08. The quagmire deepens

The quagmire deepens - Editorial

(The following article is from the September 16-30, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

People's Voice Editorial, Sept. 16-30, 2007

Even cheerleaders for the war in Afghanistan admit that the mission is going nowhere. As Globe and Mail reporter Christie Blatchford wrote on Sept. 1, "Canadian soldiers here are trapped in a loop that has the fourth iteration of troops battling for the exactly the same ground their predecessors in southern Afghanistan fought to take."

     Another Globe and Mail reporter recently pointed out that millions of aid dollars have disappeared while thousands of refugees are left to starve. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) says it transferred $39 million last year to Kandahar district, where Canadian troops are stationed, and another $100 million to the country at large. That's a tiny percentage of Canada's military spending on the mission, but still a sizable amount. However, Norine MacDonald of the Senlis Council, the international think tank which has been working in Afghanistan for two years, said on Aug. 29, "We were not able to see any substantial impact of CIDA's work in Kandahar and, as a matter of fact, we saw many instances of the extreme suffering of the Afghan people."
     Examining projects funded by CIDA, the Senlis Council found "an overcrowded and filthy hospital in Kandahar city that could provide few services to patients; refugee camps that had gone without food aid for 1 1/2 years; a construction project that employed child labour, and a displaced population struggling to survive."

     Let's sum things up. Thousands of Afghans, and dozens of Canadians and other NATO troops, are dying in this vicious cycle of killing. The aid projects which are supposed to justify the occupation are a total fiasco. All that has been accomplished in six years is to replace one group of reactionary warlords with a different group of "pro-Western" warlords.

     Yet the minority Conservative government stubbornly refuses to yield to public opinion and set a date for withdrawal of Canadian troops. We urge a big turnout to anti-war rallies planned for Oct. 27 across the country; let's send Harper a strong message - get Canada out of this U.S.-made quagmire!