Iraq and Afghanistan Two Sides of Same Coin
On the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Canadians have been inundated with what are largely American concerns:
Is it time to scale back the annual commemoration at the World Trade Centre?
What to make of the week-long photo-op by Gen. David Petraeus, Ambassador Ryan Crocker and President George W. Bush?
How many troops can be pulled out of Iraq and when?
Why can’t the Democratic Congress tame this White House?
Understandable as these preoccupations are, they blur the big picture that concerns Canadians.
Iraq is a doomed enterprise, arguably worse than Vietnam, its domino effect reaching the West in the form of terrorism, increasingly homegrown.
Iraq is the central but not the only element in the disastrous policies that have destabilized the Muslim world and unleashed civil wars.
Others are the failed War on Terror, the tottering mission in Afghanistan, the tragedy of the Israeli Occupied Territories and the increasing instability of Lebanon, plus Washington’s war of words against Syria, Iran, even Pakistan.
On the domestic front - besides Guantanamo Bay, Maher Arar, etc. - Islamophobia is creeping up in Canada, Quebec in particular.
Ontario is not immune, as we saw during the so-called “sharia” debate and may see in the debate on John Tory’s ill-advised idea of funding private schools, opposition to which is no longer driven by anti-Catholic bigotry but fear of Islamic schools, about which we’ll no doubt be told some horror stories soon.
Whatever damage this does to that beleaguered minority, its greater danger is in rattling all of us to the point of irrationality, as illustrated by the furor over veiled women voters. Politicians are ordering the chief electoral officer to, in effect, break the law to favour mob rule.
This potential undermining of our democratic institutions is the inevitable outcome of the post-9/11 politics of fear, just as terrorism is of the wars on and in Muslim lands.
All this underscores the need for a holistic view of the world, difficult as it is amid the CNN-ization of our media and the Americanization of our politics under Stephen Harper.
America is mired in Iraq and we are mired in Afghanistan. Bush does not have a clear exit strategy there, nor does Harper in Afghanistan. The instincts of both are to keep the wars going and “win.” Yet neither quite knows how.
There are other parallels, though the Afghan mission has the approval of the United Nations, and cannot be abandoned for fear of creating a failed state there.
Both missions are hobbled by similar man-made problems - an inability to provide security for parts of the population or the essentials of life; too much infrastructure destroyed; too many civilians killed; too much reliance on warfare, not all successful, as territory is won and territory is lost and must be re-won; too many suicide attacks and roadside bombs.
The political rhetoric is also the same: We’ll stand down in Iraq (Afghanistan) when Iraqis (Afghans) stand up. We are there to keep us safe from terrorists. Or, to spread democracy and liberate women.
Washington blames Nuri al-Maliki, Ottawa Hamid Karzai. But the two are not the real problem any more than Mahmoud Abbas in West Bank or Fouad Siniora in Lebanon. Bush blames Syria and Iran, and Harper Pakistan. Mischief-makers as those regimes are, they, too, are not the real problem.
The problems are the policies.
More and more allies understand. Distancing itself from Washington, Britain has abandoned Basra city to the mercies of Shiite militias. The Germans and other NATO allies won’t join us in southern Afghanistan. Either they are cowards or they are smarter than us.
Unless Ottawa comes to grips with these realities, Harper will be spinning his wheels as much as Bush - at the expense of our troops, our international credibility and, more ominously, perhaps our security.
Haroon Siddiqui, the Star’s editorial page editor emeritus, appears Thursday in the World & Comment section and Sunday in the A section.
It’s “World Trade Center”, not “World Trade Centre”. It is a proper name. Please spell it correctly. I don’t write Labor Party when referring to Tony Blair’s party.
That said, the article brought up some very good questions.
The grimly amusing part of all this is that none of it would be happening if the end of the USSR hadn’t been the goal of US foreign policy in the 1980s. Co-existence had been much more productive of peace; the anti-communist kooks preached ‘better dead than Red” — of course they meant better that everyone else except themselves.
Instead of analysing (analyzing ?!!) the ‘interesting questions’ the article brought up we end up discussing the semantics of spelling !! How ridiculous.
I myself have a hard time missing the old soviet union too much. They had our (the West) demise very much at heart when planning their worldwide communist revolution. (just look at the official seal of the soviet communist party.) Good riddance .
What does ‘to win’ really mean? In our mad rush for Zionist domination and petroleum plunder all that we are likely to get is a Pyrrhic victory. The price of Global Hegemony will be the destruction of the United States.
whatfools’ opinion
Harbour Pointe
Ken Mitchell Canadians do things slightly differently at times, like spell center centre. I believe they can if they want. Who died and put you and your provincial attitudes in charge.
Harper’s pig headed ways will have to be endured until a no confidence vote is entered.
Haroon, this is not so surprising. Read your Canadian history. Whenever the US does something really stupid, you can bet Canada will sooner or later follow suit. America went for Reagan; we went for Mulroney and got “Free” Trade (and subsequently NAFTA). America went for Bush; we got Harper.
Geography is destiny.
Join in the battle
Wherein no man can fail
For who so fadeth and dieth
Yet his deed shall still prevail
William Morris
http://folk.ntnu.no/makarov/temporary_url_20060919zkkfg/internationale-en-sheffield_socialist_choir_1992.mp3
Until you study the effects of “Operation Cyclone”, a joint United States, Pakistan, British, and Saudi operation, you can not understand where this Islamic enemy came from.
The United States and Saudi Arabia spent over 12 billion dollars recruiting, training, and arming Islamic Militants from 1981 to 1992.
100,000 Islamic Militants were recruited from 43 Islamic Countries. At first they were to mount an Islamic Jihad in Afghanistan, but the Russians left in 1989. So, why was the program continued? My guess is that “The Enemy” was created so that the oil industry and the military-industrial complex could continue their capitalist adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Without an enemy you can not wage a war.
No Islamic country wants to invade, conquer, or occupy the United States. An act of “Terror” is an individual act of: Anger, Hate, or Revenge. The students at Virginia Tech were victims of a “Terrorist Act”
In April 2003 Bush spoke before wildly cheering troops at CENTCOM in Florida. He declared that ‘the model for the newly conquered Iraq would be our ‘democratic’ Afghanistan.’ It took sophisticated Baghdadis three years to realize that they had been systematically reduced to the level of Afghanistan.