Why is Canada in Afghanistan? No,really.

  Why is Canada in Afghanistan?

   By the time Canada was seriously involved in Afghanistan (2006) George W. Bush was ready to forget about Osama bin Laden (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PGmnz5Ow-o&feature=related) so Canada was not there to "get bin Laden". In fact such efforts were spotty at best. There is evidence to suggest that it was due to internecine rivalries between U.S. forces and agencies (but that is another story).
 
   Rick Hillier, commander of Canadian forces, in a CBC interview, parroted Bushes ludicrous "because they hate our freedoms" drivel. Gordon O'Connor the Defense Minister, when asked about Canada's involvement said words to the effect: "If we don't fight them there we will have to fight them here" ( http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/07/28/231368/-Canadas-PM-Flatters-Bush) which was exactly wrong. This was the abysmal level of discourse. This was the leadership of Canada's armed forces. Mutt and Jeff.

   The U.S. claims that it brought down a regime that supported terror. First of all the terrorists had their origins in the Mujahideen that the U.S. supplied with arms (via the Pakistani ISI) in order to, in the words of  Zbigniew Brzezinski "give the Russians their Vietnam". Second the Afghan government, in fact, offered to hand over bin Laden if proof were supplied. The U.S., as is its habit, decided to shoot first and be sorry later.

    I heard an interview with a soldier that was shipping out to Afghanistan. He had lost a buddy over there and was ready to go because, otherwise his buddy would have "died for nothing". Months later, in another interview a mother, having lost her son, opined that the effort should continue else her son would have "died for nothing". The logic here appears to be that the deaths of more Canadians in Afghanistan will make it all, somehow, "for something".

   And it must actually be for something. But what? The stated reasons vary, they mix and match. "Fight terrorism", "Nation building", "Democracy", "Rights of Women" and so on. The latest version is "Train Afghanis to take over the security role". Most are not credible, others are illegitimate.

  You do not fight "terrorism" with an army. The other side does not have assets you can easily destroy or a standing army you can fight. You cannot bring democracy at the point of a gun. That's an oxymoron. You cannot build a nation in the middle of what is, in reality, a civil war. The person you are training and arming today may be shooting at you tomorrow. Whatever you may think, you are the outsider. It is in fact NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. The whole enterprise, under international law, is a war crime. And I don't care how many schools you build. They will be destroyed. I don't care how many women you "help". When it's over their lives will be somewhere between hell and the grave unless there is a massive effort to get them out.

   The purported "good guys" are not in any way "nice guys". Their attitude towards women is not all that different from the "bad guys". They are merely impeded by the presence of NATO. Many are narco-trafficers. The government itself is acknowledged to be among the, if not the most, corrupt on the face of the planet.

   So I ask again, why is Canada in Afghanistan? I mean really.

   The armed forces fall under the Department of National Defense. Are they defending the nation in Afghanistan? How? Against whom? The majority of Afghani's don't even know where or what Canada is.

   Are Canadians dying merely to give a fig leaf of legitimacy to American aspirations? Such as a pipeline from the "Stans" to Turkey? Are Canadians dying because we are "sucking up" to the U.S.? One can only imagine the behind-the-scenes pressure that was placed on the Chretien government. It was a time when Canada had refused to be one of the "willing" in Iraq and American jingoism went into overdrive. Remember how they went after the French? : "Freedom fries". Or the French's mustard commercial? : "The only thing French about us is the name". No such pressure is required on the Harper government. Like Mulroney, practically sitting on Reagan's knee, singing "Danny Boy" Harper is all too ready to worship at America's altar. To that end he has worked to make Canada's Peace Keepers into a war fighting army. An appendage of American foreign policy.
  
   And by the way, make no mistake, if it had have been Harper or if it had have been Ignatieff instead of Jean Chretien, Canada would be in Iraq today. We owe Monsieur Chretien for that at least ...big time.