Articles found June 26, 2007
Living a lie over Afghanistan
By Jordan Michael Smith Tue, June 26, 2007
Article Link
The controversy over the proposed (but ultimately unsuccessful) removal of ribbon-shaped decals from Toronto city vehicles showing support for Canadian troops in Afghanistan underscores how unpopular this war is becoming.
Canada wants out. That's the message of a June 10 poll by Decima Research. Only 1 in 4 Canucks believe Canada should stay in Afghanistan longer than February 2009, even if "that is necessary to complete our goals there." Sixty-seven percent think "we need to do our best to accomplish progress in Afghanistan but that we must stick to the deadline and get our troops out."
The poll also shows that most Canadians think we're doing a good job rebuilding Afghanistan, but that we're not doing such a good job of battling terrorism.
Let's get something straight here. The real internationalists are those who want to stay in Afghanistan. They believe Canada, as a wealthy, safe country, should continue to rebuild a nation that has been marred by civil war, even if that means Canada suffers casualties. Such casualties, they think, are outweighed by the number of Afghan lives Canada is saving.
No benefit
The isolationists, the ones who are only concerned with Canada's immediate interests, are among the ones who want out. Remember that most Canadians think Afghanistan is being rebuilt, they just don't think Canada is benefiting.
I don't doubt that among those who think we should leave are those who think Canada is just killing Afghans and not helping the country, though the poll shows they're in the minority. But they are wrong.
A Johns Hopkins University study shows the mortality rate in Afghanistan has decreased to the point where 40,000 babies per year have been saved since the Taliban was toppled.
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion in April, in the House: "As long as our NATO allies believe Canada's commitment in Kandahar to be open-ended, they will never prepare for our departure ... Canadians do not want an open-ended war ... By February 2009, we will have served the people of (Afghanistan) for seven years ...We will have served them in a full combat role for three years, in the most dangerous part of the country."
There are many ways to interpret Dion's ideas, but internationalism is not one of them.
Internationalism is not 'we will help you for a while' or 'we will help you as long as we don't take casualties.' It is, 'we will do whatever we can to help you beat the Taliban.' It is looking at the cost/benefit of us being in Afghanistan. And there is simply no way one can think the number of civilians we kill is too big a cost for the benefit of saving 40,000 babies a year.
Abandonment
If Canadians want a change in strategy, focusing less on military measures, that's one thing. It happens to be the position I hold -- every civilian we kill makes things harder, and the Americans, especially, rely on air strikes far too often.
But abandoning Afghanistan is not a change in strategy; it's an abandonment of strategy. Canadians want to leave because they are uncomfortable taking casualties in a foreign country with slow, hard-to-measure progress.
If Canadians don't want to take the internationalist position, they should at least be honest with themselves. Canadians want to look after themselves. They shouldn't fancy themselves humanitarians for abandoning Afghanistan to a medieval theocracy. That we can be both internationalists and isolationists is impossible. It's a lie, and one for which I want no part.
www.jordanmichaelsmith.com
End
Serving coffee in Kandahar
By JOE WARMINGTON June 25, 2007
Article Link
She has had the rare honour of serving her country at the same time as serving those who serve.
And Julie Brown, amongst many other brave civilians who have done a tour in Afghanistan, is a special kind of war veteran.
"It was life changing," said Brown, who has been back from Kandahar just one week after six months of working in the famous Tim Hortons franchise at the Kandahar Airfield. "I was so proud to be able to do my part to help these fine men and women who sacrifice so much."
The 34-year-old Cookstown mother of two sacrificed as well.
For six months she put herself in harm's way to take the job at the Tim's in a war zone.
"My kids wanted me to do it," she said. "And I really wanted to do my part."
"We are so proud of her," her boyfriend, Ed Knox, said. "We were fully behind her decision right from the beginning."
She had a call to service.
"But not everybody can join the military and be a soldier," Brown said. "This was what I could do."
She had worked as an assistant manager at a Tim Hortons in Newmarket for seven years and knew the ropes. But it did not prepare her for what would go on in Kandahar.
More on link
Taliban's deadly new tacticNATO says insurgents launch attacks, then run to hide behind civilians
By ALISA TANG, AP June 25, 2007
Article Link
KABUL — Taliban fighters attack American or NATO forces in populated areas, then retreat to civilian homes. Western forces respond with massive firepower or an air strike.
That increasingly common pattern of clashes has led to a climbing number of civilian deaths and rising anger among Afghan officials and ordinary people. While militants killed 178 civilians in attacks through June 23, western forces killed 203, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and international officials.
Exact counts are nearly impossible in the chaos of war. Separate figures from the United Nations and an umbrella organization of Afghan and international aid groups show that, through May 31, the number of civilians killed by international forces was roughly equal to those killed by insurgents.
What is clear is the political fallout: President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly pleaded with foreign troops to exercise caution and work more closely with Afghan forces, who might be able to minimize civilian casualties because of their knowledge of the terrain. On Saturday, he denounced the Taliban for killing civilians but directed most of his anger at foreign forces for being careless and viewing Afghan lives as “cheap.”
“Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such,” Karzai said.
NATO defends its right to fire on anyone who fires at its troops first, noting that it is not intentionally targeting civilians, as the Taliban sometimes does. The U.S.-led coalition suggested that many civilians reportedly killed by international troops may in fact have been killed by insurgents.
But such arguments fail to address the growing Afghan anger, said Michael Shaikh, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Afghanistan.
More on link
Afghans resist camp closure, forced return to Afghanistan
Article Link
* Many claim to be Pakistanis and demand their homes be spared
JUNGLE PIR ALIZAI: Afghans living in the Jungle Pir Alizai refugee camp are resisting the government’s enforced closure of the camp because many are reluctant to return to a country at war while others claim they are Pakistanis.
The authorities want to shut down the refugee camp and send its residents to Afghanistan, because they say the camp is infested with militants, guns and drugs. The camp in southwest Pakistan was first setup in 1979 during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and according to the government has lately become a haven for the Taliban. It is one of four such camps scheduled for closure this year.
The UN refugee agency, which is running a voluntary repatriation programme for Afghans, refused to help the camp in 2005 after its lost its “humanitarian value”, an agency official said. “It could no longer be considered, by UNHCR standards, a humanitarian camp. There was trafficking of arms, drugs and miscreants were living there,” said the official.
However, the closure of the camp is facing resistance. Many Afghans say they don’t want to return to a country at war, while other inhabitants say they are not even Afghans, but Pakistanis – and they have the identification to prove it. One resident, Ahmedullah, has spent his entire life as a refugee in Pakistan and says he desperately wants to go him. But the war is preventing him from returning. “Give us peace and we will go home,” he said.
Abdul Ghani, 65, said many people had been killed, including hundreds of Taliban militants, by NATO forces in his home region of Panjwai, in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar.
More on link
Afghanistan's poppy crop could yield more than 2006's record haul, UN says
The Associated Press Monday, June 25, 2007
Article Link
KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghanistan's poppy crop this year could yield even more opium than last year's record harvest because of favorable weather conditions, a United Nations official said Monday.
Afghanistan's opium crop grew 59 percent in 2006 to 407,000 acres, yielding a record crop of 6,100 tons, enough to make 610 tons of heroin — 90 percent of the world's supply, according to the U.N.
"The yield is likely to go up because of the good weather conditions we've had for all agriculture in this country, so I fear that we will be faced with the same amount as last year, perhaps even a little bit more," said Christina Gynna Oguz, the representative in Afghanistan for the U.N.'s Office on Drugs and Crime.
Western and Afghan officials say they expect a similar crop this year.
Oguz said there are close links between Taliban insurgents and criminal networks that deal in drugs. A significant portion of the profits from the US$3.1 billion trade is thought to flow to Taliban fighters, who tax and protect poppy farmers and drug runners.
Oguz said Afghanistan is producing more heroin and morphine than last year because there are more active labs inside the country that are importing chemicals from European countries and China.
She said by flying over opium-producing areas at night, you "would see a lot of small fires in the mountains" from heroin labs.
More on link
