As we search the globe for any shred of information on our role in Afghanistan, we have just learned something else that should give all Canadians pause and demand that we pull out of there immediately.
Knowing that Stephen Harper has gotten himself mixed up with the Afghan underworld and that the women of Afghanistan claim they will never be happy until every last foreign soldier has left the country, news from Germany is that the Taliban has now infiltrated the Afghan army and are starting to turn on those training them.
Three German soldiers were killed by those they are training and there are rumblings of a mutiny. According to David Climenhaga.
You'd never know it from Canadian mainstream media coverage of the war in Afghanistan, of course, but Spiegel Online International reported yesterday that German troops in that country are in a state of near revolt against their commanders. The reason? The danger they face training Afghan soldiers who, in the words of one German trooper quoted by the magazine, "consider us to be infidels who don't belong in their country."With the rising sentiment and cries for freedom from corporate rule and viscous dictators, it's not surprising that the Afghan people are also fighting back. We are just not listening to them. Instead we buy into the hype, wear our yellow ribbons, "support the troops" and then go about our daily business.
Said another Bundeswehr soldier quoted by the English-language online edition of the German newsmagazine: "One doesn't know anymore if they will suddenly turn their weapons on you." The reason for this angst is the attack last Friday by an Afghan soldier being trained by the Germans that killed three Bundeswehr soldiers and injured six others, some of them critically. The 26-year-old Afghan attacker, who Spiegel reported is believed to be a Taliban sympathizer, was killed in a hail of return fire from the Germans' comrades. With German morale at "rock bottom," the publication said, many Germans soldiers are "now refusing to go on further patrols or missions with Afghan troops."
George Bush and Stephen Harper have always stuck to the line that those we're fighting hate our freedoms. They don't hate our freedoms so much as the fact that we are denying them theirs.
In Lawrence Martin's book Harperland, he says that Stephen Harper ascribes to the neoconservative theory of a Clash of Civilizations. But is that how you view Canada's role?
It's Ronald reagan all over again.
I will always support the individual Canadian soldiers and mourn when they return home in coffins, but I do not and will not support the idea of our troops being sent to Afghanistan, whether as fighters or trainers.
ReplyDeleteIf they are there as peacekeepers, as has been Canada's mandate for many, many years, allowing us to stand tall in the world, I will still mourn their loss as individuals, but will be proud of their role.
"Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called the Children of God."
Bringing the ugly truth back to the people
ReplyDeletesnip snip: Canadian media coverage of Afghanistan for 10 years has been the equivalent of covering news in Canada and Canadian events by having three reporters driving around in Vancouver Police cruisers on Vancouver's east side.
http://hilltimes.com/page/view/qnataylor-12-6-2010
When people like General Rick Hillier dumbed it down and said the Taliban are scumbags and murderers—absolutely true. What he failed to mention is that the guys we're propping up are also scumbags and murderers.
He says Canada is helping boost a lame duck president, the Taliban cannot be beat because it's an entity and a religious movement, and Canada is propping up "scum bags and murderers." He says Canada had an opportunity to make a real commitment to Afghanistan to reinforce literacy programs, teach vocations, and teach any trade except soldiering, but "we missed the boat."
"What we're trying to show is that this thing of us going in and training more young men how to shoot is the last thing Afghanistan needs. We didn't protect teachers as a profession and they've gone out and joined the army, so education is at a standstill.
"When you've got a 16-year-old illiterate with a Kalashnikov in a police uniform, he's not a policeman. I know that, I've got a 16-year-old son. I wouldn't give him a gun. And he can read and write. He's actually far superior. What were they thinking? ... That's a recipe for disaster. The people who thought that stuff up should be held accountable."
But everybody there is waiting for the civil war to come when it's over. They're all lining their own nests. They've all got their own private armies. We know that, but no one dares admit that this guy's unelected. We wanted to pretend that we brought democracy to the country. We didn't. We wanted to pretend that democracy works. It doesn't. The central government has never been respected or tolerated by Afghan people.
http://hilltimes.com/page/view/qnataylor-12-6-2010
"A thousand trainers. That's a hell of a lot of trainers who can't speak Pashto or Dari. What can they teach these guys without some sort of mid-level interpreter or translator? You're only going to be as good as that translator. His limited vocabulary is what limits our guys," Mr. Taylor told The Hill Times last week. "Despite what [Defence Minister] Peter MacKay says that we're well-qualified to do it, no.
"We're an incredibly professional army. Do we have it what it takes to teach fundamentalist Islamic recruits in Pashto or Dari who are illiterate? No. No, that's not something that we're well-trained in doing. And culturally, on what professional soldiers should be, they have a different mindset."
That's when we realized it's not necessarily just the military that weren't seeing the whole picture. It was a lot of our other people were over there making decisions that needed to have this perspective, at least presented to the Canadian public."
I support our soldiers too but not this war. We need to bring them home.
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