UNITE AGAINST HARPER'S WAR AGENDA!

Statement by the Central Executive Committee CPC for the March 15 day of peace actions

The anti-war protests on the March 15 day of peace action speak for Canada's peace majority. The protests are in solidarity with the world's peace majority, and with the majority of U.S. people now engaged in a historic struggle to block the Bush war machine.

     The U.S.-led imperialist occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq are a crossroad for humanity. They are a pivotal world issue. Ending these horrible wars will renew the prospects to resolve global warming, hunger and poverty.

     Bush (and Stephen Harper) represent the other road: permanent war and occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran, torture, renditions, restrictions on civil liberties, spying, racist fear-mongering, weapons in space, and more imposed hardships to pay for higher military spending.

     A historic task confronts Canadians who want realistic solutions to the deepening economic and environmental catastrophe: to block the Harper Tories' drive to war and reaction. We must strengthen the unity of the anti-war movement and prepare an action campaign that continues until Harper is blocked or defeated.

     The labour movement, Aboriginal nations, women, youth and students and all faiths need to work together against Harper's agenda.

     Bay Street - the main centre of Canada's powerful big business interests - wants to avoid an election and to help the Bush camp. These goose-stepping corporate fat cats want to lure all of Parliament's opposition parties to prolong and collaborate with Harper's minority government.

     By blocking a Harper majority government voters would get tough on the real criminals in Canada - the assassins of Aboriginal and women's equality, the environment, world peace, civil rights, manufacturing jobs, public health care, the Wheat Board and Canadian sovereignty.

     Blocking Harper is in the interest of all nations in Canada. Just as important, driving the Tories out of office before the presidential election in November can help the peace majority make a real difference in the United States. Unity and action by the peoples' movements can make that happen!

Militarism brings fascism 

     Canada's top general, Rick Hillier, has claimed that the debate about the occupation is causing attacks on Canadian troops. He wants to intimidate Parliamentarians to give unanimous support for the aggressive NATO military mission. But Parliament must never take orders from the military. Top military commanders have no business silencing debate in Canada.

     Hillier should be fired instead of being encouraged by Harper to reinforce the drive to war. Militarism is a threat to democracy, a weapon to scare people into supporting reactionary causes and a fascist ideology.

     Harper and other warmongers in local and provincial governments are carrying out a powerful campaign to glorify the military in Afghanistan, targeting children to sign yellow ribbons, staging rallies for the troops, paying think-tanks and servile professors for opinion pieces in the corporate media.

     All groups that value democracy need to help expose the Harper government's dangerous propaganda and the insidious growth of militarism.

Leave the Afghan quagmire

     The Manley Commission's report on Canada's role in Afghanistan showed no comprehension how to escape this swampy quagmire. Instead, it predictably repeated imperialist justifications for the occupation, claiming that Canada is bringing democracy and equality to the Afghan people. This dishonest and chauvinist lie cannot change the fact that the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan was an illegal and misguided act of barbaric revenge for the terrorist attacks against New York in 2001.

     Harper's hand-picked commission avoided other inconvenient truths, such as that the Karzai government controls only 30 per cent of Afghan territory, or that the puppet regime is full of war criminals and drug lords, or that women had far more rights and respect under the socialist government overthrown in 1993 by the henchmen of U.S. imperialism. The truth is that resistance in Afghanistan could force the U.S. into a humiliating retreat from the country in the near future, perhaps earlier than the extension for Canadian forces to remain in Kandahar until 2011.

Backsliding in Parliament

     Last year, the NDP tragically voted with the Conservatives to defeat a Liberal motion that would have ended Canada's military role in Kandahar in February 2009. By propping up Harper's war agenda, the NDP freed the Liberals from this commitment, allowing them to reach an agreement with Harper to extend the mission until 2011.

     Such wavering in Parliament means that the peoples' movements must exert even more pressure to get Canada's troops out immediately. The Tory PR campaign is not winning the propaganda battle; in fact, a majority of Canadians still want the troops out.

     Bush's world-wide "war on terror" is continuing imperialism's ambitions by violent means - the plundering of resources and re-division of markets to ensure the domination of finance capital throughout the world. But far from invincible, the NATO military alliance is badly divided, and Bush is struggling to retain support. Defeating Harper would further divide NATO and help to isolate the most war-like members of the alliance.

     This racist war can be stopped. Imperialism can be stopped. Canada must join the anti-war majority of the world's peoples by defeating Harper!

Found at: http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/articleprint14/06.%20UNITE_AGAINST_HARPER'S_WAR_AGENDA!.html