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| Afghanistan: Mission Of Folly | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 7 2007, 04:21 PM (154 Views) | |
| bravotwozero | Mar 7 2007, 04:21 PM Post #1 |
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Hafidh
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Afghanistan: Mission of folly (Part one) >by James Laxer March 2, 2007 The Canadian military mission in Afghanistan was launched during the fevered weeks that followed the terror attacks on New York City and Washington DC on September 11, 2001. The government of Jean Chrétien took the decision that Canadians would fight in Afghanistan rather casually. The members of the Chrétien cabinet saw the commitment as a way to show solidarity with the Americans at a time when there was almost universal sympathy for the United States internationally and certainly in Canada. The experts in the Canadian Forces were ignored when the commitment was made. The government had no real idea how many soldiers could be sent, equipped and sustained in the field in Afghanistan. The little advice the government did receive from the top soldiers was that anything beyond a token commitment would be very expensive and would soon strain the Canadian Forces, making it difficult to meet their existing commitments. When politicians plunge their nations into war, they generally have their eye on recent conflicts as a guide to what can be expected. For Canada, the two most recent military outings prior to Afghanistan were the Kosovo conflict and the first Gulf War. Both were short affairs, decisively won by the side on which Canada fought. It was natural enough for Chrétien and his advisers to assume that the Afghanistan war would likely be over or nearly over before many Canadians saw action. During the weeks when Tony Blair emerged as the great friend of America and Jean Chrétien had not yet visited Ground Zero in New York, the gesture was the thing. In the more than five years that have passed since the gesture was made, Canada's Afghan mission has morphed into something its initiators never anticipated. For a time, this suited the Liberal government to a tee. When the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Canada was locked into the Afghanistan operation. Jean Chrétien's announcement in the House of Commons that Canada would not join the “coalition of the willing” in its assault on Iraq drew a sustained cheer from the Liberal caucus in Parliament. That moment is now seen as a crucial juncture in the evolution of Canadian foreign policy. When Liberals are called upon to justify themselves to the nation, they point to the refusal to join the invasion of Iraq as their finest hour. Nonetheless, the Canadian Afghan operation could be presented to the Bush administration as proof of the devotion of the Chrétien government to the global War on Terror. The election of Stephen Harper's Conservative government in the winter of 2006 changed the tone of Canadian foreign policy. While the Liberals had found comfort in the ambiguity of their position — out of Iraq, but in Afghanistan — the Conservatives sought no such ambiguity. Well before becoming Prime Minister, Stephen Harper had served notice that if elected he would preside over the most pro-American government in Canadian history. While the Liberal government was refusing to join the coalition of the willing, Harper was attending pro-Iraq war rallies, making it clear that if he were Prime Minister he would join in the fight. By the time Harper did become Prime Minister in the winter of 2006, as leader of a fragile minority government, he fully recognized that to advocate participation in the war in Iraq — a war, by then, highly unpopular in the U.S. — would be unthinkable in Canada. Instead Harper injected the pent up pro-war enthusiasm of his party into the Afghanistan mission. Far from being a Liberal alibi for non-involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan became the place where a neo-conservative Canada could leave its mark. In the autumn of 2001, there was no parliamentary vote to authorize what turned out to be Canada's bloodiest military engagement since Korea. In October 2001, Canadian parliamentarians engaged in a “take note” debate, a debate structured so as not to result in a vote in the House of Commons. During the debate, the Chrétien government declared that Canada would participate in Operation Apollo, the codename for the mission of Canadian military units in support of the American invasion of Afghanistan. The technique of using a “take note” debate to commit Canada to a foreign operation was not a new one. This method, which provided a soupçon of parliamentary participation, left the real decision squarely in the hands of the Prime Minister and his cabinet. In 1994, the Chrétien government introduced the use of take note debates. Take note debates were held in 1998 and 1999 at the time of Canada's commitment of fighter planes to participate in the Kosovo conflict. Over many decades, Canada's record of holding full debates about important military commitments has been shockingly poor. In the case of the Korean conflict in the early 1950s, the government of Louis St. Laurent simply announced that Canada would participate in what it called the “police action” in that country. Having entered the First World War in 1914, with no parliamentary vote, on the ground that “when Britain is at war, Canada is at war,” Canada graduated to sovereignty in the Second World War. On September 10, 1939, a week after Britain's declaration of war, Canada declared war on Nazi Germany following a debate and vote in Parliament. Since the end of the Second World War — which involved other Canadian declarations of war — Canada has not declared war when entering a conflict. In May 2006, the Harper government marginally improved on this shoddy record when it held a debate that ended in a vote to extend the Afghan mission by two years. Despite the vote which passed by the narrow margin of 149 to 145, the debate was rushed and perfunctory without the benefit of serious parliamentary hearings and input. MPs were notified only two days prior to the debate that it would be held, and MPs addressed the issue for only six hours. For decades, Canadians have been poorly served by successive governments when it comes to serious public dialogue on questions of war and peace. Decisions about foreign policy and war need to be thoroughly opened up and democratized. Centralized government by cabinet on these issues is not good enough. Having had no real debate on Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, Canadians have been left instead with the Harper government's threadbare rationale for the war. The government justifies the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan with two basic arguments. The first is that unless Canada and its allies prevail there, the terrorists will regroup to carry out lethal attacks against targets in Western countries including Canada. Fight them there, so as to avoid having to fight them here, the logic goes. The second argument is that the struggle is about the creation of a democracy in Afghanistan, a society that will be governed by the rule of law, in which human rights, in particular the rights of women, will be enshrined. Those who reject the government's position are dismissed with the epithet that they would “cut and run.” Unwilling to defend the basic propositions on which the mission is based in a rational debate, Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay resort to questioning the courage of their opponents as though they lack manliness. Both the propositions on which the government justifies Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan are, to put it politely, open to question. To put it less politely, very strong arguments can be made that they are the exact opposite of the truth. On the first argument, a strong case can be made that it is precisely the presence of western armies, such as Canada's, in the Middle East and Central Asia that is drawing recruits into networks whose purpose is to lash out at the West in terrorist attacks. The second argument, that this is a fight for democracy, the rule of law and women's rights, quickly crumbles beneath any sustained look at what is actually going on in Afghanistan and how the West's mission there was conceived in the first place. As for the government's dismissal of critics as cowards who would cut and run, this is nothing but the lowest form of wartime propaganda. The government's argument is circular. We are in Afghanistan because we are in Afghanistan. Our soldiers are fighting and dying there. To question the mission and cast it into doubt lowers the morale of our fighting men and women and gives succour to the enemy. Having had no real debate, now that we are in the fight, it is unpatriotic to have a real debate. Increasingly Canadians are insisting on an authentic national dialogue on the Afghanistan question. Many, if not most, Canadians are deeply troubled by our country's military mission in that country. And just as Americans have brushed aside the argument that to debate the war in Iraq is unpatriotic, Canadians are not impressed by flag waving attempts to avoid debate on our Afghan mission. Public hearings across the country and hearings before a parliamentary committee ought to precede the next vote in the House of Commons on the issue of Canada's military mission in Afghanistan. Canadians have been subject to top-down decisions on their military and foreign policies throughout their history. In recent years, there has been considerable discussion about the functioning of Canadian democracy and the existence in the country of what can be called a “democratic deficit.” The most eloquent testimony to the existence of a democratic deficit is the sharp decline of the proportion of Canadians who vote in federal and provincial elections. Increasingly, Canadians believe that their votes do not matter and that politicians are more concerned with themselves than with the well-being of Canadians. This sentiment is especially pronounced among young Canadians whose participation in elections is lower than is the case for older citizens. Opening up the way Canada debates military missions and foreign policy can be efficacious in improving the functioning of our democracy. Decisions taken by those at the centre of government, with little or no consultation, can have an especially onerous impact on young Canadians. Public discourse about whether Canada ought to send troops to a country on the other side of the world rarely focuses on who will actually be sent to do the fighting and to stand in harm's way. It is, of course, the young, who are recruited by government advertising directed especially at those who have relatively few attractive economic options. While plenty of attention has been paid in the media to the troops already in Afghanistan or about to go to Afghanistan, and the risks they face, there is little discussion about how privileged people in an older generation make life and death decisions about the young we recruit into the Canadian Forces. Here are some of the questions that need to be addressed in a national debate about the war in Afghanistan, among Canadians at large as well as in Parliament: What is the purpose of the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan? How do we define success? What is the balance in the mission between making war on the insurgents and aiding in the process of reconstructing a country that has been torn by war for decades? Is a proportionate military effort being made by other NATO countries? What role is Pakistan playing in the conflict? Now that the United States is rethinking its mission in Iraq, is it likely to remain committed to a long-term military effort in Afghanistan? How many Canadian lives are we prepared to sacrifice in this conflict? Does the Canadian mission in Afghanistan make Canada a more or less likely target of terrorism? Can foreign armies in Afghanistan advance the cause of democracy, the rule of law and human rights, or does their presence undermine these goals by drawing recruits, in the region as well as in the West, into the ranks of the Muslim fundamentalists? Canadians need a wide ranging national dialogue — one we have not had to date — on whether our country's military mission in Afghanistan is right for Canada. Politicians need to play a candid role in this dialogue. But so too does the general public. This is not a debate for the experts. We all have a stake in how it turns out. Speaking of the experts, Canadians have, with a few notable exceptions, been ill-served by the mainstream media on the Afghanistan question. There has been shockingly little analytical journalism on this war, its origins and course, and the role Canada is playing in it. Too much of the reportage has come from journalists embedded with the Canadian forces whose stories are like those of sports writers embedded with the home team. The national conversation should focus on the specifics of Canada's Afghan mission. It must consider as well the wider military and political struggles that are unfolding in the Middle East and Central Asia. Afghanistan is but one theatre in that much larger struggle. What happens elsewhere, particularly in Iraq, is bound to have a significant impact on the fate of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, and therefore, on the Canadian mission in that country. Moreover, the debate will be incomplete unless it also considers the broad goals of Canadian foreign and military policy. (To be continued.) James Laxer is a Professor of Political Science at York University in Toronto. This is part of a much longer work which will run regularly in rabble.ca. Rabble |
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| bravotwozero | Mar 7 2007, 04:23 PM Post #2 |
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Hafidh
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Mission of Folly: Part two Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. assault on Afghanistan commenced on October 7, 2001, almost four weeks after the terror attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. on September 11. Initial aerial attacks were carried out by land-based B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers, as well as by carrier-based F-14 and F/A-18 bombers. In addition, Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched at enemy targets from American and British ships. The goals of the Afghanistan mission were outlined to the U.S. Congress and to the American people in two speeches delivered by President George W. Bush. The first address to the U.S. Congress was a declaration by the President that the United States was now involved in a War on Terror. The second, a live television address to the people of the United States, explained the purposes of the American assault on Afghanistan. “The evidence we have gathered,” Bush reported to Congress on September 20 in answer to the question on the minds of Americans — Who attacked the United States? — “all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as Al Qaeda. They are the same murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and responsible for the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. Al Qaeda is to terror what the Mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world — and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.” The President issued an ultimatum to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan: The United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban: Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of Al Qaeda who hide in your land. Release all foreign nationals — including American citizens — you have unjustly imprisoned, and protect foreign journalists, diplomats, and aid workers in your country. Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan and hand over every terrorist, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate authorities. Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating. These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Taliban must act and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate. The ultimatum, a sure precursor to war, was followed by an explanation to Americans and the world that the United States was now involved in a War on Terror. Bush depicted the enemy in this wide-ranging struggle in the following terms: “Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated. Americans are asking: Why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber — a democratically elected government. “Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa.” Having issued an ultimatum to the Taliban, Bush concluded his speech with an ultimatum to the rest of the world: Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbour or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime… The hour is coming when America will act… This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom. We ask every nation to join us. We will ask, and we will need, the help of police forces, intelligence services, and banking systems around the world. For the Bush administration, this was the seminal moment. The War on Terror would be prosecuted as a global struggle and the United States was putting all the countries of the world on notice. There were to be no neutrals in this struggle: countries that were not on the side of the United States, would be deemed to be on the side of the terrorists. In his television address on October 7, Bush announced that the assault on the Taliban regime and Al Qaeda had commenced: The United States military has begun strikes against Al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime. We are joined in this operation by our staunch friend, Great Britain. Other close friends, including Canada, Australia, Germany and France, have pledged forces as the operation unfolds. More than 40 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and across Asia have granted air transit or landing rights. Many more have shared intelligence. We are supported by the collective will of the world. Bush went on to say that the goal of the military action was to drive the terrorists from their hiding places and bring them to justice. Again the President warned the nations of the world that this struggle extended far beyond Afghanistan: “Every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground. If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and murderers, themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril.” In the style that was to characterize the global policies of his administration, the struggle ahead was depicted in terms of black and white, good and evil. Many countries in the past had suffered terrorist assaults on their citizenry. Canadians had endured the Air India bombing. On June 23, 1985, Air India flight 182 was blown out of the sky south of Ireland above the Atlantic Ocean. All of the 329 passengers and crew died. Eighty-two were children and 280 were Canadian citizens. (On a per capita basis, the Air India bombing was as devastating a blow to Canada as the September 11 attacks were to the United States.) For years the British had lived with bombings and casualties that resulted from the campaign waged by the Irish Republican Army and its offshoots to make Northern Ireland a part of the Irish Republic. Similarly, France had suffered as a consequence of bombings perpetrated by terrorists of North African origin. In September 1986, in one episode, the Tati Department Store was attacked in Paris. Seven died and 54 were injured, most of the victims being mothers and children. Many other countries had also suffered as a consequence of the scourge of terrorism. The suffering and anguish of Americans as a consequence of September 11 were enormous. The difference between the United States and the other countries that have been victims of terrorism is that the United States was uniquely powerful militarily. Other countries subjected to terrorist attack mobilized the means available to them to increase their security and to guard against future attacks. To make what may seem a facile point, Canada did not consider taking military action in response to the Air India bombing. The United States, though, was in an entirely unique position. Alone among the countries of the world, it had the military means to reach out across thousands of kilometres to carry out an assault on remote Afghanistan. By deciding on a military invasion as the American response to the terror attacks, the Bush administration was raising the stakes enormously. This was no mere police action. The invasion would turn out the regime in power and replace it with another. And by declaring that the action in Afghanistan was only one front in a much wider War on Terror in which the whole world was involved, the Bush administration was raising the stakes much further still. The United States was pledging to deliver its version of liberty to humanity and to rid the world of a dark menace. From the beginning, the Afghan mission, Enduring Freedom, was cast in ideological terms. Its authors would not be satisfied with success against the Taliban and the Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. They were determined to use the provocation of September 11 to change the world and to increase the power of the United States throughout the globe. Pentagon planners complained that Afghanistan had precious few military targets of high value. While Afghanistan was the immediate target, from the first days, the top decision makers in the administration were thinking about a showdown with what they regarded as a much more important foe — Iraq. Even before the invasion of Afghanistan, Vice President **** Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Under Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz were preoccupied with the idea of an invasion of Iraq. In their thinking, Iraq would be the decisive field of battle, while Afghanistan was merely the sideshow. The coming assault on Iraq was the focal point of American foreign policy and military policy from the earliest days after September 11. The neo-conservatives who dominated the Bush administration developed a theory about how an American occupation of Iraq would lead to positive results for the United States on a number of crucial issues in the Middle East. The assumption on which the earlier administration of George Bush Sr. had operated was that to improve the American position in the Middle East, the Palestinian question would have to be settled. The administration of George W. Bush, on the other hand, started from a radically different premise — that a U.S. occupation of Iraq would open the door to a settlement of the Palestinian question which would suit both Israel and the United States. The idea, advanced by Paul Wolfowitz, was that if the U.S. occupied Iraq and ushered a pro-American regime into power, Iraq could develop into a model democratic, constitutional state in which Islam was the religion of the population, but in which radical Islamic theocratic concepts could be pushed to the margin. Iraq would be America's tabula rasa in the region, the blank slate on which the United States could write its liberal-democratic narrative. The effect would reverberate through the region. Other benefits would accrue to the U.S. from the occupation of Iraq. Bordering on Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria, Iraq would be an ideal place for the U.S. to establish permanent military bases. The Saudis were prickly about the political effects of having U.S. forces stationed on their territory. From Iraq, the U.S. could keep a close eye on the hostile regimes in Iran and Syria. American power in the Persian Gulf would be ensured. The U.S. would be able to establish a dominant position for American oil companies in Iraq and to look out for their interests in the rest of the Middle East. In addition, the strengthened position of the U.S. in the region would help muscle the Palestinians into taking what they could get in a deal with Israel, even if it fell far short of creating a state on all of their territory Israel had occupied since 1967 including East Jerusalem. These were heady dreams and they were to morph into nightmares. The details of the U.S. led invasion of Iraq are well known and need not detain us here. What is significant is how that invasion turned out. On May 2, 2003, weeks after the American assault on Iraq, President George W. Bush landed in a warplane on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. After the tailhook landing, the President climbed out of the plane, greeted by a huge banner that read “mission accomplished.” Dressed in the fatigues of a Navy fighter pilot, Bush swaggered across the deck. The President, who had avoided combat in Vietnam as a member of the Texas Air National Guard, was presiding over a quickly won military triumph. Flash forward to November 7, 2006. With U.S. combat deaths in Iraq approaching 3,000 dead and wounded exceeding 25,000, and with Iraq sinking into civil war, American voters handed both Houses of Congress to the Democrats. The day after the election, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned. His designated replacement, Robert Gates, in a congressional confirmation hearing, frankly acknowledged that the United States was not winning in Iraq. On December 6, 2006, the Iraq Study Group, headed by Republican James Baker and Democrat Lee Hamilton, reported its recommendations to the Bush administration. Established to find a way to get the United States out of the Iraq quagmire, the Study Group's recommendations amounted to a flat repudiation of the foreign and military policies of the administration. The report recommended the withdrawal of large numbers of U.S. forces from Iraq by the beginning of 2008 and advised that overtures be made to Syria and Iran to seek the collaboration of these countries in finding a settlement of the conflict in Iraq. Almost from the first days of the American assault, Afghanistan became the forgotten war. Always the centre of the American strategic effort in the Middle East and Central Asia, Iraq continued to condition the outcome of the struggle in Afghanistan. If the U.S. were to withdraw in disgrace from Iraq (now the most likely outcome), it was exceedingly unlikely that the United States would commit to a lengthy war in Afghanistan. During the first phase of the assault on Afghanistan, the Americans operated with impunity in the air, concentrating their attacks on Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad as well as on Al Qaeda training camps. The Taliban quickly lost their ability to coordinate their efforts, with their systems of “command and control” rapidly degraded. The Americans and their allies were not the only opponents of the Taliban. The regime in Kabul was already in a state of conflict with a force called the Northern Alliance when the U.S. attack began. The Northern Alliance was composed of diverse ethnic and religious elements whose members, for one reason or another, were involved in an insurgency against the Taliban. While the power of the Taliban rested largely on the Pashtuns, who predominated in the country's south and east, the Northern Alliance was mainly non-Pashtun. At the time of the September 11 terror attacks, the Northern Alliance fielded a core force of about 15,000 soldiers, mostly Tajik and Uzbek fighters, whose base was in northeastern Afghanistan in Badakhshan, as well as in eastern Takhar province, the Panjshir Valley and part of the Shomali plain north of Kabul. The Northern Alliance counted on support from Iran, Russia and Tajikistan. Viewed over the longer term, the American involvement in Afghanistan which pre-dated the invasion of 2001 resembled a revolving door. Friends became foes and foes became friends in rather farcical fashion. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the United States helped sponsor the creation of the Mujahideen, a fundamentalist Islamic movement that opposed the Soviets and despised the secular pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. Osama bin Laden learned much about insurgent warfare during these times when he was on the American-backed side against the Soviets. Later, when the Soviets were driven out, subsequent struggles led to the installation of the Taliban regime whose fighters included many who had fought on the side of those supported by Washington. Still later, when the Gulf War in 1991 involved a marked increase in the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden became an embittered enemy of America. A Saudi himself, he was no more prepared to contemplate a large Infidel (American) presence in the land that housed Islam's holiest sites, than he was to abide the Soviet hold on Afghanistan. In the autumn of 2001, the Americans were attacking a country that had earlier been liberated by forces they had backed who were now their enemies, while their friends numbered among them foes from the previous struggle. Despite the rhetoric served up for Americans, Canadians and Europeans about this being a struggle about human rights and democracy, the forces involved and their respective histories, made this an implausible claim from the start. (Part two will be continued.) James Laxer is a Professor of Political Science at York University in Toronto. This is part of a much longer work which will run regularly in rabble.ca. Rabble |
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| abuturab82 | Mar 7 2007, 09:27 PM Post #3 |
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man, that was an awesome article! One thing that i thought was interesting was how the neoconservative movement in canada essentially utilized the same argument that was being used in America: we can't "cut and run" from the war. Such phrases completely undermine the necessary discourse that are fundamental components of a modern democracy the most important question is: what happens now? |
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| bravotwozero | Apr 5 2007, 04:29 PM Post #4 |
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Hafidh
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Mission of folly: Part Three Part Four Part Five |
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