Afghanistan: NATO soliciting bids for PSYOPS radio network

 

 

Copyright 2006 British Broadcasting Corporation All Rights Reserved BBC Monitoring World Media Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring

 

August 16, 2006 Wednesday

 

LENGTH: 348 words

 

HEADLINE: Afghanistan: NATO soliciting bids for PSYOPS radio network

 

BODY:

 

 

Text of report in English by Radio Netherlands website on 14 August

 

The NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) has announced that it intends to advertise for international competitive bidding on works and services within the framework of the NATO Security Investment Programme. Eligible firms will be invited to provide bids on a request for quotation in relation to the provision of Stages 3 & 4 of the Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) Radio Network for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

 

The goal of the PSYOPS network is to create a supporting atmosphere among the Afghan leadership and population in support of the objectives of the ISAF expanded mission.

 

NC3A is serving as the host nation for this project, which was authorized by the NATO Infrastructure Committee.

 

Within the ISAF area of operations, a radio network is required to receive the central programme from Kabul and re-broadcast it locally to reach specified Provincial Reconstruction Team PRT regions.

 

In addition, at the regional command level, a network must support alternative broadcast of regionally produced programmes to their subordinated PRT's. PSYOPS transmitters located at PRT's will be linked with a radio studio through VSAT very small aperture terminal, an earthbound station used in the transmission of data, voice and video signals.

 

This project will extend the PSYOPS radio network to the 17 PRT locations, in the southern and eastern region of Afghanistan.

 

The radio network will require the following components: - 5 kW kilowatt commercial FM band radio transmitters with 20m metre masts and antennas - CIS shelters with heating and air-conditioning to accommodate the FM transmitters - generators and uninterruptible power supply units - audio processing and VSAT capability adaptation equipment - 1 kW FM transmitters (for repeater locations) with 20m masts, antennas, VSAT receivers, and demodulators. Capability must be operational within the commercial FM band from 87.5 to 107.0 MHz.

 

Source: Radio Netherlands website, Hilversum, in English 0900 gmt 14 Aug 06

 

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Karzai Hints He Won't Run for 2nd Term

http://tinyurl.com/zdg77 (SF Chronicle)

 

Wednesday, August 9, 2006

(08-09) 11:22 PDT KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) --

 

Afghanistan's first democratically elected president, Hamid Karzai, strongly hinted in an interview that he will not run for another term in office. Karzai became Afghanistan's transitional leader soon after the Taliban regime's ouster in late 2001, then was chosen as its first democratically elected president in late 2004, with a five-year term. The next election is slated for 2009. "Let other people get a chance to run," Karzai told Fortune magazine in an interview. His spokesman, Khaleeq Ahmed, said Wednesday the article was accurate and properly characterized the president's views. Karzai, who easily won at the presidential polls nearly two years ago, has seen his popularity decline because of slow progress in reconstructing the war-battered country and poor security — notably an upsurge in Taliban attacks this year in the volatile south. Despite the violence, he told Fortune that the government controls "the whole country" and that it is mostly secure. He claimed success in building Afghanistan's economy but conceded that corruption was rife, that "lots of people" in his administration profited from the drugs trade and that he had underestimated the task of eradicating opium poppy cultivation. Karzai said the international community weakened his government by rewarding pro-U.S. warlords for their role in the Taliban's ouster, but insisted no warlords were in his administration. Karzai's Cabinet includes mujahedeen leaders, who fought against Soviet occupation and in the collapse into anarchy that followed. Karzai said he was proud that incomes had risen during his presidency, but added, "We are still among the poorest in the world. While we have better roads, we are still the worst in the world. While we have improved our supply of electricity, we are still the worst in the world."

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http://tinyurl.com/fn4d6 [Wash. Post] Kabul Wilts Under Power Cuts Afghan Capital's Battered Infrastructure Is Further Strained by Growing Demand By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, August 10, 2006; A10

 

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Neon palm trees and fountains flicker outside new wedding salons, and brightly lit boutiques line glass-walled shopping centers in the Afghan capital's commercial heart -- all powered by huge private generators that cost a fortune to operate.

 

But darkness falls swiftly on entire districts of the impoverished outskirts of Kabul that have no electricity. Here children trudge along alleys lugging gas cylinders to be refilled for cooking or car batteries to be charged so their families can watch an hour of television.

 

While officials are readying plans to import electricity over the snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains from Central Asia by 2009, tens of thousands of Kabul households are enduring another sweltering summer without fans or refrigerators, and looking ahead to a high-altitude winter without hot water or heat.

 

"I hate it every time the generator runs out of fuel, because then the light goes off and the scorpions come out and walk on the floor near the children," said Raisa, 20, a clerk's wife and mother of three who lives in Karte Nau, a maze of adobe houses and dirt paths rising above the city. "We save up to buy one liter, and after an hour or so it's gone."

 

The energy crisis has focused growing anger at the government of President Hamid Karzai, who last year appointed a former militia leader and governor with no technical experience as minister of energy and water. Many Kabul residents say they do not understand why, nearly five years after the overthrow of Taliban rule, and with the influx of millions of dollars in foreign aid, the government cannot even light the capital.

 

Even in more affluent neighborhoods, city-supplied electricity has been reduced this year from about 23 hours a day to five hours every other night. Families cram all their cooking, washing and studying into short, frustrating stints under a couple of dim bulbs.

 

Officials here say the cause of the shortage is an antiquated urban infrastructure, damaged by years of war, that has failed to keep up with the power demands of a city population that has swelled from half a million when the Taliban were overthrown to nearly 4 million today.

 

This year, nature and technical problems have exacerbated the situation. A drought sharply lowered water levels in reservoirs behind two hydroelectric dams, and one of two huge gas turbines that provide power to the city broke down.

 

Relying on a single gas turbine and 25 costly diesel generators, for which the United States is providing $110 million worth of fuel, officials say they have had no choice but to severely ration electricity throughout the capital in the past six months.

 

In the mountains north of Kabul, work is just beginning on overhead transmission lines that are to bring 150 megawatts of power from Central Asia. The $300 million project is being financed by the government of India and the Asian Development Bank. A second project, a natural gas power plant in northern Afghanistan to be built with U.S. aid, is still on the drawing boards.

 

"We have an extremely tough situation, and it will take another two years before those transmission lines are completed," said Gulla Jan Hairan, planning chief for the Ministry of Energy and Water. "People can't pump water to wash, students can't study. We are doing our best to fill the gap, but we are sure we will not be able to provide heat for all the people this winter, so we are asking other ministries to distribute coal and liquid gas to homes."

 

Authorities have tried to promote energy conservation, but they have had little success, in part because the fees for public electricity are so low. Domestic households pay a penny per kilowatt-hour for the first

600 kilowatts; commercial facilities pay about 10 times more.

 

Last month, the government proposed doubling fuel prices, with the goal of helping finance both the temporary power supply and long-term development. The political backlash was so intense that the idea was temporarily dropped.

 

"I remember before the civil war, we had power 24 hours a day. Now we can't even make tea or keep the clothes clean, and I have to send my daughter out for gas so we can cook dinner on a burner," said Faiz Murza, 62, a retired importer who lives in Kabul's Old City, a district of once-elegant homes ruined by war. "If Mr. Karzai had no power in his house for five days, what would he do?"

 

American aid officials here defended the government, saying Afghan authorities are working closely with foreign donors to develop a long-term, reliable power supply, which will cost a fraction of the current outlays for generator fuel.

 

"There is a full court press on, but there is a gap in the pipeline of power," said Leon S. Waskin, the U.S. Agency for International Development's mission director for Afghanistan. "The donors and the government are working hard and collaboratively to bring long-term power to Kabul. Everyone is working as fast as they can be reasonably expected to work."

 

Among residents, though, the power crisis has become fertile ground for jokes on radio dramas and call-in programs -- one story has it that a father beat his daughter for breaking a bulb that refused to turn on. It also has created a nightly cultural phenomenon in which thousands of Kabul families rush to charge batteries or buy generator fuel so they can watch the popular Indian-made TV drama "Tulsi" at 8 p.m.

 

In photocopy shops, proprietors save money by switching their generators off between each customer. In workshops along the main boulevard of the Old City, men squat among tangles of jury-rigged cables and small generators as they weld doors or fill punctured tires.

 

"Our generator is too heavy to carry to construction sites, and we are not allowed to operate in the fancy neighborhoods that have better power," said Mohammed Isaac, 24, who hand-fabricates metal door and window grills. "This is our homeland, so we can endure anything, but we wonder where all the foreign money went that was supposed to bring us power."

 

One form of enterprise that has flourished in the crisis is the neighborhood battery-chargers, who get about 70 cents a day per customer. In the morning, customers drop off their dead batteries, and in the evening, on the way home, they pick them up charged.

 

"If you turn on a color TV, it lasts a day. If you turn on a black-and-white TV, it lasts a week. If you turn on a single light bulb, it lasts a month," said Mohammed Shafiq, 35, a former army officer who now spends his days guarding a sidewalk array of batteries. "Look at all the money coming into this country," he said with disgust. "It all goes into certain pockets, while the rest of us are living in darkness."

 

Residents of Karte Nau, one of the city's poorest and darkest districts, live with a double daily insult. A row of new power poles and lines runs across their neighborhood, for which some families have paid up to $250 for a connection, but none has received electricity yet. When they peer down from their huts at night, they see a row of ornate new mansions beside the main boulevard, lit up like a holiday party.

 

Perhaps the only advantage of their hillside address, residents say, is the mountain air that brings cooling breezes on summer nights.

 

"You can see how we are living now, like a camp," said Mir Qalam, 37, a police officer and father of five whose house is a steep, winding climb up the Karte Nau paths. "We can't afford a generator, so we have to find other ways. We use firewood to boil water, we use hand fans to keep cool in the day, and at night we all sleep on the roof."

 

 

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http://tinyurl.com/q59lw

 

Toronto Sun July 2, 2006

 

Afghanistan: No place for Canada

 

Foreign invaders will never control the fierce Pashtun tribesmen of Afghanistan

 

By Eric Margolis

 

The war in Afghanistan that was supposedly won has resumed -- with a vengeance. Fighting is reportedly intensifying and spreading across southern Afghanistan as resistance to foreign occupation grows.

 

In 2001, unable to withstand high-tech U.S. forces, the Taliban leader Mullah Omar ordered his men to disband and blend into the civilian population. At the time, this column warned war would resume in about four years, just as it did after the 1979 Soviet invasion.

 

Now, Taliban forces have taken the offensive against U.S. and NATO troops, often employing deadly new tactics like roadside and suicide bombs, learned from Iraq's resistance.

 

Significantly, the Taliban have been joined by many other political and tribal groups. Prominent among them: Hisbi Islami, led by former CIA protege Gulbadin Hekmatyar -- the most effective guerilla leader in the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad -- and renowned mujahadin leader, Jallaludin Haqqi.

 

Small numbers of foreign jihadis have also come to fight. Most important, growing numbers of "khels," or clans of the Pashtun (Pathan) tribe -- the world's largest tribal group, numbering 40 million -- have joined the resistance.

 

Pashtuns comprise half of Afghanistan's population of 30 million; 28 million more live across the border in Pakistan.

 

The U.S./NATO campaign is increasingly directed against warlike Pashtun tribes like the Afridi and Orokzai, and their civilians, rather than against so-called "Taliban terrorists."

 

Only fools pick fights with Pashtuns.

 

Until recently, millions of dollars in monthly cash bribes from the CIA to Afghan warlords kept key areas under the nominal authority of the U.S.-installed Hamid Karzai regime. But that authority barely extends beyond the capital, Kabul.

 

Bodyguards 24/7

 

Karzai's popularity among Afghans is best judged by the fact that he is surrounded 24/7 by 100-200 U.S. bodyguards kept just out of range of western TV cameras.

 

The Soviets built schools, clinics, and roads in Afghanistan, held "democratic" elections and branded the resistance "Islamic terrorists." The U.S./NATO occupation follows an identical pattern, complete with candy for kids, platitudes about women's rights and nation-building, and rigged elections.

 

But the westerners won't be any more successful in winning hearts and minds of Afghans than the Russians -- particularly once Washington begins to cut back on the mission.

 

The biggest difference between the Soviet and U.S. occupation is that since 1989, Afghanistan has become a total narco-state. Close to 80% of national income comes from export of opium and morphine/heroin. Washington's allies (the Karzai regime and Afghan communists) are believed to be up to their turbans in the drug trade.

 

Sending troops to Afghanistan was marketed to Americans -- and Canadians -- as a crusade against terrorism, with nation-building as a sub-theme. Blaming "terrorists" for the current upsurge in fighting obscures the natural and inevitable growth of resistance to foreign occupation.

 

Unbelievable claims

 

Claims by Washington and its allies that political progress is being made in Afghanistan are unbelievable. Many Afghans working for the foreign occupation are secretly in touch with the resistance.

 

Of course. Afghans know one day the Americans, Canadians, and other foreigners will go home, just as did the Russians, British and Alexander's Greeks.

 

What Canada hopes to gain by waging a 19th-century style colonial campaign of "pacification" straight out of the pages of Rudyard Kipling, against wild Pashtun tribesmen in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, remains to be satisfactorily explained.

 

margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com

 

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http://dominionpaper.ca/canadian_news/2006/06/25/canadian_t.html

 

Canadian troops knock down doors, interrogate civilians in Afghanistan: New footage

 

French-language Montreal newspaper La Presse reported on Thursday that Canadian military forces in Afghanistan are ransacking villages, knocking down doors, and interrogating civilians in their search for Taliban. It is, wrote reporter Hugo de Grandpré, the end of innocence for Canadian troops.

 

The report was based on new, "unedited" footage broadcast by the television station France 2 on Wednesday night.

 

According to La Presse, the footage shows both tough and soft versions of Canada's warning to civilians they fear could become Taliban militants. Footage of the "tough" version shows a Canadian soldier telling an audience of a few "silent men" that "my soldiers are very well trained. They are excellent shots, and you will die."

 

And the soft version. According to La Presse, soldiers are shown brandishing a wad of money, asking men where Taliban operatives are hiding. The response, however, is cold: "That's nice of you, but we don't want your money. This is our country. And with all of our strength, we will protect it."

 

In another sequence of footage, La Presse reports that Canadian soldiers are shown knocking down doors with their feet. "Women and an old man leave. The man, who has a long white beard, is insulted."

 

The soldier says to him, "too bad for you if you don't want to tell us where the Taliban are."

 

The La Presse report comes on the heels of criticism leveled against Canada by Afghani President and former UNOCAL advisor Hamid Karzai. According to a Canadian Press report, Karzai "called on the coalition to rethink its strategy of fighting terrorism, saying the killing of hundreds of Afghans was not acceptable."

 

"Even if they are Taliban," Karzai was quoted as saying, "they are sons of this land."

 

According to the report, Major Nancy Hansen, a Canadian Task Force spokesperson, said that "Karzai's remarks do not change the coalition's long-term approach toward helping rebuild Afghan society."

 

Dru Oja Jay

 

» La Presse: Les soldats canadiens en Afghanistan pour tuer

 

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http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=9268

 

ZNet | Terror War

 

Detestable murderers and scumbags

 

Canada in Afghanistan

 

by Justin Podur and Sonali Kolhatkar; Briarpatch; December 05, 2005

 

On July 11, 2005, WITH great nuance and tact, Canada's Chief of Defence Staff General Hillier described the forces arrayed against the NATO mission in Afghanistan: "These are detestable murderers and scumbags, I'll tell you that right up front. They detest our freedoms, they detest our society, they detest our liberties."

 

This was not Canadian officialdom's typical line on operations abroad. Canada's Haiti mission, for example, is framed in terms of "helping" Haitians with democracy. Although the Prime Minister's Special Advisor on Haiti, Denis Coderre, occasionally uses violent language about "terrorists"

(following the normal practice of presenting such labels without evidence) to describe Haiti's ousted Lavalas government, for the most part Canada's foreign policy is presented to the public as "peacekeeping," helping those "failed states" to build "capacity." Canadian military operations are likewise presented as somehow peaceable.

 

Hillier was explicitly trying to dispel this image, and not merely with the tactics of demonization ("detestable scumbags"), fear and racism ("they detest our freedoms"), and repetition ("they detest our liberties"). Hillier also wanted to dispel perceptions of the Canadian military as a peaceable, humanitarian force in world affairs: "We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people."

 

Hillier continued the fear campaign: "Osama bin Laden, some time ago, indicated Canada was a target," he said on Canadian TV. "As a responsible citizen of the world, we have been involved in the campaign against terrorism, and, of course, we try to bring stability to places that are unstable and therefore have acted as hotbeds for supporting terrorism. All that, I think, does make us a target."

 

To use military language, Hillier created an "opening" that Major General Andrew Leslie exploited at a conference in August called "Handcuffs and Hand Grenades." "Afghanistan is a 20-year venture," he said, but "there are things worth fighting for. There are things worth dying for. There are things worth killing for." Explaining why Canada had to be in Afghanistan for 20 years, Leslie said it was because "every time you kill an angry young man overseas, you're creating 15 more who will come after you."

 

It doesn't take a military genius to recognize that Hillier and Leslie are making self-contradictory statements. If every time Canada kills someone overseas it's creating 15 "angry young men," does that make those 15 people "detestable scumbags?" If killing is so incredibly counterproductive, does it make sense to proudly announce that "our job is to be able to kill people?" And if every killing of these "detestable scumbags" creates 15 more enemies, should that really be considered a goal "worth killing for?"

 

Hillier and Leslie's comments can be understood as media operations intended to legitimize a more aggressive military role for Canada in the world. That their speeches sound like warmed-over propaganda scripts of American neoconservatives should not be surprising, since the US is the only possible contemporary model Canada could have for aggressive militarism. But the comments by the generals are more aggressive than Canada's official foreign policy doctrine. That doctrine was more systematically expounded by Canada's Foreign Minister Bill Graham in a speech in September on Canada's Afghan Mission.

 

In that speech, Graham described the ideology motivating Canada's more aggressive posture. The idea is that there are "failed states" from which danger "leaks out" into other areas. Afghanistan fits into this scheme as a country with an "unfortunate history of war and misrule. culminating in the rule of the Taliban and their support for al-Qaeda and their attack on New York."

 

While there may seem to be a large space between Graham's "helping" approach and Hillier/Leslie's "kill people" approach, Canada's real foreign policy path is actually rather narrow: it involves supporting and legitimizing US foreign policy, whether through "failed state" rhetoric, military support, or profitable arms manufacturing. Canada's Afghan mission fits the bill on all counts.

 

Canada in Afghanistan

 

IN 2002, CANADA sent 800 soldiers to Kandahar to join operations with the United States. In April of that year, Canada took its worst casualties in the mission when four Canadians were killed by bombs from a US F-16.

 

According to Graham, Canada then "spearheaded the effort to have NATO take over the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul" from the United Nations. Today ISAF has 8,000 troops from 35 countries, with Canada contributing some 2,600 troops. In August 2005, Canada sent another 250 troops to Kandahar, along with officials from the Canadian International Development Agency, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Foreign Affairs. In February 2006, Canada will be adding a headquarters in Kandahar, with 350 troops commanding the international force and an addition 1,000 troops as a one-year task force.

 

Given that Canada has roughly the same population as Afghanistan and very limited military resources, the Afghanistan deployment is a major foreign policy effort.

 

NATO's Real Mission

 

ISAF WAS TAKEN OVER by NATO in August 2003, in its first ever mission outside the Euro-Atlantic region. ISAF was initially established by the United Nations to ostensibly provide security in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, but its greatest failure was that it was restricted to the capital, Kabul, because of strong pressure from the US. In rural provinces, which comprise the majority of Afghanistan, peacekeeping troops could have made a huge difference in bringing order. Instead, these areas are overrun by US backed militias, warlords, local commanders, and US troops engaged in their "hunt" for Al Qaeda and Taliban. US troops collaborate directly with local authoritarian warlords, rewarding them with weapons and aid in exchange for "intelligence" on Al Qaeda and Taliban.

 

As a result, since the fall of the Taliban, the country has become a progressively more dangerous place. This year, more US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan than in any previous year, and warlords are more entrenched than ever. Meanwhile, according to United Nations Drug Control Program

(UNDCP) estimates, the amount of land dedicated to opium poppy cultivation has risen to up to eight and a half times the amount for 2001. If ISAF's real goal was peacekeeping, US actions have directly hindered that goal. But perhaps "peacekeeping" was never the mission of ISAF.

 

When asked by one of this article's co-authors, Sonali Kolhatkar, what ISAF does on an on-going basis, NATO/ISAF spokesperson Major Karen Tissot Van Patot (a Canadian), stationed in Kabul, said that ISAF's goal is to "provide a secure and stable environment." When pressed for details, she explained that in Kabul, where ISAF's headquarters is located, ISAF and the Afghan central government work closely: "We work together. we provide whatever they need. Whatever they ask for.. We're here at the behest of the government to provide them with assistance."

 

Given that Hamid Karzai, the head of the new Afghan government, was propelled into power by the US, and remains protected by US forces, it's fair to conclude that NATO is in Afghanistan at the behest of the US government. This includes strategically providing the Karzai government with security for the US-designed nation-wide presidential and parliamentary elections which attracted international media attention.

 

The real goal is not peacekeeping, but rather the illusion of peacekeeping so as to make the installation of a US-friendly regime palatable to Afghanis. ISAF's intense propaganda efforts attest to this. Kabul city sports huge billboards advertising ISAF's contributions to the Afghan people. ISAF also runs radio and TV stations in the local languages to highlight the benevolence of the foreign troops. At the heart of NATO's job as ISAF is an effort to "win the hearts and minds" of the Afghan people. This benefits all Western forces present, including the US.

 

NATO's main propaganda effort is in the form of Provincial Reconstruction Teams, which are groups of soldiers engaged in a strange mix of providing security, carrying out small reconstruction and humanitarian projects, and eliciting intelligence information. US troops pioneered the use of Provincial Reconstruction Teams, and NATO forces are following suit. In response to years of calls from aid agencies, human rights groups, and even the Karzai government, ISAF began expanding its mandate outside Kabul. But instead of real peacekeeping - disarmament, protecting civilians from armed groups, etc. - the expansion was done through the use of Provincial Reconstruction Teams. Today, ISAF has ten such teams in various Afghan provinces.

 

The aid provided by Provincial Reconstruction Teams is minuscule compared to the nation's needs, and far more expensive than that provided by aid agencies. Ultimately, the main goal of Provincial Reconstruction Teams is to impress upon the Afghans that Western forces are there to help them through delivery of food, construction of schools, wells, etc. Meanwhile, the Provincial Reconstruction Teams have angered many aid agencies who bitterly complain that mixing military and humanitarian projects jeopardizes aid workers, and holds the receiving population hostage to military demands. InterAction, a coalition of 159 organizations including Doctors Without Borders, CARE, and Oxfam America "does not believe the military members of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams should be engaged in humanitarian and reconstruction activities."

 

Ultimately, NATO (and Canadian) forces serve US interests in Afghanistan. NATO has had to re-invent itself to suit US needs, and create a role for itself in a post-Cold War world. In October 2001, NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson declared his hope that NATO would be part of whatever response the US decided upon after 9-11: "We stand together. Europe and North America are one single security space.the events of September 11 have not invalidated NATO's pre-September agenda. If anything, they have reinforced the logic of that agenda.if the US Congress asks the Europeans "what have you done for me lately?" - we should be ready to give a decent answer.

 

Afghanistan Today

 

IF THE UNITED States justifies its international aggression in terms of its own national interests and security (as Hillier and Leslie were trying to do for Canada), Canada's politicians prefer to suggest that the real beneficiaries of our military maneuvers are in the countries targeted for intervention. Bill Graham expressed it this way: "When I hear voices who call for the withdrawal of our troops, who suggest that we are engaged there in a war against Islam, as a recent visiting British politician suggested, I say: Let them talk to the Afghans, Afghans who are Muslims themselves, Afghans who want us there to help them transform their country and allow them to live decent lives; to allow them to conduct fair and democratic elections free from fear and intimidation."

 

'Let them talk to the Afghans', indeed. Doing so might yield different prescriptions than Graham's, however.

 

In 2004, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), a government-funded agency, conducted a nationwide survey of the Afghan people. Their results were published in a report entitled "A Call for Justice," which showed that a majority of Afghans consider themselves victims of war, whether at the hands of the Mujahadeen, the Taliban, and/or the Soviet Union, and want an end to war, and justice for war crimes. Western governments like Canada could provide constructive help to the Afghan people to bring war criminals and their benefactors to justice. The trouble is that the main benefactors are the US and its allies, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, who provided weapons, training, and funding for the war criminals.

 

Another strong desire among Afghans is nation-wide disarmament. In 2004, Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium (HRRAC), a coalition of humanitarian organizations, published a report based on another survey called "Take the Guns Away." When asked what was the most important thing to do to improve security in Afghanistan, 65 percent of Afghans surveyed said disarmament. This number was much higher - 87 percent - in the province of Mazar-e-Sharif where US-backed warlords often clashed. Western nations could fully fund disarmament projects in Afghanistan. Instead, highly selective and politicized disarmament has taken place, leaving intact most of the privately-run warlord militias. Full disarmament would run counter to the US practice of condoning arms proliferation at best, and at worst, actually engaging in arms proliferation.

 

The most frequently mentioned human rights desired by respondents of the HRRAC survey included "ethnic, religious and gender equality; political rights such as the right to participate in free and fair elections; and the right to education." Even though the Bush administration often cites that millions of Afghan girls are now attending school, there are very few schools in rural areas, and those that are in operation have curriculums limited to Islamic studies, reminiscent of Taliban-era education for boys. RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, has been fighting for women's rights for decades. Their schools, which teach a balanced curriculum based on gender, ethnic and religious tolerance, and women's rights, are facing closure due to lack of funds. Western nations could greatly benefit Afghanistan by fully funding schools designed and led by Afghan women. To date, only a small fraction of aid to Afghanistan goes toward education.

 

Much is made of women's rights after the fall of the Taliban. It is indeed true that some women, particularly in Kabul, enjoy greater freedom to appear in public, dress the way they want, and have the right to housing, jobs, education, and healthcare. However, for millions of Afghan women outside Kabul this means very little. A woman in a rural province had no education, healthcare, or employment before the Taliban came to power. She then had those things legally denied to her by the Taliban. After the fall of the Taliban, she still has no education, healthcare, or employment, even though she has legal rights. For all practical purposes, her life is no different compared to before or during the Taliban. Western nations could truly support Afghan women's rights by moving beyond token, high-profile projects, and instead funding easily accessible education, healthcare and jobs for all women in Afghanistan. These projects should be designed and run by Afghan women, who best understand what they need.

 

The largest segment of Afghanistan's economy is based on the drug trade, revived by US-backed warlords and regional commanders. Instead of criminalizing poor farmers for growing poppies, Western nations could help Afghans reduce their dependency on a drug economy by providing full compensation to farmers who have gone into debt to grow and harvest opium. Additionally, farmers could be assisted with alternative and sustainable farming that would benefit their families and their country.

 

The problem, of course, is that focusing on constructive projects such as those mentioned above would benefit only the Afghans, and not US, Canadian, or NATO interests. They would strengthen the people of Afghanistan and enrich their democratic development, while weakening the power of US and Afghan warlords.

 

Why is Canada involved?

 

CANADA'S NEW FOREIGN policy doctrine of "responsibility to protect" the people of "failed states" misplaces the emphasis. The doctrine suggests that the reasons for Canada's intervention are to be found in the countries in which we intervene: Afghanistan suffered from "misrule," Haiti is a "failed state." The true reasons for Canada's interventions, rather, is to be found in the relationship between Canada and the United States.

 

During the US invasion and occupation of Vietnam, Canadian corporations profited by supplying the American military, and Canadian diplomats ran interference for the US in the "International Control Commission," a "neutral" body that was supposed to monitor the conflict between the US and the Vietnamese. Then, as now, Canada's image as more multilateral, less militaristic and imperialistic, was a useful counterpoint to the aggressive posture of the US. Canada could use its good reputation to play the "good cop" to the US "bad cop," thus providing tactical support in accomplishing US foreign policy goals.

 

The same relationship holds today. Canada presents itself as a friend to those countries it is intervening in, with a "3-D approach" (defence, diplomacy, and development assistance) as an option over the more unilateral and aggressive approach of the US. If, as a consequence, Canadian corporations like Bell win a one billion dollar contract with the US military to supply helicopters, or CAE wins a $20 million contract to supply combat simulation technology, perhaps that is just another "dimension" to be added to the 3-D approach.

 

Because the real reasons for intervention are not genuine help and solidarity, Canada's deployment in Afghanistan has little relationship to what the people of that country actually need. Instead, under the guise of helping Afghanistan, Canada is actually providing a kind face to US contravention of the laws of war. In spite of mountains of evidence exposing US torture and murder of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan (never mind Canada's own experience with its troops torturing a youth to death in Somalia in the 1990s), Canadian troops are capturing people and handing them over to the US in Afghanistan. The US, the "detainee authority" in Afghanistan, defines people it captures as "unlawful combatants" and denies them Geneva Convention protections. If pronouncements by Rumsfeld or Bush about "hating our freedom" found their Canadian echo in Hillier and Leslie, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's comment about the Geneva Conventions being "quaint" found its Canadian echo in Brigadier General Mike Ward, who in September 2005 talked to the Canadian Press about how Canadian forces have killed and captured Afghanis in coordination with the US. On the US record of torture of detainees and the use of the "unlawful combatant" label to justify contravening the Geneva Conventions, Ward said, "It's the fact of the treatment that we specifically get into detail about, not whether in fact their status is identified as 'prisoner of war' or 'unlawful combatant.'"

 

Where the US military leads in the "war on terror," Canada follows. The Canadian engagement in Afghanistan enables Canada to be a useful tool of American imperialism, a junior member of the "winning team." The price of accommodation with empire is high for all involved. Those whose sovereignty is violated get the worst of it, facing hunger, disease, bombs, torture, and death. But for the accomplices, there is a steady diet of fear and racism, as well as the erosion of democracy, ethics, and even basic logic. That Canada is experiencing such erosion is evidenced by Major General Leslie being able to hold up a claim that killing young men overseas is worth dying for.

 

Sonali Kolhatkar is the co-Director of the Afghan Women's Mission and the host/producer of Uprising, which airs Monday-Friday on KPFK, Pacifica radio in Los Angeles. She visited Afghanistan in February 2005, and has co-authored a book about US policy in Afghanistan due out in Spring 2006.

 

Justin Podur is a writer and editor at ZNet. He has reported from Haiti, Venezuela, Colombia, Israel/Palestine, and other countries, and is based in Toronto.

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