Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear To Tread
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Why Canada Should Not Be In Afghanistan And Other Post-Modern Travesties
By Robert Billyard
Oddly enough, Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh does not feel it is the job of parliament to argue about whether Canadian troops should be in Afghanistan, but rather to convince Canadians why they should be there.
But then maybe the reverse holds true: It falls on the shoulders of Canadians to convince our not so nimble-witted politicians why we should not be there.
Mr. Dosanjh must first of all be reminded that the purpose of parliament is not to propagandize Canadians; it is to debate just such issues vigorously and openly. The fact that our troops are already there without any such debate is in itself a legitimate cause for concern among Canadians.
There is actually an overabundance of reasons why Canadians should not support this mission starting with the original invasion of Afghanistan.
When the US attacked that country it was purportedly to capture terrorists specifically, Osama bin laden, and remove the Taliban from power.
The reason Bin laden is free today is that instead of putting troops on the ground right away the US initiated the bombing of Tora Bora. It was during this senseless bombing that Bin laden and other terrorist leaders fled the country. US troops easily defeated the Taliban but instead of consolidating their hold on the country they diverted their forces and focus to the invasion of Iraq. America under George Bush has a very short attention span.
One of the primary reasons Canadian troops are in Afghanistan is because the Americans left the job incomplete and now the Taliban are resurgent.
What is happening in Iraq is also another compelling reason Canadians have registered a vote of non-confidence in this mission. Iraq was supposed to be a quick, easy liberation but it has proved to be the very opposite. The situation is worse than ever as the country is now on the verge of civil war.
Here the problem was not the prompt deployment of troops but their deployment in sufficient numbers. Even though his generals advised the US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld it would take at least a quarter of a million troops. He knew better. The reason Iraq is not secured and will remain so is that troops were never deployed in sufficient numbers. The same will most certainly apply to Afghanistan.
The US is desperately short of ground troops and this is the reason Canada and other NATO countries have been conscripted to make up the short fall.
Canadians, along with Americans, no doubt suspect that their governments are going to be making ever increasing demands for troop deployments as it is obvious in both Afghanistan and Iraq troop levels are not sufficient to do the job at hand. In the US, this short fall might well lead to the draft being initiated once again; and already there has been a scandal in the US surrounding recruiting techniques and the quality of recruits the army is accepting.
What is happening in Afghanistan and Canada’s role in it can not be seen in isolation, though our political elites would prefer we do.
The invasion of Iraq was a fraudulent and illegal war perpetrated on the claim that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. He had none. And still further, it has since been revealed that the US knew this before they attacked.
As the US perpetrated the big lie to justify the attack on Iraq, it is perpetuating yet another in how the war will end. Americans are being led to believe that once the country is pacified US troops with withdraw and Iraq will be left to happily celebrate its new democracy. No so! The US has already built 14 air bases in the country and it is abundantly clear the country’s autonomy will be carefully constrained in Washington. There will eventually be a major draw down in the number of troops there, but Iraq is to be an outpost of the empire and a staging area for U S domination of the Middle East. It will no longer act through Israel as its surrogate, and it will no longer offend Saudi Arabia by maintaining bases on its territory (a pivotal issue for Osama Bin Laden). This may explain why the Iraqi resistance is so tenacious- they know that if they fail the US will have established a major beachhead in the Arab world.
Similarly, in Afghanistan the purpose is not liberation, but pacification and the maintenance of a puppet regime.
The Afghanistan mission provides yet another window on American hypocrisy. Saudi Arabia is run by a repressive theocracy similar to the Taliban, fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 attackers were Saudi nationals, and allegations that funding came from within the House of Saud have never been investigated. Having oil and close connections to the Bush family has earned it immunity from devastation.
It is an interesting historical footnote that one of the casualties of 9/11 was a former FBI agent (He was a security agent in The Twin Towers) who quit in frustration that his agency was blocked by the US Department of State from pursuing its investigation of Saudi connections to terrorism and the activities of Osama Bin Laden.
When Canadian General Ray Henault states that Afghanistan is going to need help for ten years he is being less than candid. The country by its very nature; its rugged terrain, harsh climate and tribal culture, will be very difficult to pacify, and will most certainly require a permanent military presence to maintain a semblance of stability.
He was also quick to quip “It’s not your granddaddy’s NATO.” He is ever so right! Conceived as a North Atlantic defence alliance during the Cold War, it has now been conscripted into America’s war on terror – a gambit as it pursues global hegemony.
It is now the stated policy of the US that it will conduct continuous, pre-emptive and simultaneous warfare when and where it sees fit. But problems with this policy are already emerging. The perceived threat has to have been credible; in Iraq it was not. For a subsequent war to be credible the previous war has to have been brought to a successful culmination-in Iraq it has not. Given what is happening in Iraq even the most casual observer has to question the real motives and ultimate success of the Afghan mission. As the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan fester, the US is threatening Iran.
For Canadians, there can be no doubt; the UN is conspicuously absent in Afghanistan. Our country has a proud tradition of foreign peacekeeping under the auspices of the UN. Its absence is not coincidental as the US has a history of using and abusing the UN as it sees fit. The present US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton is a ferocious ideologue out to destroy the world body. For Bolton, and his neo-conservative buddies, the UN is an impediment to US global hegemony.
In her devilishly witty and caustic critique on the Bush administration, Bushworld, Pulitzer Prize winning, New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd comments:
As the brazen Bush imperialists try to install a new democracy in Iraq, they are finding the old democracies of our reluctant allies inconvenient.
Canada is one of those “old democracies” and our quisling political elites are determined to sell out the country as they too find our own democracy inconvenient. Dowd’s comment though, not only applies to America’s allies but to America itself! Under the Bush administration there has been an alarming erosion of that country’s democratic values and civil liberties.
If we are tempted to dismiss the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as foreign wars in far off lands that will have little impact on our lives, we fool ourselves with the same wattage our politicians deceive us. As these two conflicts fester onward the US is developing a whole new generation of strategic weapons. Even though it has overwhelming global military superiority in strategic weaponry, enough is never enough. It is developing a whole new generation of fighter bombers, nuclear weapons, ships at sea and of course the utterly absurd missile defence system. The modest little question has to be: How is all this strategic weaponry going to be used to fight terrorism?
Dwight D. Eisenhower, a distinguished two term US president, and Supreme Allied Commander in World War II-every inch a military man- took the occasion of his last radio broadcast to the nation in 1961 to warn of the perils of the military industrial complex. He warned that it was potentially a hydra headed monster that could get out of control, like a cancer that could infest America. Eisenhower’s prophecy has come to pass, the monster is out of control- Dr. Strangelove is alive and well and living in Washington and his first name is Donald.
US defence spending is budgeted at just under half a trillion dollars for 2006, but the Pentagon is requesting “emergency” funding in addition. Even though Republicans control the Senate and Congress, they are protesting this profligate spending. The US government is now running record debt and deficit. Expenditures on the Iraq war alone to date are estimated to be quarter trillion dollars. It seems foreign adventurism comes at a heady price and the question is: How many generations will it take to pay down this debt? And how much debt, human and financial, will other countries assume in being conscripted into this subterfuge?
Why all this reckless spending? It could be said the US is still fighting the extinct Cold War; or that it simply refuses to collect the peace dividend. It can also be seen as corporate welfare for the military industrial complex. But the actual reason is much more ominous. The game is global domination; the target is China- even though it has no apparent imperialist ambitions, though it is practicing a phenomenal economic imperialism. This may be in-part what is motivating America’s exorbitant militarism. The desire to advance democracy globally, confronting the ‘axis of evil’ and the war on terrorism are smoke screens for a larger agenda.
It is no coincidence the US president is visiting Pakistan as the US has signed military alliances with both Pakistan and India- important allies- pursuant to a possible war with China. China, for its part, is forced to arm itself, thus we have a new arms race.
Many observers are making the very dangerous assumption that America’s brazen behaviour will abate when George Bush leaves office, but he is only the puppet; the puppet masters are smarter more sinister men. They are masters of connivance. The ultra right neo-conservative domination of US politics is well entrenched. When Bush leaves office it may only be the names will change. In the US, as in Canada, the two major parties have merged, leaving voters no real choice.
America’s brazen behaviour has left the global community cowed, and little wonder. If it decided to use its strategic weapons with the same wanton belligerence it uses it conventional weapons the planet earth would be a nuclear wasteland. America may never use its overwhelming military capability on a broader basis but it is clearly a nation out of control and it is clearly out to establish global hegemony- when it says democracy it really means satellite puppet regimes.
Lesser nations may feel powerless, but collectively they could be very powerful in confronting the American bullyboy- and bullies must be confronted. There are numerous economic, diplomatic and political avenues open to let America know its behaviour, as the world’s pre-eminent rogue state is unacceptable to the global community.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for example-if he really wants to exercise his Churchillian fantasies in a much more meaningful and upstanding way could take a second and more critical look at his sycophantic relationship with Washington. Blair still has the opportunity to earn redemption and avoid going down in history as Bush’s poodle.
Canada’s political elites have fallen on hard times. They are drowning in the effluent of their feeble self-deceptions. We can never be more than a minor player in global affairs but we diminish ourselves even further by being cowardly collaborators in a monumental subterfuge.
One modest way we can protest is too refuse to participate in America’s self-aggrandizing wars that are being fought for less than altruistic reasons. We can let it be known that our sovereignty is not some mere give away as our political elites indulge in their self-inflicted emasculation.
There has been considerable speculation as to how Osama Bin Laden has eluded capture for so long and so successfully. Could it be the US does not want him captured? His capture would largely debase the raison d’être for the war on terror- a ruse that must be maintained. Meanwhile, he is off in some remote hideaway chortling with glee as Western neo-imperialists squander their human and financial resources on wars they cannot win and adventurism that is ultimately ruinous.
Post Script: Even as this piece is completed I read in the Independent UK that the neoconservative allies (“the masters of connivance”) who demanded George Bush attack Iraq have deserted him, and admit they were wrong. This throws the Bush administration policies in the Middle East, including Afghanistan into a shambles; and but another reason Canadian troops should not be there.
Robert Billyard is a writer and artist residing in the bucolic hinterlands of Langley BC. He has an abiding interest in politics and social issues and reads extensively on these subjects. Accused of being a nationalist, a small “l” liberal, a socialist and a boat rocker-as well as a boat builder- he might nod in agreement.
@ March 9, 2006