The Case Against War        
Doug Nesbit is a graduate of Carleton and is currently a Masters student at Trent University. Mat Nelson is a graduate of Trent and a Masters student at Carleton. Both are members of the Student Coalition Against War.

The Canadian government claims we are in Afghanistan for reconstruction, establishing democracy and expanding human rights, particularly for women. What is the real record of occupation over the past seven years? Have the occupation forces, including Canada, helped Afghanistan?

Reconstruction?
The financial cost to Canadians of military engagement in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2007 was $6.1 billion, compared to $1.2 billion authorized for development for the years 2002-2011.

The Senlis Council, an international think tank, claims that the contribution of Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to the mission in Afghanistan is virtually non-existent.
In Kandahar, this agency employs only three people compared to the twelve public relations staff employed by the Department of National Defence.  In other words, the government spends four times as much on staff to convince Canadians that reconstruction is occurring, than it spends on staff related to actual reconstruction itself. 

Due to the nature of militarized ‘aid,’ some NGOs have been forced to stop their humanitarian work or leave the country altogether. Human Rights Watch reports that by January 2004, the international community had spent $4 billion on aid but only $200 million of this had produced any completed projects. 

Even the World Bank admits there is widespread corruption.  Like Iraq, aid money is siphoned off by Western corporations through cheap sub-contracting and bloated government contracts. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for example, gives contracts to multi-national corporations who take huge chunks off the top by hiring layers of subcontractors. It is also well known that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank tie their aid to ‘structural adjustment programs’ (SAPs), resulting in the privatization of essential services and massive debt for recipient countries. Why should we expect Afghanistan to be any different?  What this amounts to is ‘free market’ fundamentalist destruction, not reconstruction.

Democracy?
It is claimed that the new government in Afghanistan, led by Hamid Karzai, is democratic. Why, then, is Karzai’s cabinet and the Afghan parliament full of warlords? Human Rights Watch estimates 60% of the MPs are either warlords, or have close ties to the warlords and drug lords.  Kathy Gannon is an Associated Press reporter who worked in Afghanistan for more than 15 years.  She has described the current government as “the biggest collection of mass murderers you’ll ever get in one place.”

After the fall of the Taliban, an interim government was installed by Western interests in the Bonn Agreement of 2001.  Hamid Karzai was selected leader of a regime comprising of mostly handpicked warlords, drug-traffickers, and other criminals. Karzai himself was Deputy Foreign Minister for the Taliban government from 1992 to 1994.

Nearly three years later, Karzai’s rule was seemingly legitimated through a presidential election.  But how legitimate was this election?

It was postponed twice and candidates running against Karzai complained of widespread fraud and intimidation.  The Americans took no chances to ensure Karzai’s continuing rule. The heavily-guarded US ambassador to Afghanistan visited many of his opponents and pressured them to drop out of the campaign. The chief opponent was the notorious warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. 

“The financial cost to Canadians of military engagement in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2007 was $6.1 billion, compared to $1.2 billion authorized for development for the years 2002-2011.”

As soon as Karzai was elected, he brought the Northern Alliance warlords into cabinet.  These were the same war criminals who fought the bloody civil war of 1992-96 which killed 50,000 civilians in Kabul alone.  It was precisely the brutality of the warlords that provided the Taliban the support they needed to seize power.  The Northern Alliance government is repressive, misogynist and anti-democratic.  They are as violent and corrupt as the Taliban ever were, and sometimes even worse.  Warlords still remain backed by Western governments who seem to care little about their human rights records.

Women’s Rights?
With the presence of warlords in the Afghan government, it is no surprise that the leading advocates of women’s rights in Afghanistan deny they have been liberated by the West.  The most outspoken female MP in Afghanistan is Malalai Joya.  When she denounced the warlords sitting in parliament, she was physically attacked by other MPs.  Bottles were thrown at her and she also received death threats.  One MP even shouted, “prostitute, take her and rape her!” When she continued to speak out, Karzai’s government withdrew her bodyguards.  If this happens to an MP, what happens to other women?
She has said: “unlike the propaganda raised by certain Western media, Afghan women and men are not liberated at all.” On the one side we have the Northern Alliance, who are pro-US terrorists, and on the other side the Taliban, who are anti-US terrorists.  Our people are the victims.”
The leading women’s rights group in Afghanistan, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), reveal that incidents of rape and suicide have increased among Afghan women. In the first six months of 2007 alone, 250 female suicides were reported. 
 
End it, Don’t Extend it!
Wars and imperialist rivalries have a long history in Afghanistan.  The reasons for the current occupation also relate to economic and geo-political interests, not humanitarianism. 

Afghanistan acted as a stepping stone to Iraq, the centerpiece of the Bush Administration’s plans for reasserting strategic power in the Middle East and Central Asia. Many corporations, including mining, defence contractors, and oil and gas companies, have a vested interest i continuing this war.

These strategic goals are no secret, and have been outlined publicly by leading American strategists, such as Kissinger, Brzezinski and Cheney’s think-tank, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).  Troops are dying and killing Afghanis to help ensure the stability of Canada’s relationship to the United States.

Counter-insurgency campaigns will only exacerbate resistance and further deepen the crisis in Afghanistan.  Civilian deaths have reached alarming levels. Aerial bombardment and other sorts of tragedies only serve to unite Afghans around the Taliban. 

“One MP even shouted, ‘prostitute, take her and rape her!’
When she continued to speak out,
Karzai’s government withdrew her bodyguards. 
If this happens to an MP, what happens to other women?”

It was only recently, moreover, that the public learned that Canadian forces stopped handing over detainees to US and Afghan forces, which are complicit in widespread, systematic torture and abuse in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. This does nothing to win ‘hearts and minds.’