Peacenik supports Afghan “war”

Welcome to my blog. Get ready to be upset, read a few rants and raves, and hopefully, maybe even a few breaking news stories.

First, a little bit about why I view myself as a ‘peacenik’ who supports Canada’s ongoing military involvement as part of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

I have this apparent contradiction despite my eminently respectable resumé as a pacifist and peace activist. As early as the 1980s, I volunteered as a press release writer for the New Westminster End the Arms Race committee – during those heady days when 100,000 people attended the annual Peace March in downtown Vancouver. As a student journalist, around the same time, I served as a Canadian University Press Western Region Human Rights Coordinator. Furthermore, I am a proud 11th generation descendant of Quaker pioneers – Quakers being the religious denomination that created the ‘conscientious objector’ status for people who oppose spending their tax money on the military. (For the record, I am not a practicing Quaker, and do not withhold tax money for the military. This is, after all, just the history part.)

More recently, I have generously donated to Amnesty International, (giving monthly when I last had a regular paycheque) and writing about issues of importance to groups such as the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (I also volunteered for the CCPA’s predecessor, Pacific Institute for Policy Alternatives, but that would just be more history).

So, with a background like that, why do I support this “war” in Afghanistan?

In a general sense, I have always believed that violence should only be used as an absolute last resort. And, for me, that means violence can only be used when responding to, and when attempting to stave off, an even greater violence. This attitude first expressed itself in 1985, when I was a wide-eyed youth delegate at the NDP national convention in Ottawa, where I abstained from voting on something that almost everyone else voted for – a demand for Canada’s immediate withdrawal from NATO. To be honest, I was conflicted on the subject, even then. I have a distant relative who once held a fairly high post in that organization, and I considered myself fairly well acquainted with the topics of peacekeeping and peace-making thanks to some substantive college-day research into arms reductions and disarmament treaties between World Wars One and Two. (By the way, every new peace treaty signed during that time allowed for greater arms buildup and deployment than its predecessors. You’ll note that this is quite similar to today’s world where international peace agreements are very often ignored and blatantly violated. I’ll try to blog about this stuff later.)

More recently, in an attempt to put my lofty ideals into more practical outlets, I joined two somewhat military-related associations, the Canada Afghanistan Solidarity Committee and the Vancouver chapter of the Royal United Service Institute, the latter of which I am an associate member. (Did I mention my family connections?)

So much for the background. Now the meat and potatoes.

Specifically, my support for the “war” in Afghanistan is predicated on what happened on September 11, 2001 and the subsequent American decision to go to war against Iraq. As someone who watched more BBC (former paid subscriber) and Canadian news than the American networks, it was obvious to me that the U.S. government was about to embark on a potentially catastrophic military campaign against a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with the vicious and deadly attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. I’m no 9-11 conspiracy theorist, but I truly believe that through a long series of mistakes and neglects, even preceding the election of George W. Bush, the U.S. administration simply let down America’s guard and allowed a small group of uneducated and otherwise poorly organized religious zealots to make a one-in-a-million strike against their sworn enemy.

The U.S. needed to respond, for sure, but why a war in Iraq when the terrorists were known to have been largely of Saudi origin, and trained in Afghanistan?

Knowing that the consequences of an ill-advised invasion of Iraq could very easily be catastrophic for the world, I hoped for some kind of counterbalance to prevent the conflict from escalating into World War Three. I felt some relief when former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien stuck a pin in the ever-expanding Iraq war balloon by deploying our troops to where the real enemy was located – Afghanistan, that impoverished and ancient country where international disputes and geopolitics have absolutely no meaning for the peasants and farmers who have been treated as peons and pawns by every imperial power on Earth since the dawn of western civilization.

I also breathed a sigh of relief when former British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that his country’s military take over military operations from the Americans in the Shia-controlled southern Basra region of Iraq. If the British played their cards properly – and they did – they could (and did) prevent the situation from escalating into a region-wide war, and avoid the animosity and involvement of the Iranians and their bellicose leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – whom I always considered to be a Muslim equivalent to George W. Bush.

And please, don’t get me wrong. I do not support waging a war against the good people of Afghanistan. My support for the ISAF is entirely predicated on the fact that this is NOT a traditional military operation, but a humanitarian campaign and a peace-making initiative. Even today, Canada is not at war ‘against’ Afghanistan, we are at war ‘in’ Afghanistan against the Taliban and other extremist and terrorist organizations that wish to enslave their own people, widen their influence and do mortal harm to anyone who stands in their way.

Canadian Forces are in Afghanistan at the request of that country’s democratically elected government, and our main role is to provide security for those civilian and international agencies that are doing GOOD WORK such as building new schools, hospitals, roads, electricity and water supply systems. Should those good works be successful, and there is every indication that they can be, and if we can avoid turning Afghanistan into the world-wide conflagration that was once threatening to engulf Iraq, Canada will be in the enviable position of proclaiming itself at the vanguard of protecting human rights, and helping to rebuild a nation that has already been devastated by centuries of war and exploitation.

Those are indeed noble goals that are well worth supporting.

But my opinion on Afghanistan will be much like my other opinions – it will change over time as circumstances warrant. Today, I support the timelines and recommendations laid out in the Manley Report, the principles ensconced in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Freedoms, and our national commitment to the innocent people of Afghanistan.

Indeed, Afghanistan is not the only place in the world that could use Canada’s practiced and expert military hand, and I might even see myself one day supporting a greater role for our nation’s military in protecting and enhancing human rights in other parts of the world. Hmm, I wonder, ...