MANLEY
REPORT BACKS PUSH
TO EXTEND AFGHAN MISSION
(The
following article is from
the February 1-15,
2008
issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles
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By Kimball Cariou
To nobody's surprise, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has accepted the
Manley commission's recommendation to extend Canada's combat mission in
Afghanistan. His announcement comes with one proviso, that "NATO allies
help reinforce the effort". But it is widely expected that such a deal
is already in the works.
The count of Canadians killed in Afghanistan
has now reached 78; if casualty rates recorded in 2006-07 continue,
another thirty or more Canadian soldiers are likely to die each coming
year in the front lines of the US/NATO occupation of the country. And
as Afghan MP Malalai Joya stressed during her speaking tour in Canada
last fall, western military forces back the corrupt, brutal and
reactionary "Northern Alliance" warlords who run the present
government, accomplishing little to achieve their alleged goals of
bringing equality and democracy to Afghanistan.
Perhaps not wanting to look too eager, Harper
waited almost a week before issuing his first official comments on the
report issued by the so-called "independent blue-ribbon panel" headed
by John Manley, the staunchly pro-US former foreign affairs minister.
Clearly pleased with the main thrust of the
report, Harper announced on Jan. 28 that "the government accepts the
panel's specific recommendation of extending Canada's mission in
Afghanistan if certain conditions are met." This refers to a call for
sending at least 1,000 more NATO combat troops to Kandahar province.
Harper said his government will launch a "diplomatic effort before the
April NATO meeting in Bucharest to meet those conditions."
The panel rejected all options which involve a
pull-out of Canadian troops as scheduled in February 2009. Instead, it
proposes an indefinite extension, supposedly combined with a gradual
refocus on reconstruction and then withdrawal as more Afghan troops are
trained. The report sets "benchmarks" to be achieved in a vague
timetable of two to three years.
By way of "criticism," the panel claimed that
successive governments have "failed to adequately explain to Canadians
why Canadian troops are in Afghanistan, and urged an "improved"
communications strategy. In other words, the panel members started from
the position of support for the combat mission, and concluded that the
role of the government and military is to overcome the opposition from
a majority of Canadians who believe the mission should end next year.
Reaction was mainly negative from
organizations which have a clearer picture of the true situation in
Afghanistan.
"The Manley report says many of the
right things, but its recommendations are potentially a recipe for
more, not less, insecurity for Afghans," said Gerry Barr, President of
the Canadian Council for International Co-operation (CCIC), a coalition
of almost 100 Canadian NGOs.
Barr said that too much of the report is
devoted to beefing up the international military presence, as if the
conflict could be resolved militarily: "We know that is unlikely....
So, if we are truly concerned about the lives and safety of our men and
women in uniform, then we have to invest much more heavily in bringing
the conflict to an end."
He pointed out that peace efforts must take
into account the conflict's roots in history, in regional geopolitics,
and in legitimate grievances over the sharing of resources and
political power.
He also expressed disappointment that the
Panel did not address the consequences of military delivery of aid.
"Canadian NGOs on the ground in Afghanistan have emphasized, again and
again, that this practice turns both aid workers and Afghans into war
targets and often has no long term security or development benefit,"
Barr said.
There is no exit strategy for Canada without
negotiations, pointed out the Group of 78, the Canadian Peacebuilding
Coordinating Committee, and the World Federalist Movement, in their
joint response to the report. The groups said that Canada needs to
shift its focus to the facilitation of Afghan-led political
negotiations and reconciliation.
While these NGOs welcomed the report's
reference to national reconciliation, Ernie Regehr, co-founder of
Project Ploughshares, noted that "The report's concept of
reconciliation is based on the model of amnesty, rather than a
comprehensive process to address fundamentally conflicting interests."
"In the description of the Taliban,
the authors of the report acknowledge that the current fight is a
continuation of the old civil war, and they say reconciliation must be
`eventually' achieved - yet how to encourage and support a peace
process is not elaborated on and no innovative recommendations for the
way forward are made," said David Lord, Director of CPCC.
Another group of NGOs stressed that
Afghanistan needs development that is "coordinated, not co-opted."
CARE, Oxfam, and World Vision expressed concerns with the development
recommendations in the report, arguing that "Afghans desperately
require effective, community-owned development that is coordinated, not
co-opted by military strategy."
The groups note that the report
emphasizes rapid-impact development projects, chosen for military
reasons which provide few lasting benefits to Afghans and often
endanger civilians and aid workers. They also criticised the
recommendation that more project-based bilateral aid should go to
Kandahar at the expense of other regions. The Kandahar-driven strategy,
said World Vision Canada president Dave Toycen, leads to an uneven
distribution of aid, creating grievances in other parts of Afghanistan.
Mark Fried, advocacy coordinator of Oxfam
Canada, said that "The military has neither the expertise nor the
staying power to engage in the long-term development that Afghans need
and want. Quick impact projects are all too frequently synonymous with
ineffective aid."
Michael Byers, a respected foreign affairs
analyst who holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and
International Law at UBC, declined to appear before the "Independent"
Manley panel. Initially positively-inclined, he quickly realised that
the word "independent" was a "misnomer," since it would be "difficult
to find five people more likely to recommend an extension of the
mission than Mr. Manley, Derek Burney, Jake Epp, Paul Tellier and
Pamela Wallin."
In a widely-reprinted December article, Byers
noted that the Panel members were hand-picked by the prime minister,
and were "inordinately dependent on the government." Their options
effectively excluded alternative policies, such as negotiating with the
Taliban, or replacing NATO troops with UN peacekeepers.
"Although it pains me to say it, the Manley
panel is a sham," concluded Byers.
Found
at:
http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/articleprint11/02_MANLEY_REPORT_BACKS_PUSH_TO_EXTEND_AFGHAN_MISSION.html