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blog - harper extends afghan war without parliament

beethoven

Well-known member
http://dennisgruending.ca/pulpitandpolitics/2010/11/14/harper-extends-afghan-war-without-parliament/#more-271

Harper extends Afghan war without parliament

Filed under: Conservative Party, Stephen Harper, Peace Issues — admin at 11:57 pm on Sunday, November 14, 2010

By Dennis Gruending


Is anyone really surprised that, after years of solemnly promising Canadian troops would be pulled out of Afghanistan in 2011, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has abruptly shifted course and is now saying Canada will stay an extra three years until 2014? It’s a cynical measure that puts me in mind of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, a book written in 2003 by American comedian (now Senator) Al Franken about George W. Bush and his cronies. Harper and Peter MacKay, his lame duck defence minister, are clearly not people to be believed. Who is to say that as 2014 approaches they don’t conspire with NATO member politicians and generals to move the Afghan goal posts yet again?

Harper says that he is not extending the war. Canadian soldiers will remain “inside the wire” and act as trainers for Afghan troops rather than as combatants. Why should we believe him? American generals and politicians in the Vietnam War maintained for years that their troops were acting as trainers and not as combatants. Of course, that proved to be a lie. The role played by Canadian soldiers will be ambivalent by definition. There is already talk that such training could well evolve into battlefield “mentoring,” which means leading Afghan troops in combat. And what about the joint task force commandos known as JTF2? They have been operating clandestinely in Afghanistan since late 2001 without any public oversight by Parliament. What will they be doing until 2014 and possibly after that date?

Harper ignores parliament

The prime minister claims that he can decide to extend Canada’s war without the approval of parliament or even a debate. His authoritarian tendencies and contempt for fellow parliamentarians, including those in his own party, are well documented in journalist Lawrence Martin’s recent book Harperland. If parliament is not to be consulted when we are extending our participation in a war, then why even have a House of Commons and a Senate? This is a moment of truth. If MPs and Senators allow Harper to do this, they might as well fold up their tents and go home.

Bob Rae, the Liberals’ foreign affairs critic, appears to agree with Harper that no parliamentary debate or vote is needed. “In the current circumstance I fully understand the government’s decision,” Rae is quoted as saying. In fact, both Rae and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff called last summer for Canada to extend its mission in Afghanistan in a non-combat role. That provides Harper with cover to extend the war and to do so without consulting anyone. He has outmaneuvered Rae and the hapless Michael Ignatieff yet again. Extending the war plays directly into Harper’s core agenda, for example his spending of $16 billion on new F-35 fighter planes. Harper believes all of this allows Canada to be a player on the international military stage. We would be better advised to follow the lead of Norway, a country widely respected for its leadership on diplomacy and aid to development.

The Liberals have something invested in their acquiescence to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan. It was the government of Jean Chrétien that made Canada a party to the initial invasion of Afghanistan, and Paul Martin who in 2005 pushed Canada into a leading role in the counter-insurgency war by deploying troops to Kandahar.

The NDP and Bloc Quebecois may now attempt to use parliamentary rules to have a debate but there is little, if any, time for parliament to weigh in. In his usual Machiavellian fashion, Harper made the announcement on Remembrance Day when parliament was down for the week. That was just eight days prior to a NATO meeting in Lisbon where he will deliver on his about face without having consulted Canadian parliamentarians, much less the Canadian people.

Elites for war, citizens opposed

The Liberal-Conservative elite accommodation extends to Canada’s corporate media as well, even though polls have shown that an overwhelming number of Canadians want the Afghan mission ended. In October, The Globe and Mail carried a series of articles regarding the future of Canada’s armed forces. The Globe admitted that the series was meant to oppose a strong public mood in favour of pulling back from overseas military interventions. The Afghan war, the paper conceded, has not gone well. But the newspaper believes that the war has been a testing ground creating a battle hardened Canadian military which can now use its muscle elsewhere. “Canada’s interests are global,” The Globe wrote. “Let us take full advantage of our military strength — and, quite literally, choose our battles.”

Polling since 2007 has shown consistently that international public opinion is largely opposed to the war in Afghanistan. Even a majority of respondents in seven out of 12 NATO member countries want troops withdrawn as soon as possible. In Canada, an Angus Reid poll conducted in October 2010 indicates that 55% of Canadians oppose our involvement in the war, while only 35% support it, the lowest level of support recorded by the poll in question in the past two years. Among Canadians, 34% have “strong opposition” to involvement in the war, three times higher than the number in “strong support”, standing at only 11 %. Our government does not see this popular opposition as something that should be heeded. It is perceived rather as a public relations problem that should be met by attempts to manipulate us. No doubt Canadian Football League playoff games and the Grey Cup will be used (again) to support the war, and commentator Don Cherry will continue to use his CBC Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts to shill for the war effort.

Canadian, Afghan fatalities

Canada has been fighting in Afghanistan for almost nine years. We have about 2,800 troops there and Harper’s plan, if he can be believed, is to have 750 of them remain as trainers and another 250 for support. In other words, more than one in three of our soldiers will remain.

The number of Canadian fatalities in Afghanistan is the largest for any single Canadian military mission since the Korean War. More than 150 members of the military and four Canadian civilians have been killed — in per capita terms one of the highest death tolls among the occupying forces. Another 1,500 Canadian soldiers have been wounded, many losing arms and legs to roadside bombs. This number does not include the many soldiers who are returning with mental and psychological problems associated with the violence and mayhem that they have experienced.

NATO and even UN accounts rarely provide comprehensive information about the number of Afghan civilians killed and maimed. But a source called Unknown News estimates that as of August 2010, the number of civilian deaths was 8,800 and that 15,800 civilians had been seriously injured. The same source estimated that the combined death toll - NATO soldiers, Afghan soldiers and Afghan civilians — was 19,600 deaths and another 48,600 injured. That number of deaths is roughly equivalent to the population of the Canadian cities of Truro, Owen Sound or Duncan.

Lost dollars, vanishing democracy

The war has had other costs as well. The Harper government refuses to provide the financial tally but Kevin Page, the parliamentary budget officer, projects the costs through 2011 at about $18 billion. To place that into some perspective, the entire budget for the province of Saskatchewan in 2010 was $10.2 billion, and that of Manitoba was $10.7 billion. There have also been costs in the erosion of Canadian democracy. The government has shown its contempt for parliament by refusing to divulge records that would prove once and for all whether it was complicit in turning Afghan combatants over for torture at the hands of Afghan jailers. All of this secrecy is justified in the name of national security, an evasion used frequently by totalitarian leaders but unworthy of a modern democracy.

The common argument is that Canada cannot leave now because the job is not done. The same people may well be making the same argument in 2014. The foreign occupation will have to end sooner or later and when it does the so-called insurgents will still be there because Afghanistan is their homeland. NATO is placing its hopes on the shoulders of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He was installed by the Americans and is widely despised. Journalist Brian Stewart, CBC TV’s former security and military specialist, wrote in March 2010: “After eight years and many billions of dollars spent trying to build a nation, there is still no Afghan government worthy of the name or deserving of domestic or international trust. Afghanistan is now the second most corrupt nation on earth, just after Somalia, according to Transparency International, a Berlin-based advocacy group. That represents a level of corruption difficult to imagine and this is why allies now see the Karzai government as a bigger threat to the stability of Afghanistan right now than even the Taliban insurgency.”

This is what the money of Canadians and the lives of our soldiers are supporting and ultimately it is a campaign that we cannot win. We should leave now.
 

Silver

Well-known member
Well this article is a bunch of fear mongering crap, starting with the lie that is the title. Since when does the PM need to consult parliament for a NON COMBAT deployment? This guy needs to get a life.
 

beethoven

Well-known member
harper is trying to pull the wool over.

he came to power with a promise to put any military deployment to a parliamentary vote.

our mission in afghanistan has already been extended twice. there is little public support for our continued presence, but the reality is there is pressure coming from outside our borders, and that is why harper will keep this thing going.



i am very supportive of, and concerned about the soldiers, and very much wish them to come home. i wish them to be treated well when they arrive, esp. the ones who require rehab.

there are reports of them not being treated well by veteran's affairs, and they are also facing barriers and challenges getting other various forms of required support and help.
 

Silver

Well-known member
Harper isn't trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. He wants what the soldiers want: to leave Afghanistan a better place, that the lives of our fallen weren't for naught.
We all want our returning soldiers treated well, and it looks like things are getting better in that regard with regard to rehab and pensions. Perhaps we owe the liberal media some credit for screaming about some of the shortcomings within veteran's affairs.
At any rate, to say that he came to power with a promise to put any military deployment to a parliamentary vote is a play on words. Do you think he needs a parliamentary vote to send troops to Haiti or Indonesia for humanitarian purposes? Canadian troops are deployed all over the world in many roles, training among them, and none of these deployments required a motion of parliament.
 

beethoven

Well-known member
yes, no contest, we will stay per harper's decision to do so, but without domestic support, in order to continue what some have called a neo-colonial war.

harper can try to market this, shape it into being seen as a non combat mission ie., to train afghans to kill afghans all he likes. it is not something that meets with approval. our canadian human losses need to stop.

the canada-afghanistan committment is already canada's longest military engagement in our history, and very sad to say now clearly has no fixed end date.
 

Silver

Well-known member
Well the extended mission in it's training role has my full support. As long as it is what he says it will be, a "training" rather than a "combat" mission".
 

beethoven

Well-known member
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Afghans+need+training+Dion/3882173/story.html

Afghans don't need training: Dion

Military that defeated Soviets in 1980s doesn't require our help, ex-Liberal leader says

By Juliet O'Neill, Postmedia News November 25, 2010



Former Liberal leader Stephane Dion questioned Wednesday why Canadian Armed Forces need to train Afghan military to fight the Taliban, when the Afghans were strong enough to defeat the forces of the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

His question was among an array of misgivings about Canada's role in Afghanistan that opposition MPs voiced to top officials from four government departments who testified at the House of Commons special committee on Canada's mission in Afghanistan.

He sought some assurance that training really is necessary in a country where "young people know how to dismantle" AK-47 automatic weapons and put them back together.

He expressed concern that some trained Afghan army members don't stay long, some defect to the Taliban and "they don't want really to fight" the insurgency.

"After all, we are speaking about people that have been able to win against the Soviet Union," he said. "If they were willing to win against the Taliban they would not need so much training ... How come those people who won against the Soviet Union need training?"

Commons debate

Dion was speaking on the eve of a Commons debate on the government's Liberal-backed plan to provide about 1,000 military trainers to Afghanistan from 2011-14 for $1.5 billion.

Dion is a Montreal MP who, when he was Liberal leader, negotiated with the Harper government on the 2008 extension and July 2011 withdrawal of Canadian combat forces from Afghanistan.

Rear Admiral Robert Davidson, director of staff, strategic joint staff, had already explained to the committee that Canadian Forces are consulting allies to decide exactly what training they will provide and can offer a "broad range" of skills from combat training to institutional staffing, how to plan and conduct operations, logistics, signals and medical capabilities.

"What occurred then and what we are essentially fighting as a counterinsurgency, it's a very small percentage of the population that's doing the fighting," he told Dion.

"They're doing the fighting using mechanisms such as IEDs (improvised explosive devices), ambushes, those kinds of things.

"What we're trying to do in terms of building the capacity in institutions in Afghanistan is to build a professional armed force that has the capacity to control its own country in the long term, a capacity to generate its own forces," Davidson responded.

"In other words we need to train them to the level where they can train themselves. We need to give them skill sets like counter-IED and today that's a very complex skill. It's very costly to teach it and to give them the equipment that they need."

Other misgivings by MPs ranged from the government's plan to cut aid to Afghanistan by about half to $100 million a year to whether there was much point in helping Afghans develop agriculture if they are just going to revert to growing poppies for illegal drug production when foreign forces leave.

Anti-corruption fight

Liberal Bryon Wilfert sought evidence that Canada's contributions to anti-corruption training of 1,000 Afghan justice officials had made an impact.

Citing reports of escalating violence and spreading control by Taliban in Afghanistan in the last year, Bloc Quebecois defence critic Claude Bachand complained that officials were wearing rose-coloured glasses.

"We're losing this war and yet all we hear are wonderful things," Bachand said after Francoise Drucros of the Canadian International Development Agency and other officials enumerated progress in building schools and vaccinating children against polio.

New Democratic Party Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar was rebuffed in his efforts to establish that federal officials were caught off guard last week by the government's abrupt announcement that Canada's military mission would be extended for training purposes and aid funds reduced.

Dewar unsuccessfully pressed Privy Council Office official Greta Bossenmaier, deputy minister, Afghanistan Task Force, to say when she learned of the government's new plan or how long officials had worked on that plan.

Bossenmaier refused to say and Conservative MP Laurie Hawn, parliamentary secretary to the minister of defence, intervened to say she was not obligated to answer

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
 

Silver

Well-known member
Oh yeah, Stephan is the one I'd want to get my information from to help me form my opinions :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 

beethoven

Well-known member
Read more: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/11/28/bob-rae-why-are-we-in-afghanistan-heres-why/#ixzz16bne3yIn

Following is the text of an address by Bob Rae, the Liberal foreign affairs critic, on the need for Canada to extend our presence in Afghanistan after Canadian Forces’ combat role ends in 2011.

We are here today to discuss a motion by our friends in the Bloc Québécois. The Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party say that the Prime Minister has often said there would be no troops in Afghanistan after 2011. The Bloc Québécois quotes what General Hillier said two or three years ago, namely that it is impossible to provide training and development to troops without there being combat. I do not recall the date given by the hon. member for Saint-Jean . According to him, the decision by our Canadian government to accept a non-combat role in Afghanistan after 2011, with the presence of hundreds of Canadian troops providing training and development, shows that there is no democracy in Canada, that the government and the official opposition are allegedly dishonest, have no idea of what they are doing and are telling falsehoods to the population.

I can honestly say to my colleague from Saint-Jean , whom I know very well from having worked with him on two committees—as I shall continue to do—that I do not share his point of view. First of all, Canada has certain international obligations to the UN and to its NATO partners. I have often said in the House that it is a pity that the other NATO members have not taken their responsibilities toward Afghanistan more seriously. Our 2008 resolution clearly states that we are going to abandon the combat mission in Kandahar after 2011. It is natural that our friends in NATO should have wondered and are still wondering what we are going to do to keep up our assistance program in Afghanistan.

I have been asked whether NATO has exerted any pressure. I don’t know if it can be called pressure, but it is natural that our partners in NATO, including the United States, should ask us what we are prepared to do, while honouring the will of the House of Commons and the positions of the political parties of Canada.

I make no apology for saying that it is very clear what went on. A number of people, including this member and a number of other people, told the government that it should not exclude the possibility of a training mission if that fits in with the strategy that NATO and the United Nations are trying to establish in order to achieve the objective, which is very clearly set out and repeated again in the Lisbon statement this past weekend, and that is that we move from a position where it is NATO and other countries that are carrying the military load in Afghanistan to a point where it is the government of Afghanistan that takes on an ever-increasing degree of responsibility for the safety and security of its people.

That is the objective that the House should share. We should share the idea that the only long-term prospect is to make Afghanistan more capable of providing for the security and stability of its country to a point where all foreign troops can leave and all of us can get out and come home. As an alliance, how do we do that in a way that is effective and that respects the profound will of the House that our troops not be asked to engage in further combat post-2011?

I happen to think that what has been proposed is not perfect. I have some questions about it and some issues with it that I want to discuss, but, for my part, it is not a credible position for the Government of Canada to take to say that after 10 years we will not allow a single military personnel to stay behind in Afghanistan to do the job that still clearly has to be done and which we recognize has to be done. What kind of a reliable, sensible or thoughtful partner of NATO or of the United Nations would we be if we said no, that we cannot conceivably think of even doing that?

Everyone knows there is a training need. The Minister of National Defence has described it. There are lots of opportunities and ways in which we can help to train and educate. Now, is that the only thing we need to do? Not at all. I continue to say to the government, and will continue to do so, that Canada needs to be as clear a diplomatic and political partner in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, in the reconciliation with Pakistan and in the internal reconciliation that needs to take place in Afghanistan and in Pakistan as we have been a strong military player in the fighting in Afghanistan.

As the Prime and many others have said, there is no military solution. As the Secretary General of the United Nations said in his press conference last week, there is no exclusively military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan. It requires far more than that. I happen to believe it requires more on the political side, on the diplomatic side, than the government has yet been prepared to do.

I want to clarify a rumour that has been spreading around the Internet and even today on the Internet. I want to make it clear that this is not a job application on my part in any way, shape or form. I have not been offered work nor would I accept work from the government. I am not interested in doing it. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about putting the best of our diplomatic skills at work for Canada to ensure we are as effective a force for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and between those two countries as we have been on the battlefield and as we have been in the field of development.

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the whole world. It is a country that has been through 30 years of civil war. It is a country whose infrastructure has been destroyed. It is a country where whole generations have never been to school and never received any education. It is a country that has a narco-economy, of which we are all familiar, where the narcotics economy is equal to at least half of the total GDP of the country. It is a country that is a dangerous and violent place.

I heard my colleague from Saint-Jean clearly say that he has been to the funerals. Frankly, we have all been. It is tragic, terrible and horrendous to see, not only the loss of life but the loss of limb and the deep trauma that comes with battle and with fighting.

One thing we have to understand about the world we are in today is that Afghanistan is not the only place we face conflicts or are going to face them. I do not say this as somebody who relishes conflict. I do not say this as someone who in the slightest bit celebrates war or thinks that somehow war is a great or cleansing experience for countries to go through. There have been many politicians over the generations who have had such strange ideas, but I am not one of those people.

We do have to understand that, in this kind of violent world in which we live, there are corners of extremism that have been allowed to fester and there are states that are not able to effectively control their jurisdictions. The world is getting smaller, where people can get on planes and move, where ideas can move across the Internet, hateful ideas, ideas that continue to advocate the genocide of a people, ideas that continue to advocate the genocide and the elimination of an entire state, the state of Israel.

These are the events and these are the times. This is the moment in which we are living. It is a dangerous and risky peace.

The hon. member for Saint-Jean has spoken of peacekeeping missions. But do any such peacekeeping missions exist where there is no conflict? One cannot talk about keeping the peace in Somalia or eastern Congo when wars there have wiped out 6 million people. Such is the reality of our world.

This is not easy. We are all politicians and we know what people think about this issue. They are telling us that enough is enough, that our troops have been there long enough and it is time to bring them back to Canada. Like my colleagues, I have been elected to the House. I am familiar with the people’s opinion. But what poses a problem, in my view, is that I see a world where Canada has no choice but to get involved, eliminate the sources of violence in the world, eliminate the potential for a great many deaths and, indeed, eliminate the possibility of consequences even worse than those that now exist.

I am not one of those people who says we were simply there in Afghanistan to kill the bad guys. I am not one of those who thinks there was ever a military solution.

I find it ironic that, for the longest time, I was described as un-Canadian by some members opposite because I advocated very strongly for the need for us to be engaged in the process of trying to create a basis for peace and the resolution of conflict alongside the military presence.

Now that I am saying we still have a job to do to train as well as do the peace and reconciliation and do the development, all of a sudden now people say, “Oh, the Liberals are suddenly going along with the Conservatives”.

That is not how I see things. I must confess that is not how I see it. I see it as the duty of a member of Parliament from time to time to speak his mind to his colleagues and to members opposite. It is our duty to try to understand the fact that, when we look at how we are going to deal with the situation involving not only the security of Afghanistan but the safety and security of Canadians and the safety and security of people all over the world, we have an obligation not simply to see this as a matter of partisan interest but to see this as a question of national interest.

There have been many commentators from the left and from the right over the last 10 days who have said, “The Liberal Party has made a colossal political mistake”, because we have allowed a tactical advantage to members from other parties to come along our side and to take all those of our supporters who perhaps have concerns about what has been going on in Afghanistan and would like things to change more quickly.

I want to simply say to those people and to all those reporters who have made those comments, and to all those who still harbour those thoughts, that this is not about partisan advantage. We do not start talking about Afghanistan by saying that we want to do a tranche count of the electorate, that we want to see how we can cut up the electorate so we can appeal to this portion over that portion.

That is not how I saw World War II. That is not how I have seen Korea. That is not how I have seen any conflict in which we were engaged as a country. I have had issues with the government’s trying to suggest from time to time that, because we are concerned about the way in which things have happened or the way things have been conducted or have not been done, somehow we are unpatriotic in expressing those concerns.

Just as I do not accept that criticism, I do not accept for a moment the notion that somehow this is a great issue on which to divide the Canadian people and on which to try to say how can we reap partisan advantage from the challenge we face.

The combat mission is coming to an end. Let us get a grip here. We are not talking about a combat mission. We are talking about Canadians withdrawing from fighting. Do not think for a moment that all of our NATO allies are thrilled with that proposition, because they are not.

We then said we would participate in training; we will participate in colleges, staff colleges and building up the capacity. Yes we need to do more on the aid side.

I say to my colleague from Ottawa Centre: Am I satisfied with the aid package coming forward from the government? No, I am not. Do I think it is generous enough? No, I do not. Do I see huge health care needs and huge education needs and huge needs to deal with the governance crisis, and do I think what the government has put forward is adequate? No, I do not.

However that is not a basis upon which I am prepared to say that I do not support having a number of troops left behind in Kabul to do the training that is required, under the conditions that have clearly been set out and established by the parliamentary resolution, which if I may say so, this party had a hand in crafting.

Why would we not have a hand in crafting it? This mission goes beyond partisanship.

I was with my colleagues from the Conservative Party, from the Bloc and from the New Democratic Party, and my good friend from St. John’s East. We saw together what we saw in Afghanistan in June. We saw the way in which Canadian troops worked. We saw the way in which Canadian civilians worked. We saw the way in which the Afghan army responded. We were all at the same meetings. We received the same briefings.

None of us could have come away from that experience and said that it looked as though it was going to be wrapped up in 2011. What was the expression we heard about the Taliban? “You’ve got the watches; we’ve got the time.”

The terrorists do not have a timetable. The terrorists do not have resolutions that say this is what has to happen and this is the day we have to do this and we have to do that.

The terrorists have a different objective, and we need to understand that as a House. Canadians have to come to terms with the need for this continuing engagement; they have to come to terms with the need for us to stay involved and stay engaged, not at the expense of our own people, not at the expense of our democratic traditions and not at the expense of how we do business as a country, but as partners.

I will always remember the Afghan colonel who said to us at a meeting that Canadians are different, that Canadians are not imperialists and are not there as occupiers; Canadians are there as partners.

Our role in partnership is changing. It should change. It is time for it to change. I was a strong advocate for that change, publicly and privately, and I am frankly proud that I was able to be. I continue to believe that Canada’s role in partnership and in leadership in Afghanistan is ultimately going to do us far better as a country than any of the alternatives that have been proposed by some of my colleagues in the House.

National Post
Posted in: Canada, Full Comment, Policy Tags: Afghanistan, Bob Rae, Canadian Mission In Afghanistan, Congo, Peacekeeping, Somalia
 

Silver

Well-known member
Well maybe ole Bob has a brain in his head after all. Perhaps his skinny dip with Rick Mercer cleared his head :shock: :D
 
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