http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/5300/1/32/
Canadians want to exit dirty war in Afghanistan
Even before the full impact of revelations about the treatment of prisoners
captured in Afghanistan hits home, recent polls showed that a majority of
Canadians want to end our military role in that country. The Tories and the
corporate media (including the CBC, with its massive coverage of the visit
by retired NHL players and the Stanley Cup to Kandahar) are going all-out to
support the war effort. But anti-war sentiments have crystallized as the
majority view, and further Canadian casualties seem likely to strengthen
that position.
A Strategic Counsel poll taken in April asked, "How long should Canadian
troops stay in Afghanistan?". The largest number of respondents (46%) said
"return as soon as possible; stay until original commitment in 2007 - 18%;
stay until our new commitment in 2009 - 8%; stay as long as it takes to
rebuild and stabilize the country - 5%; don't know/no answer/ refuse - 5%.
The same survey found that 57% of respondents believe that Canadians oppose
sending troops to Afghanistan, while just 36% think that Canadians support
sending troops.
Also in April, Angus Reid Strategies asked about this statement: "Canada
should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan before their mandate ends in
February 2009." 52% of respondents agreed, 34% disagreed, and 14% were not
sure.
One of the most recent polls, conducted by SES Research in early May, found
that 54.6% of respondents agreed that "If the casualties continue, Canada
should pull out of Afghanistan."
SES also asked people to rate the Harper government on this issue. 18.4% of
those surveyed agreed with the Conservative government's management of the
mission, and another 25.5% "somewhat agreed," for a total of 43.9%. That was
less than those who "disagreed" (34.0%), and another 14.3% who "somewhat
disagreed," for a total of 48.3%. Another 7.8% were "not sure."
Most of these surveys came before a story by Paul Koring in the April 25
Globe and Mail revealed in late April that "the Harper government knew from
its own officials that prisoners held by Afghan security forces faced the
possibility of torture, abuse and extrajudicial killing... But the
government has eradicated every single reference to torture and abuse in
prison from a heavily blacked-out version of a report prepared by Canadian
diplomats in Kabul and released under an access to information request."
The government denied the existence of the report until complaints to the
Access to Information Commissioner forced it to release a heavily edited
version. An unedited copy obtained by the Globe and Mail states that
"Extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without
trial are all too common."
The Foreign Affairs report ("Afghanistan-2006; Good Governance, Democratic
Development and Human Rights") "seems to remove any last vestige of doubt
that the senior officials and ministers knew that torture and abuse were
rife in Afghan jails," Koring wrote.
The findings are similar to reports by Louise Arbour, the UN Human Rights
Commissioner, the U.S. State Department, the Afghanistan Independent Human
Rights Commission, and various international human-rights groups. But the
information had a huge impact in Parliament, where the Harper government
veered wildly between claims that it was not aware of the fate of detainees,
to the attitude that such detainees were guilty and deserved to face torture
and death.
Most seriously for the government, the information makes it clear that
Canada has refused to adhere to the Geneva Conventions rules for
safeguarding transferred detainees from torture and abuse. The report, said
Koring, "makes repeated dark references to the reputation and performance of
Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, or intelligence police,"
which receives most prisoners captured by Canadian troops.
With the blood of Afghan detainees on its hands, it will now become even
more difficult for the federal government to pose as the "defender of human
rights" in Afghanistan.
That problem will become even more critical for supporters of the war if the
full truth about the situation of women in Afghanistan becomes more widely
known.
In an April 10 speech in Los Angeles, courageous female Afghan MP Malalai
Joya told listeners that "The US government removed the ultra-reactionary
and brutal regime of Taliban, but instead of relying on Afghan people,
pushed us from the frying pan into the fire and selected its friends from
among the most dirty and infamous criminals of the `Northern Alliance',
which is made up of the sworn enemies of democracy and human rights, and are
as dark-minded, evil, and cruel as the Taliban....
"Today the Northern alliance leaders are the key power holders and our
people are hostage in the hands of these ruthless gangs of killers. Many of
them are responsible for butchering tens of thousands of innocent people in
the past two decades but are in power and hold key positions in the
government."
Joya listed a few of the key power-holders of Afghanistan, including
Vice-President Karim Khalili, leader of the Wahdat pro-Iran party,
responsible for killing thousands of innocent people, and named by Human
Rights Watch as a war criminal; minister of water and power Ismael Khan,
another killer warlord; Izzatullah Wasifi, Afghanistan's anti-corruption
chief, a convicted drug trafficker who served time in a Nevada state prison;
General Mohammed Daoud, Afghanistan's deputy interior minister in charge of
the anti-drug effort, a former warlord and famous drug-trafficker; Rashid
Dostum, the chief of staff of the Afghan army, named by Human Rights Watch
as a war criminal; Qasim Fahim, a Senator and adviser to Hamid Karzai, and
the most powerful warlord of the Northern Alliance.
"Afghans are deeply fed-up with the current situation and every day that
passes they turn against the government, the foreign troops and the
warlords," said Joya. "And the Taliban make use of it to increase their
influence and acts of terror...
"Seven hundred children and 50-70 women die on a daily basis because of a
lack of health services. Infant and maternal mortality rates are still very
high - 1,600 to 1,900 women among each 100,000 die during childbirth. Life
expectancy is less than 45 years.
"The number of suicide cases by Afghan women was never as high as it is
today: A month ago eighteen year old Samiya, hung herself by a rope because
she was to be sold to a sixty year old man. Another woman called Bibi Gul
locked herself up in the animals' stable and burned herself to death. Later
her family found nothing except her bones...
"According to a UNIFEM survey, 65% of the 50,000 widows in Kabul see suicide
as the only option to get rid of their misery. UNIFEM estimates that at
least one out of three Afghan women has been beaten, forced into sex or
otherwise abused..."
Such information helps increasing numbers of Canadians to understand that
the news from the dirty war in Afghanistan is not going to get better. Just
as the U.S. role in the destruction of Iraq has dragged George W. Bush to
the depths of public opinion polls, Afghanistan may well become the death
knell of the Harper minority government.
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