc.ca
Priddy.P@parl.gc.ca
Savoie.D@parl.gc.ca
Siksay.B@parl.gc.ca
Stoffer.P@parl.gc.ca
Wasylycia-Leis.J@parl.gc.ca

__________________________________________________________

April 03, 2006
Eric Margolis - foreign correspondent - Sun Newspapers
http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2006/04/three_big_lies.php

Three big lies about Afghanistan

The public is getting distorted news from Afghanistan because the North American media has substituted jingoism and flag-waving for reporting of hard news.

Afghanistan's complexity and lethal tribal politics have been marketed to the public by government and media as a selfless crusade to defeat the 'terrorist' Taliban, implant democracy, and liberate Afghan women. Afghanistan is part of the 'world-wide struggle against terrorism,' we are told.

None of this is true. In 1989, at the end of the Soviet occupation, Afghanistan fell into anarchy and civil war. An epidemic of banditry and rape ensued.

A village prayer leader, Mullah Omar, who lost an eye in the anti-Soviet jihad, armed a group of 'talibs,' (religious students) and set about defending women from rape. Aided by Pakistan, Taliban stopped the epidemic of rape and drug-dealing that had engulfed Afghanistan and imposed order based on harsh tribal and Sharia religious law.

Taliban was a religious, anti-communist movement that drew its power from Afghanistan's Pushtun (or Pathan) ethnic majority, the world's largest tribal group (Kurds are the second largest). Most of Taliban's energies were spent battling the remaining Afghan communists, united with various Tajik groups under the banner of the Northern Alliance, whose leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, was a long-time Soviet KGB collaborator, and its military chief, Gen. Fahim, the former
director of the notorious Afghan secret police which executed and horribly tortured tens of thousands of victims.

Production of opium and heroin was stopped by Taliban, except in the North Alliance-controlled zones.

Taliban's rule was extremely harsh; its leaders were backwards hillbillies. Because the communists had infiltrated the nation in the 1970s through the education system - particularly female education - Taliban shut down many schools for girls, oppressed minority Hazaras, whom Taliban considered heretics, and, in an act of supreme idiocy, blew up Buddhist idols.

However, the US government viewed Taliban as a potential ally and gave it millions in aid until four months before 9/11. Washington was considering using Taliban and al-Qaida's 300 members to stir trouble in China's western Muslim regions, and in Russian-dominated Central Asia. But US aid was cut off after Taliban refused a contract from the US oil firm Unocal to build a strategic pipeline south from the Caspian Basin to Pakistan.

Taliban's leaders knew nothing of the 9/11 plans to attack the US, which was mounted in Germany. When the US demanded Kabul hand over bin Laden, Taliban refused. Bin Laden was a guest and national hero wounded six times in the anti-Soviet struggle. Taliban leaders refused to violate their honour by failing to defend an honoured guest. Taliban promised to deliver him to an international tribunal once the US submitted evidence of his guilt. The US refused, and promptly invaded Afghanistan.

Unable to withstand US power, Mullah Omar ordered his fighters to blend back into the Pushtun population and wage guerrilla war against the invaders. Taliban has been joined by the Hizbi-Islami movement of Gulbadin Hekmatyar and other tribal groups or individuals opposed to foreign occupation.

After Taliban's overthrow, Afghanistan fell back into the hands of the old Communist Party and war criminals, now allied with Russia, Iran and India, and drug warlords who control much of the chaotic nation. The US-installed 'democratic' Karzai puppet regime in Kabul rules only the capital.

The Talibs represented the most backwards sector of Afghan society. But they brought law and order, ended drug dealing, and fought the communists who killed 1.5 million Afghans. Today, women in post-Taliban Afghanistan are just as repressed as they were under Taliban, save for a few schools in Kabul. Women are equally repressed in Pakistan, India, and Saudi Arabia. Many Afghans share Taliban's social views, if not politics. The Uzbeks in the north - now US and Canadian allies - are in even more vicious and brutal than Taliban, and up to their turbans in drug dealing. The US and NATO are running a nation that supplies 80-90% of the world's heroin.

Most foreign journalists see none of this. They get the Cook's tour, led around by their noses by government or military P.R. specialists, and fed handouts. Call this blinkered news. At least the old Soviet media did a better job, occasionally criticizing Moscow's claims that it was implanting democracy, freedom and human rights in Afghanistan. The North American media has no such professional reservations.

Few reporters get away from the military and go see the reality beyond. Even fewer know about Afghanistan's tortured history. That's why we have been getting so much disinformation and so little honest reporting about Afghanistan.

Taliban is neither a terrorist group, like al-Qaida, nor an enemy of the United States. Washington should be talking to its moderate elements as part of a strategy to stabilize that nation, foster a genuinely popular national government that excludes terrorist groups, and ends Afghanistan's role as the world's premier narco-state.

posted by Annamarie at 3:01 PM