- Reaction score
- 7,745
- Points
- 1,360
At least with these guys, the agenda certainly isn't hidden - hell, these guys say the NDP is soft on socialism!!!!
Mounting casualties compel Canada to send Afghanistan reinforcements
Keith Jones, World Socialist Web Site, 16 Sept 06
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/sep2006/cana-s16.shtml
I thought I'd share the "screed-ier" part with you:
No less worrying for the Harper government have been a spate of opinion polls showing that the majority of Canadians oppose the CAF intervention in Afghanistan and this despite a daily barrage or pro-intervention propaganda in the corporate media.
The anti-war sentiment is fueled by both an increasing awareness of the colonialist character of the CAF mission and skepticism, if not outright hostility, to the claims of the political establishment and media that the mission is aimed at protecting ordinary Canadians from terrorism.
Despite the pro-war bias of the media, information has seeped through about CAF troops storming villages and threatening and killing civilians—including in one case last month a 10 year-old boy. And much of the Canadian public is hostile to the Bush administration and recognizes, at least to some extent, that it seized on the September 11 2001 attacks to implement pre-existing plans to extend US power over the oil-rich Middle East and Central Asia through wars of aggression.
Corporate Canada by contrast is enthusiastic about the CAF intervention in Afghanistan and the Harper government’s attempt to use it to give Canada a more “robust”—read “militaristic”—foreign policy.
This is not only because the Canadian elite wants to curry favour with the Bush administration, believing that in a world increasingly fraught with explosive economic and geo-political imbalances and conflicts it best forge closer ties with the US. Through a more militaristic foreign policy, Canadian capital aims to assert its own predatory ambitions. This was spelled out in a recent National Post editorial that found that Harper should insist “as his quid pro quo” for allying Canada still more closely with the US that Washington recognize Canada’s claim to a huge and potentially resource-rich swathe of the Arctic Ocean.
Because Canadian big business views the Afghan intervention as so important to their attempt to implement a major shift in Canada’s foreign policy and geo-political strategy and because they are acutely aware of the lack of popular support for this shift, the corporate media and political elite have taken violent exception to the call made by the country’s fourth party, the social-democratic NDP, for Canada to withdraw its troops from southern Afghanistan and encourage NATO and the Afghan government to seek peace talks with the Taliban.
Without exception all of the country’s major dailies in both English Canada and Quebec have denounced the NDP’s position as “irresponsible.” The liberal Toronto Star bellowed, “Pulling put of Afghanistan now would compromise Canada’s credibility on the international scene.”
The pro-Quebec independence Bloc Quebecois and the official opposition Liberals have also stridently denounced the NDP.
The NDP’s position—which was first announced by federal NDP leader Jack Layton in late August and endorsed by the party’s federal convention last weekend—has nothing to do with a principled opposition to the occupation of Afghanistan or Canadian imperialism.
Initially Layton said he wanted the troops only withdrawn by next February so as not to undermine the efforts of Canada’s NATO partners. Now he and the NDP are saying that they CAF contingent in Kandahar should be withdrawn as soon as it is “safe” to do so, while reiterating that they want Canadian troops to remain in Kabul and that they support the Karzai government.
The NDP’s attacks on the CAF deployment are laced with Canadian nationalist appeals and pledges that the social democrats are ready to support the deployment of the CAF to wage wars overseas. According to the NDP, this mission is just “the wrong one for Canada;” the troops are not properly equipped; the mission is ill-defined; there is no exit strategy; the ability of Canada to assert its interests in the world is being undermined by Harper’s policy of tying Canada so closely to US foreign policy. If the troops are withdrawn, the NDP argues, Canada will be able to deploy troops in other imperialist-sanctioned peace-keeping missions, like in Lebanon or Haiti.
Nevertheless, the ruling elite fears that the NDP’s stand will fan anti-war sentiment and undermine its attempts to label opposition to the CAF intervention as unpatriotic, if not pro-Taliban—hence the stridency of their condemnations.
Mounting casualties compel Canada to send Afghanistan reinforcements
Keith Jones, World Socialist Web Site, 16 Sept 06
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/sep2006/cana-s16.shtml
I thought I'd share the "screed-ier" part with you:
No less worrying for the Harper government have been a spate of opinion polls showing that the majority of Canadians oppose the CAF intervention in Afghanistan and this despite a daily barrage or pro-intervention propaganda in the corporate media.
The anti-war sentiment is fueled by both an increasing awareness of the colonialist character of the CAF mission and skepticism, if not outright hostility, to the claims of the political establishment and media that the mission is aimed at protecting ordinary Canadians from terrorism.
Despite the pro-war bias of the media, information has seeped through about CAF troops storming villages and threatening and killing civilians—including in one case last month a 10 year-old boy. And much of the Canadian public is hostile to the Bush administration and recognizes, at least to some extent, that it seized on the September 11 2001 attacks to implement pre-existing plans to extend US power over the oil-rich Middle East and Central Asia through wars of aggression.
Corporate Canada by contrast is enthusiastic about the CAF intervention in Afghanistan and the Harper government’s attempt to use it to give Canada a more “robust”—read “militaristic”—foreign policy.
This is not only because the Canadian elite wants to curry favour with the Bush administration, believing that in a world increasingly fraught with explosive economic and geo-political imbalances and conflicts it best forge closer ties with the US. Through a more militaristic foreign policy, Canadian capital aims to assert its own predatory ambitions. This was spelled out in a recent National Post editorial that found that Harper should insist “as his quid pro quo” for allying Canada still more closely with the US that Washington recognize Canada’s claim to a huge and potentially resource-rich swathe of the Arctic Ocean.
Because Canadian big business views the Afghan intervention as so important to their attempt to implement a major shift in Canada’s foreign policy and geo-political strategy and because they are acutely aware of the lack of popular support for this shift, the corporate media and political elite have taken violent exception to the call made by the country’s fourth party, the social-democratic NDP, for Canada to withdraw its troops from southern Afghanistan and encourage NATO and the Afghan government to seek peace talks with the Taliban.
Without exception all of the country’s major dailies in both English Canada and Quebec have denounced the NDP’s position as “irresponsible.” The liberal Toronto Star bellowed, “Pulling put of Afghanistan now would compromise Canada’s credibility on the international scene.”
The pro-Quebec independence Bloc Quebecois and the official opposition Liberals have also stridently denounced the NDP.
The NDP’s position—which was first announced by federal NDP leader Jack Layton in late August and endorsed by the party’s federal convention last weekend—has nothing to do with a principled opposition to the occupation of Afghanistan or Canadian imperialism.
Initially Layton said he wanted the troops only withdrawn by next February so as not to undermine the efforts of Canada’s NATO partners. Now he and the NDP are saying that they CAF contingent in Kandahar should be withdrawn as soon as it is “safe” to do so, while reiterating that they want Canadian troops to remain in Kabul and that they support the Karzai government.
The NDP’s attacks on the CAF deployment are laced with Canadian nationalist appeals and pledges that the social democrats are ready to support the deployment of the CAF to wage wars overseas. According to the NDP, this mission is just “the wrong one for Canada;” the troops are not properly equipped; the mission is ill-defined; there is no exit strategy; the ability of Canada to assert its interests in the world is being undermined by Harper’s policy of tying Canada so closely to US foreign policy. If the troops are withdrawn, the NDP argues, Canada will be able to deploy troops in other imperialist-sanctioned peace-keeping missions, like in Lebanon or Haiti.
Nevertheless, the ruling elite fears that the NDP’s stand will fan anti-war sentiment and undermine its attempts to label opposition to the CAF intervention as unpatriotic, if not pro-Taliban—hence the stridency of their condemnations.
Being lectured by them is sorta like being gored by Bambi; it may happen but who the h*ll cares
