Canada deeper into Afghan quagmire
By Nauman Mir
The Canadian military base in Kabul, Afghanistan
called Camp Julien was officially dismantled on the same day the Liberal
government of Paul Martin fell in Ottawa.
From the relative safety of Kabul, Canadian troops
are now headed into the heart of the resistance to occupation in
Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is a primary front for Canadian
militarism, a fact that Martin would prefer stay hidden in the run-up to
the January 23 election.
Currently about 970 Canadian troops are in
Afghanistan. Seven hundred and seventy have now been moved from Kabul to
the city of Kandahar. Another 200 are in an undisclosed location in
“southwest Asia”. The Department of National Defence is keeping
their location a secret, probably because they are members of
Canada’s secretive commando unit, the Joint Task Force 2 (JTF 2).
By February 2006, around 2,000 Canadian troops will
be in Kandahar (the same number that was sent to Kabul after 9/11) which
has always been a stronghold of the Taliban. For the first time in their
four-year deployment, Canadian troops are now involved in combat operations
along with their American counterparts.
A Canadian soldier, Private Braun Scott Woodfield
from Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia, died last week in a road accident in
Kandahar.
The military denied that this was a combat casualty.
But when you are in hostile territory, driving fast
(out of fear of attack) on poorly maintained roads – the risk of
“accidents” increases exponentially. Woodfield is a casualty of
Martin’s war, and his death is an early sign that Canadians are now
in hostile territory where the risk of attacks and accidents is much higher
than Kabul.
Canadian land forces Commander Major General Andrew
Leslie warned a few months ago that: “every time you kill an angry
young man overseas you’re creating 15 more who will come after you.
You have to be prepared for the consequences”. But despite this
warning he proclaimed in his now famous statement “Afghanistan is a
20-year venture”.
Like Leslie, Martin knows full well the consequences
of military deployment in Afghanistan – deaths of Afghani civilians,
Canadian soldiers in Kandahar and (potentially) deaths of civilians here at
home.
But the Liberals’ foreign policy remains the
same.
Canada has not yet had a terrorist attack. But the
likelihood grows every day that our military participates in an imperialist
occupation oversees.
The current military operation (called
“Operation Archer”), was announced days after the July 7
bombings in London, England. It was meant to show Canadians as well as the
American empire that Canada is doing everything it can to “fight
terrorism.”
Terrorism will only increase by these deployments
because fighting terror with terror is not a solution. The solution is to
pull all Canadian troops from Afghanistan, not because of a fear of
terrorism but because
this policy does not deal with the main cause of
terrorism – foreign occupation.