(The following article is from the October 1-15, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

Call for October 27 Pan-Canadian Day of Action against war, issued by the Canadian Peace Alliance and Collectif Echec a la Guerre

The war in Afghanistan is getting worse day by day. The Government of Canada and its NATO allies tell us that security and reconstruction are improving and that the battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people is being won by the west. In reality the situation is much more dire. Reconstruction has been proven to be a smokescreen and the resistance to the occupation is growing. Violence increases every month that our soldiers remain in Kandahar.

     It is time to stop the bloodshed - not in 2009 as our politicians suggest - but now. The Canadian Peace Alliance and Collectif Echec a la guerre call on the people of Canada and Quebec to demonstrate this October 27, 2007 and call for the troops to be brought home.

     On that day people from Canada and the United States will be marching to end war. Our friends in the US have put out a call for events to end the Iraq war on same date; so we will be jointly marching to end the violence that our governments are intent on continuing.

     The state of reconstruction in Kandahar is a shambles. The Senlis Council recently released a report that investigated the reconstruction claims by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The Senlis Council found little of the promised reconstruction in Kandahar. The Afghan people are starving just outside the gates of the Canadian base. Their local hospitals have no medicine or equipment despite promises of money from CIDA. These failures, coupled with the rise in civilian casualties, have resulted in more people joining the resistance.

     And what has been accomplished? Canadians have once again lost the Panjwai district of Kandahar after fighting four separate battles to hold it and being pushed off of that land again and again. After more than 18 months of fighting in the south which has killed hundreds of civilians and dozens of Canadian soldiers, the fight is still on for the same patch of land that was "secured" more than a year ago.

     How many more will die on both sides to keep taking and retaking a spot of land?

     The poppy trade is booming in Afghanistan with a record crop worth more than $3 billion USD this year. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report showed a 35 per cent increase in opium production from a year ago. This will only get worse the longer NATO stays in Afghanistan. The UNODC argues that more control from the state of Afghanistan will reduce opium production. More than 60 percent of the elected members of the Afghan parliament are connected to warlords and drug barons. To increase the control of the drug warlords in the opium producing areas will not result in a decrease in opium production.

     The irony is that opium production had been eradicated by 2001. This increase in production is a direct result of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

     The head of the Army in the UK, General Sir Richard Dannatt stated that the war in Afghanistan could go on for a generation. Thousands more civilians and soldiers will die and the resistance to the NATO occupation will grow. It is time to end this war.

     On October 27 people in Canada and the US will be marching to call for peace in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands will march in a pan-Canadian day of action. Join us!

     Out of Afghanistan - out of Iraq! Harper and Bush, bring the troops back!