Poor Terry Glavin has been bitten with the war mongering bug that historically plagues social democrats. He is defending the Canadian Military police operation in Afghanistan.
He was understandably distraught over the attack on Trevor Greene social activist and journalist who had joined the military and was seriously injured yesterday in an axe attack.
Being a fellow journalist and Vancouverite and 'progressive' social democrat Terry is right to be outraged.
But his outrage is misdirected. Instead of opposing the war that has possibly gotten his friend killed, in classic social democratic fashion he defends imperialism and Canadian military actions in support of Imperialism in the region.
Human compassion is the key to solidarity, and I too share a solidarity with our women and men in harms way. They are after all volunteers and workers, who have to follow orders. Orders given not by the people of Canada or its parliment but by the PMO.
Which may explain why with our all volunteer armed forces the DND are advertising heavily in the Maritimes, the traditional base of our Armed forces due to high unemployment. The working classes are employed to kill for the ruling class. But we will have no debate over it!
However Terry goes on to slag me in particular and the Anti-War left in general in a language that I mistook for his being a Blogging Tory with such trite and inflammatory comments as; Canada's Anti-war left says it knows what's best for the people there,
No one I know suggests we know what's best for the Afghan people, we too support their right to self government. Exactly why we say Troops Out Now. And while Terry tries to prove the Afghan peoples support of our troops by polling the real facts say otherwise; see my State Terrorism.
Kandahar is an open zone a porous region where tribesmen, Taliban, Afghanis and Pakistanis know no borders. It is an area of Warrior Tribal chieftains, and internecine battles. It is not Paris. Heck its not even Calcutta.
It is a historic war zone going back hundreds of years. It is the source of opium production, home of the ancient smuggling routes for Lapis Lazuli and other precious stones and hashish. It is the wild west . And I doubt very much that pollsters went out there and polled anybody. Or they too would have ended up hostages or dead. As I posted yesterday;
Quetta, the capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, lies about 200 kilometres southeast of Kandahar, across a porous border. Many of my fellow countrymen have made the journey here. In fact, some sections of the city seem to be populated almost entirely by Taleban who fled after the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. Over the last year, Kandahar has seen an alarming rise in suicide bombings and attacks on troops and government installations. In the past three months alone, there have been more than 20 acts of violence, leaving dozens dead, hundreds wounded, and an entire province terrorised. Quetta provides a ready supply of young men prepared to wreak havoc in Afghanistan.
This region is neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan it is the autonomous tribal provinces that even the Pakistan military fears to enter.
Afghanistan was the Hobbesian state that was kosher for interference by its neighbouring countries so that each could secure itself against the fallout of its endemic internal chaos. In Pakistan today thanks to decades of jihad that kept the borders as porous as possible — many regions resemble Afghanistan.
It will not become civilized because our volunteer working class army protects the new ruling class visiting from the safety of their greenzone in Kabul.
And even Kabul is not safe, which last weeks prison insurrection showed, as did King George II's secret very secure visit to Karzai's palace and the US Airforce base last week. He did not tour free and democratic Afghanistan because there is no such a creature.
As I have said before; Afghanistan is the model of American Nation Building, invade, put in a puppet regime, leave. Let the chips fall where they may and some one else can clean it up.
Karzai, the former Unocal Oil Director for the region, was hand picked by the U.S. and the first action of nation building was the creation of a Presidential State not a representative parliamentary democracy, not a consituent assembly, but the election of the CEO of the new Afghanistan colony of the U.S.
Two years later there are finally parlimentary elections, but like the intervening cabinet style government and now this one, it is an assembly of rogues and War Lords. In fact without the repressive Northern clans of War Lords the U.S. would not have been able to drive the Taliban, the Northern Warlords historic enemy, out of Kabul.
And here is the irony both the left and the right at the time noted this fact. It was an unholy alliance between the U.S., CIA and the Northern Warlords.
The Wall Street Journal and The Workers Vanguard Agree: Both Capitalists and Communists Conclude Afghanistan Better Off Under Soviets Than Northern Alliance
And while there was much propagandizing over how the American invasion was going to free women from oppression in Afghanistan the new State like the old State is still persecuting publications that promote even a minwomen'sf womens rights.
So Terry undaunted goes on to say;
Some civil war: On one side, an alliance of vicious brigands, gangsters, and theocratic fascists who command the dedicated support of only two per cent of the Afghan population, and on the other side, 93 per cent of the Afghan people who support the countryÂ’s newly constituted, democratically-elected government. The trouble with the pseuds is that even with those odds, they donÂ’t have the guts to back the winning side, the peopleÂ’s side, which also happens to be the side CanadaÂ’s soldiers are on.
Ah a winning side. What is that excatly? Why it is legalized brigands, gangsters, and theocratic fascists who were elected versus their opponents. The Karzai government is a sham. It has a cabinet which is brokered between warlords who retain their fuedal power in their provinces. It has no control over the opium production going on in these provinces, persecution of women, of the press, etc.
It has a constitution and democracy on paper but in reality it is still not a real peoples democracy. It is a Hobbesian State. It was just a stop on Americas way to its original goal; Iraq.
This is my position as a Libertarian Communist on the Left.
Terry is a social democrat, an ideologue like his predecesors; who were willing to support Imperialist War despite their previous opposition against it.
And like them he is the true psuedo-leftist, when it comes to opposing war it's about foreign wars but not wars our own troops are engaged in.
But who will fight for the Afghanistan State if we leave? Why thanks to globalization and capitalist privatization the Karzai government can do what the US and UK have been doing; hire mercenaries, err sorry private contractors.This is after all a war for private capitalist interests; oil, pipelines and opium.
Also see my other posts on Afghanistan
And for a Left View from the Middle East see:Islam And Class War
Also see: Support Our PeaceMakers
While folks are all verklempt about our Troops, pacifist activists with the Christian PeaceMakers Team remain hostages in Iraq and our government has done nothing about it.
See my comment on a previous blog posting by Terry; Left, Right and Liberty