[R-G] The “Canadian Ministers” of Hamid Karzai’s Afghan government

[Anthony Fenton]

The “Canadian Ministers” of Hamid Karzai’s Afghan government
By Guy Charron
4 July 2007

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jul2007/cana-j04.shtml

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has deployed a Strategic Advisory  
Team (SAT) composed of some 15 people to Kabul with the mandate of  
working “directly with the Afghan government” to impose the neo- 
colonial agenda of the western powers.

Canada is a key participant in the US-NATO military occupation of  
Afghanistan and a bulwark of the US-installed puppet government of  
Hamid Karzai—a government composed of warlords guilty of horrific  
crimes against the Afghan people and that is detested by many both  
for its corruption and for being in Washington’s pocket. The CAF  
participated in the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and since the  
summer of 2005 has been in the forefront of the fight against the  
Taliban insurgency in the country’s south.

Dubbed “Operation Angus” by the CAF, SAT’s role complements and  
broadens Canada’s role in propping up the Karzai government. Despite  
its military origins, SAT exerts principally a political function. In  
the words of the Canadian Ministry of Defence, “the teams are  
embedded in their partner Afghan Government ministries and agencies.”  
Explains Lieutenant-Commander Rob Ferguson, one of SAT’s members, “No  
other country is as strategically placed as Canada with respect to  
influencing Afghanistan’s development.”

SAT’s mandate comes not from NATO, nor from the International  
Security Assistance Force. Rather it is the product of a bilateral  
agreement between Kabul and Ottawa and, consequently, SAT reports  
directly to the Canadian government.

Canadian military, political and economic leaders have lavishly  
praised the team as an example to follow in coordinating different  
sections of the Canadian state in foreign military interventions.  
These interventions are invariably dressed up in humanitarian guise,  
but are aimed at asserting and defending the global interests of the  
Canadian elite.

Lieutenant-colonel Fred Aubin, assistant to the SAT commander, sees  
the body as the embryo of a larger initiative by the Canadian  
government. “The Afghan government is very cooperative with this  
initiative,” he says. ”At some stage I’m sure they are going to  
enlarge [SAT] and there will be an increase in civilian members as  
the security situation improves.”

It is difficult to obtain information about SAT. Only since the end  
of 2006 and with the aim of blunting popular opposition at home to  
the military intervention in Afghanistan has the Canadian military  
provided more than the most rudimentary information about SAT’s  
activities.

According to internal CAF documents recently made public, “The aim of  
this communications plan is to demonstrate to the people of Canada  
the contribution the SAT is making to the long-term development of  
Afghanistan, while maintaining the institutional credibility of the  
SAT in the eyes of the Afghan government and people.”

That the information being released by Canadian authorities is  
tailored to the propaganda needs of the government and military can  
be readily demonstrated. Newly-released CAF documents show that SAT  
was formed on the initiative of the Canadian Chief of Defence Staff,  
General Rick Hillier; yet the press releases of the Ministry of  
National Defence insist that the SAT was established at the request  
of the Afghan government.

Despite the limited character of the information in the public  
domain, it is possible to establish some facts beyond a doubt: First  
and foremost, that a Canadian group is working at the highest levels  
of the Afghan government, in close contact with the office of Afghan  
President Karzai.

In his book Canada in Afghanistan, Peter Pigott, a civil servant in  
the Foreign Affairs Ministry, states that SAT is “mandated by  
President Karzai personally to go anywhere in the country and  
investigate anything... to work at the ministerial level across all  
ministries and deal with the United Nations, the World Bank, key  
donor nations, and NATO/ISAF on almost a daily basis.” The key donor  
nations include among others the US, Japan, and India.

The SAT team is principally comprised of army officers who specialize  
in planning, but also includes Canadian Embassy attachés. An internal  
CAF document states that “Foreign Affairs Canada, through the  
Ambassador in Kabul, is heavily engaged in SAT activities while the  
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has seconded a  
development expert to the team.”

Afghanistan is the principal beneficiary of Canadian foreign aid and  
is now home to one of Canada’s largest embassies. Over and above the  
$4 billion spent on military operations, Canada has given over $100  
million to Afghanistan annually in aid since 2001, and there are  
plans for this level of annual expenditure to continue until at least  
2011. In addition to the aid money, which makes Canada one of  
Afghanistan’s largest foreign donors, other government agencies, such  
as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, are assisting the development  
of Afghan’s security forces and prison system.

SAT members are embedded in a number of Afghan government ministries.  
Its members work with the Afghan Minister of Justice in developing  
laws and with the Afghan government in developing its strategic  
communication plan both within the country and internationally. It is  
SAT which organized and guided trips to Canada by Karzai and other  
Afghan officials.

SAT’s most important function is to monitor and supervise the Afghan  
government in implementing the terms of the “Afghanistan Compact,” an  
agreement that SAT and the Canadian ambassador helped draw up.  
Negotiated under UN auspices at the end of 2005 and formalized on  
January 31, 2006, the “Afghanistan Compact” provides the framework  
for collaboration between the Afghan government and the  
“international community” for the next five years.

A reading of the “Afghanistan Compact” makes it clear that the  
Central Asian country is to remain a NATO protectorate for years if  
not decades to come, and to be dependent for its security and the  
financing of its government on the imperialist powers. The measures  
stipulated by the “Afghanistan Compact” are aimed at to creating a  
social, political and economic environment favourable to foreign  
investment and to the geo-strategic goals of the countries occupying  
it today.

In implementing the “Afghanistan Compact,” SAT works in close  
collaboration with Ishaq Nadiri, an American economist of Afghan  
origin who is Karzai’s principal economic advisor, and with the  
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, which receives the  
majority of foreign aid.

The creation of a special military unit whose role is to “lead from  
behind [the scenes]”, to use the words of one of its members, is  
consistent with the 2005 transfer of Canadian troops from Kabul,  
where they had no real combat role, to Kandahar.

The Canadian government and elite concluded that Canada did not  
receive sufficient influence and great-power recognition from the  
CAF’s intervention in Bosnia in the late 1990s. “We did not have a  
decisive influence or decisive effect that led to good influence for  
Canada in the Balkans,” General Hillier told Jane’s Defence Weekly in  
a 2006 interview. Canadian missions abroad, declared the head of the  
CAF, need “to have sufficient credibility that [they give] us the  
opportunity to get leadership appointments and to influence and shape  
regions and populations in accordance with our interests and in  
accordance with our values.”

The CAF’s role in the Kandahar region, one of the bastions of the  
Taliban and of the armed opposition to the US-NATO occupation, is  
precisely the type of operation which gives “credibility” to the  
Canadian government in pressing for greater international influence.

Former Chief of the Defence Staff General Hénault, who is currently  
president of the Military Committee of NATO, gave the following  
assessment in his May 31, 2007 testimony before the Canadian  
Parliamentary Committee on National Defence: “[Canada is] a nation  
that’s seen at the leading edge of leadership and capability in  
Afghanistan.”

The Canadian military operation in Afghanistan is considered by the  
ruling elite to be a mission that gives Canada leverage in the “Great  
Game” being played out in Afghanistan for geo-political influence in  
Central Asia. A major producer of oil, natural gas, uranium and hydro- 
electric power, Canada aspires to be an “energy superpower” and  
therefore has a powerful interest in the fate of the oil reserves of  
the Caspian Sea region. In addition, Afghanistan’s mineral deposits  
are of great interest to Canadian companies active in the mining sector.

Canadian soldiers are being used as cannon fodder to earn for the  
Canadian elite the “blood prize” of “respect” from the great powers  
and at great cost to the Afghan civilian population who face the  
military, economic and political subjugation of their country.  
Meanwhile, Canada is fielding a group which aims to wield ministerial- 
type authority within the Karzai government, in order to influence  
and shape the region in accordance with the economic and strategic  
interests of Canadian big business.