[R-G] Liberals and Conservatives join forces to extend intervention in Afghan war

[Anthony Fenton]

WSWS : News & Analysis : North America : Canada
Canada: Liberals and Conservatives join forces to extend intervention  
in Afghan war
By Guy Charron
6 March 2008

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/can-m06.shtml

First published in French on March 1, 2008

Responding to repeated demands from the Canadian establishment, the  
minority Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and  
the official opposition Liberals have agreed to extend the Canadian  
Armed Forces’ (CAF) mission in southern Afghanistan for another two- 
and-a-half years.

Under conditions where the Canadian public is overwhelmingly opposed  
to Canada’s leading role in the Afghan war, the country’s two  
principal parties claim to have set aside their differences in the  
name of the “national interest”—in other words, to jointly pursue a  
policy opposed by the populace. The House of Commons is slated to  
vote on the joint Liberal-Conservative motion authorizing the CAF  
mission’s extension on March 13.

“I agree with the Prime Minister that what we have now is neither a  
Conservative motion nor a Liberal motion. It is a Canadian motion,”  
declared Liberal leader Stéphane Dion after the war motion was tabled  
in the House of Commons. Harper had made similar comments several  
days before.

The new motion would extend the Canadian army’s counter-insurgency  
mission in Kandahar province from February 2009 until July 2011. As a  
condition for the extension, the popularly-elected lower house of  
Canada’s parliament will demand that Canada’s NATO allies deploy at  
least an additional 1,000 soldiers to fight alongside the CAF force  
in Kandahar and assist Canada in equipping the CAF force with  
helicopters and drone airplanes. These conditions follow the  
recommendations of a Conservative-appointed “wise-persons” committee  
tasked with considering Canada’s future role in Afghanistan. Headed  
by former Deputy Liberal Prime Minster John Manley, the committee  
issued a report, which has come to be popularly known as the Manley  
Report, that was strongly supportive of extending the CAF  
intervention in southern Afghanistan indefinitely.

2,500 Canadian troops and a squad of some 15 Leopard tanks are  
deployed to the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, which  
historically has been a bastion of the Taliban and is currently the  
frontline in the US-NATO counter-insurgency war in support of Hamid  
Karzai’s US-installed government. Since 2005 more than 60 Canadian  
soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan and another 650 have  
been injured. Taking into account the number of soldiers deployed,  
these casualty figures represent a substantially higher percentage of  
dead and wounded than the US army has suffered in Iraq, and represent  
a substantial portion of the total casualties that NATO forces have  
suffered in Afghanistan.

On March 3, yet another Canadian soldier was killed by a roadside  
bomb, just days before the scheduled end of his tour of duty.

The Liberal reversal

In joining with the Conservatives to prolong the CAF’s leading role  
in the Afghan war for a further 25 months, Liberal leader Dion has  
repudiated the position that he advanced since shortly after he won  
the Liberal leadership in late 2006. Dion had been demanding that the  
CAF should hand over the Kandahar counter-insurgency operation to  
another NATO country after February 2009, and that the Canadian army  
should thereafter limit its role to providing security for  
reconstruction efforts, to the training of Afghan security forces,  
and other forms of non-combat assistance. (A team of some 20  
Canadians, most of them CAF officers, are directly advising the  
puppet government of Hamid Karzai.)

Despite the vociferous support of the ruling class and all the major  
media outlets for the Canadian military’s leading role in the Afghan  
war, polls indicate that a substantial majority—over 60 percent—of  
the Canadian population is opposed to the CAF intervention.

In order to garner votes, the Liberal Party during 2007  
hypocritically tried to differentiate itself from the Bush-allied  
Conservative government by demanding the withdrawal of Canadian  
troops from Kandahar Province when the current mission expires in  
February 2009.

However, the distinction between the Liberal and Conservative Parties  
on the question of the Afghan war has always been more verbal than  
real. It was the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien that first sent  
CAF troops to Afghanistan, in Canada’s largest military operation  
since the Korean War, and its was Chrétien’s Liberal successor, Paul  
Martin, who authorized the sending of troops to Kandahar. The  
Liberals have never demanded more than a rotation among the NATO  
states of the responsibility for manning the Kandahar front and have  
always unconditionally supported the Karzai government and the Afghan  
war. While the Conservatives have placed support for the Afghan war  
at the center of their political program, the Liberals have attempted  
not to draw too much public attention to their advocacy of the same  
policy.

Had the Liberal Party chosen to oppose the Conservatives’ efforts to  
extend the CAF intervention in Afghanistan, the minority government  
of Stephen Harper would have been brought down, because Harper has  
made the extension of the Canadian military mission a parliamentary  
“confidence vote.” This would have raised the possibility of an  
election in which the Afghan war would have been the central issue, a  
situation judged too politically dangerous by the Canadian  
bourgeoisie due to the huge opposition to the war within the working  
class.

Since the Manley report was issued in late January, the major dailies  
have been filled with editorials and commentary calling on the  
Liberals to change their position and support a prolongation of the  
CAF mission in Kandahar—calls to which the Liberals rapidly  
acquiesced. (See: Canada’s Liberals rally behind plan to expand  
Canadian role in Afghan War)

In order to maintain the pretence that they differ with the  
government, the Liberals responded to the initial Conservative motion  
to extend the CAF mission by putting forward an alternate motion that  
also proposed extending Canada’s leading role in the Afghan war. The  
Liberal motion proclaimed that the main goal of a continued CAF  
deployment to Kandahar should be to train Afghan security forces. But  
Dion made sure to stipulate that training would include mounting  
combat missions alongside Afghan forces and that the CAF top brass,  
which is strongly supportive of the CAF’s role in the counter- 
insurgency war, would be given a free hand in deciding what combat is  
necessary for effective training. The Liberals, Dion declared, have  
no intention of “micro-managing” the military.

The Conservatives responded by withdrawing their motion, so as to  
develop a bipartisan one.

The bipartisan support for war

The motion the Conservatives have now tabled in the House of Commons  
incorporates much of the language of the Liberal motion, allowing the  
official opposition to claim that it compelled the government to make  
concessions. But the only substantive difference between the original  
Conservative motion and the joint Liberal-Conservative motion is that  
the new motion states that the CAF mission will begin to be wound  
down in July 2011 and that all CAF forces will be withdrawn from  
Kandahar by the end of 2011. The original Conservative motion  
extended the mission until the end of 2011, adding that during that  
year the government and parliament would deliberate on whether the  
Canadian presence in Kandahar needed to be further prolonged.

Not only does the Liberal-Conservative motion not prevent the  
Canadian military from prosecuting the war against the Taliban and  
other opponents of the Afghan government, the reputed July 2011 end  
date is completely porous. “[A]fter all,” states a Globe and Mail  
editorial, “there is nothing to prevent a future government from  
asking Parliament for a further extension.”

In Harper’s announcement accepting the basic outlines of the Liberal  
motion, he let slip the true imperialist motives of the Canadian  
intervention in Afghanistan. What was at issue, said Harper, was the  
need for “a strong, multifaceted military, backed by the political  
will to deploy” so as to assert “Canadian interests on the world stage.”

“Countries that cannot or will not make real contributions to global  
security are not regarded as serious players. They may be pleasantly  
acknowledged by everybody. But when the hard decisions get made, they  
will be ignored by everybody.”

Predictably, the Globe and Mail, the mouthpiece for the Canada’s  
Toronto-based financial elite, has hailed the joint Liberal- 
Conservative initiative to extend Canada’s role in the Afghan counter- 
insurgency war.

“Conciliatory isn’t a word normally associated with Stephen Harper,  
but this week the word fits,” the paper intoned. “This is an  
important moment for Canada on the international stage and for its  
vital mission in Afghanistan.”

“A defeat on the government’s motion could have turned a vital  
security mission into a messy political fight, undermining troops in  
the field. A bipartisan motion would allow Mr. Harper to deliver an  
unequivocal ultimatum to a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit  
in early April: that Canada will withdraw from Afghanistan next year  
unless other nations supply at least 1,000 more troops and more  
equipment.”

As the Globe and Mail has underlined, this agreement between the two  
parties not only upholds the geo-strategic interests of the Canadian  
elite in the face of huge opposition from the Canadian working class.  
It is also meant to contribute to the expansion and intensification  
of the imperialist intervention in Afghanistan by forcing the hand of  
the major European powers who themselves face huge domestic  
opposition to the Afghan war.

To overcome the increased resistance by Afghanis to foreign  
occupation, leaders of the US-NATO occupation are advocating adoption  
of the “surge” strategy used by the US in Iraq, that is, the sending  
of more troops and the intensification of military attacks.

The United States has accused the European powers of not being  
combative enough in Afghanistan, and the Canadian demand for more  
combat troops in Kandahar is a means of pressuring the Europeans on  
behalf of Washington.

France is considering sending more than 1,000 soldiers to reinforce  
US military positions on the Afghan-Pakistani border, which would  
free up the same number of US soldiers to fight alongside the  
Canadian troops in Kandahar. The US government has already announced  
that it will deploy an additional 3,200 soldiers to Afghanistan in  
the coming weeks, including 2,200 to the south. These troops will be  
supported by some 40 flying machines, including helicopters, Harrier  
AV-83 fighters and drone aircraft. The Franco-American deployment  
would satisfy the Harper government’s conditions to extend the  
Canadian mission in Afghanistan.

Pressure from the military top brass

Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier has demanded that Parliament give  
“overwhelming” support to the extension of the CAF mission in  
Afghanistan, implying that MPs who vote against the extension will be  
inciting the Taliban to carry out bomb attacks against Canadian  
military convoys.

Leaders of Canada’s military and security-intelligence agencies have  
intervened in the public debate with increasing frequency and  
aggressiveness in recent years in order to pressure political leaders  
to increase military and police spending and increase police powers.

These interventions have generally been given a very sympathetic  
hearing by the press, radio and television. Last October, General  
Hillier told the Association of Canadian Broadcasters that, “in a way  
I serve them [the soldiers] as much as I serve the government of  
Canada and you Canadians and Canada itself.” His speech received a  
standing ovation from the owners and managers of Canada’s broadcasters.

Because the two principal parties of big business in Parliament have  
now agreed to press forward with the aggressive use of the CAF to  
aggressively promote “Canadian interests” on the world stage, the  
Globe and Mail felt free to gently criticize Hillier for his blatant  
attempt to intimidate MPs into doing the military’s bidding. After  
showering praise on the general for his public advocacy of the  
Canadian intervention in Afghanistan, the Globe and Mail criticized  
him for so overtly pressuring parliamentarians. “It is a discouraging  
prospect,” said the Globe, “that our soldiers are so hypersensitive  
that they require the expressed support of every single Bloc  
Québécois and New Democratic MP in order to do their jobs.”

Gilles Duceppe, head of the separatist Bloc Québécois, has declared  
that he will vote against the Liberal-Conservative motion because “we  
have now had two firm dates [for withdrawal of the CAF from Kandahar]  
which have been cancelled and postponed. For us it is February 2009,  
end of story.”

Like the Liberals, the Bloquistes are trying to position themselves  
to gain antiwar votes. But also like the Liberals—at least until Dion  
joined hands with Harper to extend the CAF intervention for a further  
two and a half years—Duceppe has only called for Canada to pull back  
from the Kandahar front and never for an end to the Afghan occupation  
and war. In a long policy speech on Afghanistan given in 2007,  
Duceppe insisted that the US-NATO occupation constituted “a noble  
cause.”

The social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) supported the CAF’s  
participation in the Afghan war from 2001 through the summer of 2006.  
Today it calls for the withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan  
in order to send them to other parts of the world such as Lebanon,  
Haiti, or Darfur. The NDP wants NATO to transfer responsibility for  
the war in Afghanistan to the United Nations, pretending that the UN— 
dominated by the United States and the great powers of Europe—would  
play a role different than that of NATO, which was given the mandate  
for the Afghan occupation by the United Nations in the first place.