September 3, 2021 · 12:11

Airshows sell war and militarism

Snowbirds

The growing campaign to oppose spending tens of billions of dollars on 88 new fighter jets faces an important, if unconventional, obstacle: the warplanes themselves. Fighter jets are an important tool of militarist propaganda.

In recent weeks Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) planes have done numerous flyovers and participated in airshows across the country. As part of “Operation Inspiration” CF-18s flew over the Prince George Exhibition and lower Vancouver Island. The RCAF does flyovers at dozens of special events every year. In 2019 they flew by the opening game of the NBA finals and the Toronto Raptors’ massive victory celebration.

Fighter jets also participate in numerous airshows every year. In recent weeks CF-18s were part of the Camrose Drive-In Airshow, Cold Lake Aqua Days and Abbotsford International Airshow. To create popular support for the Air Force the RCAF has promoted airshows and flying for a century. In “The Public Face of the Royal Canadian Air Force: The Importance of Air Shows and Demonstration Teams to the R.C.A.F” Timothy Balzer writes: “For almost as long as Canada has had an air force, it has had demonstration flyers displaying the skill and daring required to be a pilot. From the first formation flight in 1919 on, demonstration teams have played an important role in keeping the Royal Canadian Air Force engaged and interacting with the Canadian public.”

This weekend warplanes will participate in the country’s largest airshow. With a federal government decision on selecting a new fighter jets looming, the controversial F-35 Stealth Fighter will be on display at the upcoming Canadian International Air Show. When the jets participated in the 2019 Ottawa Air show CBC noted “The high-speed hard sell: why the F-35 is coming to a Canadian air show”

The CF-18 Demonstration Team and Snowbirds will also fly over Lake Ontario, including Toronto’s waterfront. The CF 18 Demonstration Team participates in more than a dozen airshows a year. According to the Department of National Defence, they are “inspiring and connecting with Canadians” and “building interest amongst audiences in Canada’s Air Force”.

With millions of Canadians watching Snowbird airshows every year, DND calls them an “important public relations and recruiting tool.” Each year the famed Snowbirds participate in some 60 air shows across North America. Over 50 years they’ve flown in more than 2,500 shows and cultural events such as Canada Day celebrations. Millions watchSnowbird planes fly annually.

Snowbirds and the CF-18 Demonstration Team have been celebrated in books and on Canada Post stamps. Fighter jets have also been celebrated by one of Canada’s top sports teams. Unveiled in 2011, the Winnipeg Jets logo was designed in collaboration with the RCAF. A blue circle with a metallic grey silhouette of a CF-18 Hornet Fighter above a red maple leaf, the logo was revealed at an air force base.

These Winnipeg Jets jerseys and many other initiatives promote killing machines. Over the past three decades CF-18s have bombed Iraq, Serbia, Libya and Iraq/Syria. Many were killed directly or due to the destruction of infrastructure.

One way to decrease the likelihood of RCAF violence is to lessen their ability to inflict it. While seven Canadian fighter jets participated in the 2011 bombing, alliance member Latvia didn’t send warplanes partly because it doesn’t have top notch jets.

Currently, the RCAF is about the 15-20th most lethal air force in the world and yet Canada is the 39th most populous nation in the world. If the RCAF stuck with its current stock of CF-18s the RCAF’s global ranking would likely decline over time. But, for years, probably decades, it would remain stronger than other Pacific nations with similar or larger populations such as Mexico, Colombia and Peru. If RCAF declined to 39th most lethal air force it would still be stronger than 154 other nations.

In a bid to weaken the RCAF’s capacity to carry out violence the no fighter jet campaign is pressing the government to scrap its planned $19 billion ($77 billion over their full lifecycle) purchase of 88 new cutting-edge fighter jets. The campaign received a boost recently with a public letter signed by Canadian musicians Neil Young, Tegan and Sara and Sarah Harmer, as well as authors Yann Martel, Gabor Maté and Michael Ondaatje. The statement opposed to “spending tens of billions of dollars on unnecessary, dangerous, climate destroying fighter jets” was also endorsed by environmentalists Naomi Klein and David Suzuki, as well as three sitting MPs, four former MPs and prominent international figures such as Roger Waters, Daryl Hannah and Noam Chomsky.

Scrapping the entire 88 fighter jet purchase is an uphill battle.

The no fighter jets campaign is challenging an arms industry addicted to public money, a military seeking fancy toys and a Canadian establishment tied to the US empire. These militarists use air shows, “sexy” jets and other means of propaganda to push their views. People who believe in peace and oppose militarism need to understand what we’re up against.

 

Yves Engler is author of Stand on Guard For Whom? — A People’s History of the Canadian Military

 

 

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September 1, 2021 · 18:20

Haiti’s debt of independence

2003 sticker demanding repayment from France

In the vast history of imperialist exploitation few episodes match the depravity of Haiti’s debt of independence. Military blackmail of a small country by a superpower, prioritizing “property rights” over human rights, racial capitalism, a sellout “light skinned” local bourgeoise and the way our past haunts the present are all part of the story.

After winning their liberation from slavery and colonial rule in a war that killed half the population, Haitians were forced to pay their former masters an astronomical sum for their freedom. This oppressive debt Haiti paid to secure its independence is finally becoming part of the mainstream narrative about that country’s impoverishment. In a startling example of the media recognizing the debt of independence, a 200-word Journal de Montréal introduction to Haiti’s vulnerability to earthquakes noted: “Earthquakes as devastating as that of Saturday in Haiti have already occurred in 2010, 1887, 1842, 1770 and 1751…  This poverty is due in large part to the exorbitant debt Haiti had to pay France for its independence. Converted into today’s money, the debt is equivalent to $30 billion Canadian.”

In recent weeks CNN, Reuters, the New York Times, CBC and others have all referenced the debt of independence. More in-depth reports have also appeared in the Miami Herald (“France pulled off one of the greatest heists ever. It left Haiti perpetually impoverished”), France 24 (“France must return the billions extorted from Haiti”) and ABC News (“How colonial-era debt helped shape Haiti’s poverty and political unrest”).

In a remarkable act of imperial humiliation, two decades after independence Haiti began paying France a huge indemnity for lost property. After years of pressure, 12 French warships with 500 cannons were dispatched to Haiti’s coast in 1825. Under threat of invasion and the restoration of slavery, Francophile Haitian president Jean-Pierre Boyer agreed to pay French slaveholders 150 million francs for lost land and now free Haitians. Paris also demanded preferential commercial agreements and French banks loaned Haiti the money at remarkably high interest rates.

In 1825 the debt of independence represented about 300% of the country’s GDP. While the principal was later reduced, the interest Haiti paid was exorbitant.

It took Haiti 122 years to pay the debt. In 1898 half of government expenditures went to paying France and French banks while that sum reached 80% in 1914. (The debt was bought by US banks during the 1915-34 occupation and the final payments made to them.)

The agreement Haiti made with France had many deleterious impacts. The 50 percent reduction in duties on French goods undercut Haitian industry. To make the first payment of 30 million francs to compensate French slaveowners the government shuttered every school in the country. It has been labeled the first ever structural adjustment program and contributed to the Haitian government’s long-standing under-investment in education.

To find the money to pay France, President Boyer implemented the 1826 rural code, the foundation for “legal apartheid” between urban and rural people. In the countryside, movement was restricted, socializing after midnight banned, small-scale commerce limited, all in the name of increasing export crops to generate cash to pay France. The peasantry paid money to the state, receiving little in return.

Paying French slave owners had another damaging effect. A central motivation in agreeing to the debt was to solidify Haiti’s standing as an internationally recognized independent nation. Instead, it began a vicious cycle of debt peonage that undercut Haitian sovereignty.

To pay the first instalment of the indemnity Haiti took out an onerous loan from French banks. As part of securing debt payments, French bankers set up the Banque Nationale de la Republique d’Haiti in 1880. Effectively the country’s treasury, tax revenue was deposited there and it printed Haiti’s money.

Growing consciousness of the debt of independence is largely due to the Jean-Bertrand Aristide government’s push for restitution. In the lead-up to Haiti’s 200-year anniversary, the Haitian government instigated a commission to estimate the cost of the ransom, which they put at $21 billion. The Aristide government called for its restitution and instigated legal proceedings to force Paris to pay. The demand was part of why France (along with Canada and the US) helped overthrow Aristide in 2004 and the coup government dropped the issue.

In another move that garnered significant attention to the debt, a group of mostly Canadian activists published a fake announcement indicating that France would repay the debt. Tied to France’s Bastille Day and the devastating 2010 earthquake, the stunt forced Paris to deny it. Calling themselves the Committee for the Reimbursement of the Indemnity Money Extorted from Haiti (CRIME), they subsequently launched a public letter signed by many prominent individuals.

While the media should be commended for linking Haiti’s impoverishment to its debt of independence, it would help people make sense of the situation there today if they mentioned another point of history. Right from the beginning most Haitians opposed paying the debt. Only a small elite desperate for international recognition and trade agreed to it. In response to an earlier French push for reparations, leader of Haiti’s north, Henri Christophe said: “Is it possible that they wish to be recompensed for the loss of our persons? Is it conceivable that Haitians who have escaped torture and massacre at the hands of these men, Haitians who have conquered their own country by the force of their arms and at the cost of their blood, these same free Haitians should now purchase their property and persons once again with money paid to their former oppressors?”

For Christophe, and most Haitians, the answer was clear. But the son of a French tailor, Boyer was willing to sell out the revolution and vast majority of Haitians to improve his and the merchant class’ immediate standing. Unfortunately, the light skinned elite who succumbed to France’s demands two centuries ago largely continue to rule Haiti.

The same racial, class and ideological dynamics that led Haitian officials to compensate Paris for defeating slavery and colonialism remain in place today. The media should also talk about that.

 

Yves Engler is the author of 12 books. His latest is Stand on Guard For Whom? — A People’s History of the Canadian Military.

 

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August 30, 2021 · 18:32

Afghanistan a military and an ‘aid’ failure

 

While recent events have destroyed the credibility of militarists who pushed for the invasion and 20-year-long occupation of Afghanistan, the moral bankruptcy of their supporters in the aid industry has also been stunningly revealed.

A quick Taliban victory over the foreign trained “Afghan army” at least (momentarily) embarrassed Canadian militarists. But what about their camp followers in the NGO universe?

Over the past two decades Ottawa has plowed over $3.6 billion in “aid” into Afghanistan. During this period the central Asian country has been the top recipient of official assistance, receiving about twice the next biggest destination, another victim of Canadian foreign policy, Haiti.

While Afghanistan is undoubtedly deserving of aid, 10 countries have a lower GDP per capita and 20 countries have a lower life expectancy. So why the focus on Afghanistan? Because it was the place where policymakers thought aid was most likely to have positive results? Of course not. The aid was delivered to support the Canadian, US, and NATO military occupation.

Canadian personnel repeatedly linked development work in Afghanistan to the counterinsurgency effort. “It’s a useful counterinsurgency tool,” is how Lieutenant-Colonel Tom Doucette, commander of Canada’s provincial reconstruction team, described the Canadian International Development Agency’s work in Afghanistan. Development assistance, for instance, was sometimes given to communities in exchange for information on combatants. After a roadside bomb hit his convoy in September 2009, Canadian General Jonathan Vance spent 50 minutes berating village elders for not preventing the attack. “If we keep blowing up on the roads,” he told them, “I’m going to stop doing development.”

The CF worked closely with NGOs in Afghanistan. A 2007 parliamentary report explained that some NGOs “work intimately with military support already in the field.” Another government report noted that the “Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) platoon made up of Army Reserve soldiers organizes meetings with local decision-makers and international NGOs to determine whether they need help with security.”

The aid was also a public relations exercise. At politically sensitive moments in the war Canadian officials sought to showcase newly built schools or dams to divert attention from more unsavory sides of military conflict. Alarmed about a growing casualty list and other negative news, in fall 2006, the Prime Minister’s Office directed the military to “push” reconstruction stories on journalists embedded with the military. Through an access to information request the Globe and Mail obtained an email from Major Norbert Cyr saying, “the major concern [at Privy Council Office] is whether we are pushing development issues with embeds.” In an interview with Jane’s Defence Weekly’s Canadian correspondent, a journalist described what this meant on the ground. “We’ve been invited on countless village medical outreach visits, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and similar events.” The hope was that reporters embedded at the Canadian base in Kandahar would file more stories about development projects and fewer negative subjects.

At a broader level aid was used to reinforce the foreign occupation. The aim was to support the Afghan forces allied with the US-led occupation. Canada’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan led to a drop in aid, and now that US forces have withdrawn, Canadian aid will likely dry up.

Historically, military intervention elicits aid. Call it the ‘intervention-equals-aid’ principle or ‘wherever Canadian or US troops kill, Ottawa provides aid’ principle.

Ottawa delivered $7.25 million to South Korea during the early 1950s Korean War. Tens of millions of dollars in Canadian aid supported US policy in South Vietnam in the 1960s and during the 1990-91 Iraq war Canada provided $75 million in assistance to people in countries affected by the Gulf crisis. Amidst the NATO bombing in 1999-2000 the former Yugoslavia was the top recipient of Canadian assistance. After the 2003 US invasion of Iraq Canada announced a $300 million aid package to that country.

As mentioned above, Haiti has been the second largest recipient of Canadian aid over the past two decades. While an elected, pro-poor government was in place between 2001 and 2004 Canadian aid to Haiti was reduced to a trickle. But after the US, French and Canadian invasion ousted thousands of elected officials in 2004, hundreds of millions of dollars flowed into Haiti. Throughout the 15-year UN occupation, Canadian aid continued to flow.

In the years after invasions by foreign troops, Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti were the top recipients of Canadian “aid”. The thread that connected those three countries was the presence of Canadian or US troops.

Should it even be called aid when it comes along with foreign soldiers? A better description would be the “break it and you pay for it” principle.

Where is the discussion of all this in the NGO world? Canada’s international assistance policy get a free ride — of course we’re a force for good — in the mainstream media. But does anyone really believe it’s good for “aid” to be tied to military occupation?

Will those who uncritically promote increased Canadian “aid” discuss its ties to the disaster in Afghanistan? Are any of the NGOs that followed foreign troops to Afghanistan speaking out about their error?

 

Yves Engler’s Stand on Guard For Whom? — A People’s History of the Canadian Military is now available.

 

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August 29, 2021 · 15:25

Toronto’s waterfront shouldn’t serve as a stage to promote warplanes

U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike

Toronto’s waterfront shouldn’t serve as a prop to promote violent warplanes. With the air force set to select a new fighter jet, the controversial F-35 Stealth Fighter will be participating in this weekend’s Canadian International Air Show.

As a father of a young child, I understand the appeal of some excitement in the sky, especially after the lockdown. But, what flying warplanes over Lake Ontario is not innocent fun.

Thousands of Torontonians have fled countries that have been bombed by fighter jets in recent years. The sound of low-flying warplanes can be triggering for those who have experienced their violence and there is often an influx of 911 calls whenever fighter jets flyby urban areas.

The airshow celebrates warplanes and the Air Force. Since the establishment of the Royal Canadian Air Force a century ago the Department of National Defence has promoted airshows. The CF-18 Demonstration Team and Snowbirds, which will also be flying over Lake Ontario, seek to “inspire” support for an Air Force that has bombed Iraq, Serbia, Libya and Iraq/Syria over the past three decades. Many were killed directly or due to the destruction of infrastructure. As people seek to make sense of what’s happening in Afghanistan, it’s important to consider the death, destruction and enmity engendered by over 7000 US airstrikes a year. A fighter jet that’s bombed Afghanistan, the F-35 is appearing in its first Canadian International Airshow this weekend.

The F-35 is marketed as capable of dropping a B61 nuclear bomb. Yet, the city council reaffirmed its commitment to Toronto being a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in 2018 and, according to an April poll, 80% of Canadians believe “the world should work to eliminate nuclear weapons.”

Rather than something to celebrate, the F-35 is a testament to humanity’s predilection for ploughing its resources and ingenuity into perfecting the art of killing. What could the US $1.7 trillion spent on the Stealth Fighter project accomplished if channeled towards fighting infectious diseases or transitioning away from fossil fuels?

The F-35 is participating in this year’s airshow as part of Lockheed Martin’s push to win the contract to provide the Canadian Air Force with 88 new fighter jets. Despite promising not to purchase the Stealth Fighter before being elected in 2015, the Liberals have included the F-35 in the three-jet competition set to be decided in the coming months.

The No Fighter Jet coalition opposes the F-35 and the entire plan to purchase 88 new fighter jets. In a boost for the campaign the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute released a public letter last month calling on Trudeau to scrap the $19 billion ($77 billion over their full lifecycle) fighter jet purchase that was signed by Canadian musicians Neil Young, Tegan and Sara and Sarah Harmer, as well as authors Michael Ondaatje, Gabor Maté and Yann Martel. The statement opposed to “spending tens of billions of dollars on unnecessary, dangerous, climate destroying fighter jets” was also endorsed by environmentalists Naomi Klein and David Suzuki, as well as three sitting MPs, four former MPs and prominent international figures such as Roger Waters, Daryl Hannah and Noam Chomsky.

Amidst a pandemic and intensifying climate crisis, the federal government shouldn’t be spending tens of billions of dollars on new carbon-intensive fighter jets. And Toronto’s waterfront shouldn’t be used to promote warplanes.

 

Yves Engler’s Stand on Guard For Whom? — A People’s History of the Canadian Military is now available.

 

 

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August 24, 2021 · 21:29

Canadian military wrecks the environment

The forest fires, torrential floods and other extreme weather events wreaking havoc around the world are a cry from Mother Earth to take bold action. It’s time for environmentalists to directly challenge militarism, which is inherently anti-ecological and divides the world into good guys and bad guys at a time when we need international cooperation to mitigate the climate crisis.

From decimating animal life to releasing substantial greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere, Canada’s armed forces have an immense ecological footprint. They’ve littered the landscape with tens of millions of bullets and shells as well as polluted dozens of lakes with ordnance. They continue to employ animals in experiments and during warfare.

Military vehicles, planes, warships, etc. consume vast quantities of fossil fuels. In fact, the Department of National Defence (DND) is far and away the largest emitter of GHGs in the federal government. DND represented 59% of federal government GHGs in 2019–20. Incredibly, however, the armed forces’ emissions are exempt from current national reduction targets, which is why DND’s GHGs have increased.

Now, the government is planning to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new fossil fuel powered weaponry, which is incompatible with Canada’s commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050. The government is expecting to spend $82 billion on 15 new petroleum powered warships, which dump waste in the ocean, disrupt sea life and often spill oil. The full life-cycle cost of the surface combatants is expected to reach a mind-boggling $286 billion partly due to their advanced weapons systems capable of decimating ecosystems.

Concurrently, the military plans to purchase 88 new carbon-intensive fighter jets for $19 billion ($77 billion over their lifecycle). While mostly consumed in training, Canadian jets burnt 14.5 million pounds of fuel during the 2011 bombing of Libya. In that war NATO jets also destroyed natural habitat and killed many camels.

As the federal government proclaims its commitment to reach net-zero in less than 30 years, its two most costly ever procurements will entrench fossil fuel militarism into the next half of the century. The resources plowed into the fighter jets and surface combatants could turbocharge a just transition away from fossil fuels. Why not use these resources to build light rail lines in every major centre or a million units of car free public housing?

Purchasing new surface combatants and warplanes diverts resources required for a just transition towards fossil fuel militarism. But it’s indirect ecological toll may be even worse. New fighter jets and naval vessels are an investment in an ideology we must jettison to overcome the climate crisis.

Militarism stokes division and is intimately tied to nation state competition, which undercuts the international cooperation required to mitigate climate chaos (not to mention the pandemic and other ecological crises). Environmentalists’ battle is not with the Russians or Chinese it’s with the polluters, which include those purportedly protecting us from the Russians and Chinese. An armada and cutting-edge fighter jets can’t stop ever more ferocious heat waves, forest fires and torrential floods.

For real security, we need to embrace the spirit of internationalism — a force that joins us across borders in common defence of people and planet.

Of course it’s hard to speak truth to the power of militarism, but it’s critically important we do so.

 

Yves Engler is the author of 11 books. His Stand on Guard For Whom? — A People’s History of the Canadian Military is available this month.

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August 20, 2021 · 12:46

Is Denis Coderre fit to run for Mayor of Montréal?

Denis Coderre and installed Haitian PM Gerard Latortue

If Will Prosper’s past transgression make him unfit to run to be Mayor of Montréal North, then what about Denis Coderre’s role in further impoverishing Haiti?

On Thursday it was reported that Prosper was fired from the RCMP in 2001 for improperly accessing and possibly leaking information regarding a childhood friend investigated for homicide. Prosper admits to improperly accessing a police database but denies leaking any information.

In response to the revelation, Montréal Mayoral candidate Coderre called on Project Montréal to remove the prominent Haitian Canadian activist and filmmaker as their candidate. But the former Montréal mayor shouldn’t be giving Prosper or anyone else lessons in ethics. Coderre’s role in overthrowing Haiti’s elected government in 2004 was more morally bankrupt and had many more dire consequences than anything Prosper was ever accused of.

As minister responsible for La Francophonie in the months before and after the US, France and Canada sent troops to Haiti Coderre justified the ouster of the president and thousands of other elected Haitian officials. As Prime Minister Paul Martin’s “special advisor on Haiti” after the 2004 coup Coderre repeatedly met foreign installed Prime Minister Gerard Latortue whose regime was responsible for thousands of deaths. Coderre repeatedly justified violence against pro-democracy activists.

While largely buried, this troubling history is not secret. In fact, another municipal politician, Sue Montgomery, penned a Montréal Gazette column during the 2006 federal election campaign calling on voters to “punish” Coderre for his role in Haiti.

While Prosper lost his job and apologized for his transgression, Coderre has never taken any responsibility for his role in undermining Haitian democracy. In fact, he’s continued to support violent, corrupt, far-right forces in that country.

During his term as mayor in 2014 Coderre visited President Michel Martelly, a former member of the dreaded Ton Ton Macoutes and supporter of the 2004 and 1991 coups against elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. According to La Presse, Martelly immediately said “my friend” when he saw Coderre, who he’d met several times. During the 2014 meeting, Coderre invited the corrupt Martelly to make an official visit to Montreal.

In 2019 new Montréal mayor Valérie Plante listened to progressive members of the Haitian community and asked Ottawa to refuse entry into Canada of the openly misogynistic and violent Martelly. His planned concert was ultimately canceled.

In contrast to Coderre, Prosper has been critical of Canada’s support for the violent and corrupt PHTK, which includes a prominent senator from that party recently paying nearly $5 million for Montréal area property. Prosper signed two public letters over the past few years critical of Canada’s role in propping up Martelly’s chosen successor Jovenel Moïse who was recently assassinated in what was likely a factional struggle within the PHTK.

A president murdered in his home in the middle of the night with nary any response from his security is a troubling descent for a country long mired in difficulty. This disintegration of Haitian political life is partly the result of US and Canadian support over the past decade for a highly regressive PHTK party and their earlier role in undermining the country’s most popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas, with the 2004 coup. Coderre played a part in this drama, which led to searing images in recent days of earthquake victims completely abandoned by their government.

Voters in Montréal North should be left to determine Will Prosper’s fate in the upcoming election. For his part, Denis Coderre should apologize for his role in further immiserating some of the world’s most impoverished people.

 

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August 18, 2021 · 13:40

Afghanistan was based on lies. Will the militarists apologize?

37 killed in Afghan airstrike

The quick collapse of the US-backed government in Afghanistan has revealed how little ordinary people should trust Canada’s military, arms industry and associated ideological supporters. Their justifications for war, their claims of progress and then victory have proven to be no more than propaganda and lies.

Canada’s biggest military deployment since World War II, more than 40,000 Canadian troops fought in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014. Canada spent $20 billion on the military operations and related aid mission and over 200,000 Afghan civilians and combatants were killed in two decades of fighting. As I detailed Monday, Canada engaged in significant violence and war crimes in the central Asian country. Canadian special forces participated in highly unpopular night-time assassination raids and a JTF2 member said he felt his commanders “encouraged” them to commit war crimes in Afghanistan.

The reasons presented for Canada’s war in Afghanistan were to fight fundamentalists, build democracy and support women’s rights. These rationales never added out.

Just before Canada ramped up its fighting in Kandahar in 2006 Canadian troops invaded Haiti to overthrow the elected government there. Five hundred Canadian soldiers backed violent rebels — Haiti’s Taliban, if you like — who employed rape as a means of political control. A study in the prestigious Lancet medical journal revealed there were 35,000 rapes in the Port-au-Prince area in the 22 months after the overthrow of the elected government. So much for advancing women’s rights.

The other supposed motivation for the invasion and occupation was to weaken Al Qaeda and Jihadist forces. As Canadian troops wound down their occupation of Afghanistan a half dozen Canadian fighter jets bombed Libya. With a Canadian general overseeing the war and Canadian naval vessels helping out, NATO helped rebels in the east of the country opposed to Muammar Gadhafi’s secular government. A year and a half before the war a Canadian intelligence report described eastern Libya as an “epicentre of Islamist extremism” and said “extremist cells” operated in the anti-Gadhafi stronghold. In fact, during the bombing, noted Ottawa Citizen military reporter David Pugliese, Canadian air force members privately joked they were part of “al-Qaida’s air force”. Lo and behold hardline Jihadists were the major beneficiaries of the war, taking control of significant portions of the country.

If fighting Jihadists, building democracy and defending women’s rights were not Canada’s main objectives in Afghanistan what was?

Supporting the US was the main reason Canada was fighting. “Washington’s reactions tended to be the exclusive consideration in almost all of the discussions about Afghanistan,” explains The Unexpected War: Canada In Kandahar. “The political problem, of course, was how to support Washington in its war on terror without supporting the war in Iraq. The answer to the problem was the so-called ‘Afghan solution’.” Former Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham explained “there was no question, every time we talked about the Afghan mission, it gave us cover for not going to Iraq.”

But there’s more to it than that. The military saw the conflict in Afghanistan as a way to increase its profile. There was a surge of martial patriotism in Canada with initiatives such as Highway of Heroes and Project Hero. In the mid-2000s every province adopted a special licence plate to signify the driver is a veteran.

The military saw Afghanistan as a way to assert its warfighting bona fides. As Chief of the Defence Staff Rick Hillier infamously proclaimed: “We are going to Afghanistan to actually take down the folks that are trying to blow up men and women … we’re not the public service of Canada, we’re not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people.”

The Canadian Forces have a predilection for war. As basically all but Canadian special forces had been withdrawn from Afghanistan, the Chief of the Defence Staff publicly demanded a new war. “We have some men and women who have had two, three and four tours and what they’re telling me is ‘Sir, we’ve got that bumper sticker. Can we go somewhere else now?’” General Walter Natynczyk told Canadian Press in 2012. “You also have the young sailors, soldiers, airmen and women who have just finished basic training and they want to go somewhere and in their minds it was going to be Afghanistan. So, if not Afghanistan, where’s it going to be? They all want to serve.”

Various think tanks and militarist organization such as the Conference of Defense Associations as well as academics writing on military issues benefited from millions of dollars in public funds. The war justified an increase in the size of the military and a major spike in military spending.

Private security firms did well in Afghanistan. Conflict in that country helped propel Montréal’s Garda’s to become the biggest privately held security firm in the world with some 80,000 employees today.

Military service contractors such as SNC Lavalin and ATCO also expanded their involvement with the Canadian Forces. During the war in Afghanistan Canadian Commercial Corporation president Marc Whittingham wrote in the Hill Times, “there is no better trade show for defence equipment than a military mission.” The crown corporation has expanded its role in the international weapons trade.

On Monday The Intercept reported that the stock price of the top five US arms firms rose nearly ten fold since US President George W. Bush signed the Authorization for Use of Military Force on September 18, 2001. In “$10,000 Invested in Defense Stocks When Afghanistan War Began Now Worth Almost $100,000” Jon Schwarz notes that these companies’ stock prices increase was 58% greater than the gains of the overall New York Stock Exchange.

Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics all have Canadian subsidiaries. The US-based firms are not simply branch plants. They do research in Canada, have offices near Parliament Hill and hire former top Canadian military officials. A number of them do international business through their Canadian divisions. General Dynamics Canada, for instance, has the largest ever Canadian export contract selling Light Armoured Vehicles to Saudi Arabia. Tracing its Canadian history to 1948, General Dynamics has ties to Canadian educational institutions, politicians and the CF. It has over 2,000 employees and does research and development work.

The stock price of the biggest Canadian-based arms firm, CAE, has also risen sharply since 2001. It trains US pilots as well as the operators of Predator and Reaper drones. The Montréal-based company openly talks about profiting from increased US military spending. “Le patron de CAE veut profiter de la hausse des budgets de l’armée américaine” (CAE boss wants to take advantage of rising US military spending), read a 2018 La Presse headline.

The war in Afghanistan was good for the arms industry. It also bolstered the Canadian military. But the quick unraveling of 20-years of war and occupation ought to sap some of the power of Canada’s military, arms companies and associated ideological institutions. The quick collapse of the US- and Canadian-backed Afghan military and government proves they should not be trusted. Their primary goal is, and always has been, to benefit the military-industrial complex, not to improve the lives of people in other countries. Or to tell the truth to Canadians.

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August 16, 2021 · 12:56

Canada’s disaster in Afghanistan

Canadian soldiers unfurl flag at Kandahar Airbase in Afghanistan on Feb 11 2002 (Joe Raedle/Getty)

What a waste of human life and resources!

With the Taliban quickly taking control of all major Afghan cities we should be asking what was the point of all that bloodletting?

More than 200,000 Afghan civilians and combatants have been killed since the US, Canadian and British invasion two decades ago. A few thousand Canadian, US, British, etc. troops also died in the fighting.

Canada’s biggest military deployment since World War II, more than 40,000 Canadian troops fought in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014. Canada spent $20 billion on the military operations and related aid mission in Afghanistan. While the stated rationale of the war was to neutralize al-Qaeda members and topple the Taliban regime, the Taliban has now regained control of the country and Jihadist groups’ influence has increased.

In October 2001 the US unilaterally invaded Afghanistan, launching air strikes in support of Northern Alliance rebels fighting the Taliban government. Canada’s JTF2 special forces aided these efforts.

Portrayed as a battle against the misogynist Taliban, the foreign intervention benefited an equally unsavory assortment of warlords, who previously imposed the veil and banned education for women as well as destroying schools, museums and cinema halls. Individuals responsible for massive human rights violations during Afghanistan’s mid-1990s civil war were appointed to prominent government positions.

Some in the Canadian Forces (CF) sympathized with the Afghan warlords. In March 2006 Maclean’s reported on General Rick Hillier’s “enormous respect for the warlords — even making allowances for those who profit from the poppy business.” The magazine quoted the Chief of the Defence Staff saying, “I saw the finest leaders that I have ever had the opportunity to meet. They beat the Russians pretty fairly and squarely, at the end of the day they were responsible for thumping the Taliban and throwing them out, along with a significant number of Al-Qaeda folks.” The CF purchased millions of dollars in goods and services from companies run by former warlords.

At the peak, over 3,000 Canadians fought a violent counterinsurgency in Kandahar. Between April 2006 and December 2007 Canadian troops fired an astounding 4.7 million bullets, including over 1,650 tank shells and 12,000 artillery rounds. In A Line in the Sand: Canadians at War in Kandahar Captain Ray Wiss praised Canadian troops as “the best at killing people … We are killing a lot more of them than they are of us, and we have been extraordinarily successful recently… For the past week, we have managed to kill between 10 and 20 Taliban every day.” In September 2006 the CF spearheaded NATO’s Operation Medusa aimed at Taliban strongholds in the Panjwaii and Zhari districts of Kandahar. This is how Corporal Ryan Pagnacco described the airstrikes: “After watching bomb after bomb drop on these targets, I wondered how anything could survive. I figured that when we went in, we’d be walking into a ghost town.” The Medusa offensive forced 80,000 civilians to flee their homes, resulted in hundreds of enemy combatant deaths and “at least 50 civilians were killed over several weeks of bombing.”

On numerous occasions the western press reported on Canadian troops killing Afghan civilians. “Canadian soldiers have repeatedly killed and wounded civilians while on patrol in civilian areas,” noted the New York Times in May 2007.In July 2008 Canadian soldiers killed a five-year-old girl and her two-year-old brother after their vehicle got too close to a convoy. The father said afterwards that “if I get a chance, I will kill Canadians.” (Because of an agreement between Kabul and Ottawa, Afghans had no legal right for compensation if they were hurt or their property damaged by Canadian soldiers.)

Canadian armoured vehicles regularly fired warning shots at bikes, cars or trucks that got too close, often causing crashes, leaving Afghans injured or worse. In June 2006 France 2 TV showed unedited images of Canadian soldiers searching villages and houses, breaking down doors and interrogating residents. According to a report in La Presse, Canadian soldiers were shown telling villagers that it was not smart to join the Taliban because our soldiers are really good, they are well trained and good shots “and you will die”. Later, the video shows a Canadian commander saying “too bad for you if you don’t want to tell us where the Taliban are hiding. We will come and kill them. We will drop many bombs and fire all over. Is this what you want? Well then continue telling us nothing.”

Canadian troops’ actions in Afghanistan belie claims of high-minded motives. The CF used white phosphorus as a weapon against “enemy-occupied” vineyards in Afghanistan while Canadian special forces participated in highly unpopular night-time assassination raids.

The most-deadly element of the war was airstrikes. While no Canadian planes dropped bombs in Afghanistan, Canadian troops regularly called in US air strikes. Canadian personnel also operated the NORAD systems that supported US bombings and some heavily armed Canadian helicopters launched nighttime operations.

Most of the individuals detained by Canadians — and turned over to the Afghan army and prison system — were likely tortured. Under the Geneva Conventions the military force that detains someone is responsible for their treatment and many of those detained by the CF were likely tortured with knives, power cables and open flames. Or raped. The second highest-ranked member of Canada’s diplomatic service in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2007, Richard Colvin, reported to a parliamentary committee that “the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured.” Additionally, dozens of individuals given to the Afghan army by the CF were unaccounted for, perhaps lost in a prison system that did not keep good records or maybe killed.

Many of those detained by the CF had little to do with the Taliban. According to Colvin, “it was the NDS (Afghan National Directorate of Security) that told us that many or most of our detainees were unconnected to the insurgency … We detained and handed over for severe torture a lot of innocent people.”

The CF regularly handed over children they suspected of Taliban ties to the NDS, which often tortured them. The Toronto Star reported that in late 2006 a Canadian soldier heard an Afghan soldier raping a young boy and later saw the boy’s “lower intestines falling out of his body.” Reportedly, the Canadian military police were told by their commanders not to interfere when Afghan soldiers and police sexually abused children.

Despite attempts to portray the situation otherwise, the invasion of Afghanistan did not have UN approval. After the US invaded the Security Council was pressured to authorize the use of force to defend the installed Afghan government. Non-American foreign troops in Afghanistan were effectively under US command.

Canada followed the USA into this 20-year-long predictable disaster. Every thoughtful person should learn a few lessons: Interference in other country’s internal affairs (whether civil war as in the case of Afghanistan or elections) is wrong; War is only good for those who profit from it; Do not trust those who beat the drums for war — they are likely paid, directly or indirectly by the military industrial complex.

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August 15, 2021 · 13:23

Earthquake devastates Haiti, Canada shouldn’t make it worse

Houses destroyed in Les Cayes following earthquake, REUTERS/Ralph Tedy Erol

With “friends” like Canada, Haiti is in deep trouble.

Justin Trudeau’s statement that this country was “standing ready” to assist after a massive earthquake rocked the western part of Haiti yesterday is not reassuring. Over the past two decades Canada has done too much to undermine Haitian sovereignty, democracy and living standards to be considered trustworthy amidst this tragedy.

Canada is a country with immense resources to help with a 7.2 magnitude earthquake and it’s not too far geographically from Haiti. Undoubtedly, the Caribbean nation requires international solidarity to assist with an earthquake that’s killed over 700, injured thousands and left many more homeless. But Canada should definitely not deploy troops to the impoverished Caribbean nation and we must be suspicious of NGOs seeking to fundraise off of the tragedy.

Adding to the need for caution are statements from Washington. The head of USAID, Samantha Power, tweeted that she talked to the head of US Southern Command about how the US Department of Defense could assist Haiti.

In a worse humanitarian situation, a decade ago, Ottawa dispatched soldiers to dominate that country. Immediately after a horrific quake hit Port-au-Prince in 2010 decision makers in Ottawa were more concerned with controlling Haiti than assisting victims. To police Haiti’s traumatized and suffering population, 2,050 Canadian troops were deployed alongside 12,000 US soldiers (8,000 UN soldiers were already there). Though Ottawa rapidly deployed 2,050 troops they ignored calls to dispatch this country’s Heavy Urban Search and Rescue (HUSAR) Teams, which are trained to “locate trapped persons in collapsed structures.”

According to internal government documents the Canadian Press examined a year after the disaster, officials in Ottawa feared a post-earthquake power vacuum could lead to a “popular uprising.” One briefing note marked “secret” explained: “Political fragility has increased, the risks of a popular uprising, and has fed the rumour that ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently in exile in South Africa, wants to organize a return to power.” Six years earlier the US, France and Canada ousted the elected president.

Canada and the US’ indifference/contempt towards Haitian sovereignty was also on display in the reconstruction effort. Thirteen days after the quake Canada organized a high profile Ministerial Preparatory Conference on Haiti for major international donors. Two months later Canada co-chaired the New York International Donors’ Conference Towards a New Future for Haiti. At these conferences Haitian officials played a tertiary role in the discussions. Subsequently, the US, France and Canada demanded the Haitian parliament pass an 18-month long state of emergency law that effectively gave up government control over the reconstruction. They held up money to ensure international control of the Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti, authorized to spend billions of dollars in reconstruction money.

Most of the money that was distributed went to foreign aid workers who received relatively extravagant salaries/living costs or to expensive contracts gobbled up by Western/Haitian elite owned companies. According to an Associated Press assessment of the aid the US delivered in the two months after the quake, one cent on the dollar went to the Haitian government (thirty-three cents went to the US military). Canadian aid patterns were similar. Author of The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster Jonathan Katz writes, “Canada disbursed $657 million from the quake to September 2012 ‘for Haiti,’ but only about 2% went to the Haitian government.”

Other investigations found equally startling numbers. Having raised $500 million for Haiti and publicly boasted about its housing efforts, the US Red Cross built only six permanent homes in the country.

Not viewing the René Preval government as fully compliant, the US, France and Canada pushed for elections months after the earthquake. (Six weeks before the quake, according to a cable released by Wikileaks, Canadian and EU officials complained that Préval “emasculated” the country’s right-wing. In response, they proposed to “purchase radio airtime for opposition politicians to plug their candidacies” or they may “cease to be much of a meaningful force in the next government.”) With rubble throughout Port au Prince and hundreds of thousands living in camps, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon demanded Préval hold elections by the end of the year. In May 2010 Cannon said, “the international community wants to see a commitment, a solid, serious commitment to have an election by the end of this year.” (With far fewer logistical hurdles, it took two years to hold elections after the 2004 US/France/Canada coup.)

As a result of various obstacles tied to the earthquake and a devastating cholera outbreak introduced to the country by negligent UN troops in October 2010, hundreds of thousands were unable to vote during the first round of the November 28, 2010, election. After the first round of the presidential election the US and Canada forced Préval party’s candidate out of the runoff in favor of third place candidate, Michel Martelly. A supporter of the 1991 and 2004 coups against Aristide, Martelly was a teenaged member of the Duvalier dictatorship’s Ton Ton Macoutes death squad. As president he stole millions of dollars as part of the massive Petrocaribe corruption scandal and imposed as his successor the repressive and corrupt Jovenel Moïse who was recently assassinated. The assassination of president Moïse reflects the disintegration of Haitian politics after a decade of foreign intervention that has strengthened the most regressive and murderous elements of Haitian society.

After the 2010 earthquake there was an outpouring of empathy and solidarity from ordinary Canadians. But officials in Ottawa saw the disaster as a political crisis to manage and an opportunity to expand their economic and political influence over Haiti.

Let’s not allow that to happen again. Unfortunately, when the prime minister says Canada is “standing ready” it sounds more like a threat than an offer of real assistance.

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August 11, 2021 · 18:35

Lima Group Loses Lima

Chrystia Freeland at Lima Group meeting in Ottawa

The Canadian instigated Lima Group has been dealt a probably fatal blow that ought to elicit serious discussion about this country’s foreign policy. But, don’t expect the media or politicians to even mention it.

In a likely death knell for a coalition seeking to overthrow the Venezuelan government, Peru’s new Foreign Affairs Minister called the Lima Group the country’s “most disastrous” ever foreign policy initiative. Héctor Béjar said, “the Lima Group must be the most disastrous thing we have done in international politics in the history of Perú.”

Two days after Béjar’s statement St Lucia’s external affairs minister, Alva Baptiste, declared: “With immediate effect, we are going to get out of the Lima Group arrangement – that morally bankrupt, mongoose gang, we are going to get out of it because this group has imposed needless hardship on the children, men and women of Venezuela.”

Prior to Baptiste and Béjar’s statements, the Lima Group had lost a handful of members and its support for Juan Guaidó’s bid to declare himself president had failed. Considering its name, the Peruvian government’s aggressive turn against the Lima Group probably marks the end of it. As Kawsachun News tweeted a Peruvian congressman noting, “the Lima Group has been left without Lima.”

The Lima Group’s demise would be a major blow to Trudeau’s foreign policy. Ottawa founded it with Peru. Amidst discussions between the two countries foreign ministers in Spring 2017, Trudeau called his Peruvian counterpart, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, to “‎stress the need for dialogue and respect for the democratic rights of Venezuelan citizens, as enshrined in the charter of the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Democratic Charter.” But the Lima Group was established in August 2017 as a structure outside of the OAS largely because that organization’s members refused to back Washington and Ottawa’s bid to interfere in Venezuelan affairs, which they believed defied the OAS’ charter.

Canada has been maybe the most active member of the coalition. Former Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland participated in a half dozen Lima Group meetings and its second meeting was held in Toronto. That October 2017 meeting urged regional governments to take steps to “further isolate” Venezuela.

At the second Lima Group meeting in Canada, a few weeks after Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself president, Trudeau declared, “the international community must immediately unite behind the interim president.” The final declaration of the February 2019 meeting called on Venezuela’s armed forces “to demonstrate their loyalty to the interim president” and remove the elected president.

Freeland repeatedly prodded Caribbean and Central American countries to join the Lima Group and its anti-Maduro efforts. In May 2019 Trudeau called Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel to pressure him to join Ottawa’s effort to oust President Maduro. The release noted, “the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Lima Group, underscored the desire to see free and fair elections and the constitution upheld in Venezuela.”

In a sign of the importance Canadian diplomats placed on the Lima Group, the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers gave Patricia Atkinson, Head of the Venezuela Task Force at Global Affairs, its Foreign Service Officers award in June 2019. The write-up explained, “Patricia, and the superb team she assembled and led, supported the Minister’s engagement and played key roles in the substance and organization of 11 meetings of the 13 country Lima group which coordinates action on Venezuela.”

Solidarity activists have protested the Lima Group since its first meeting in Toronto. There were also protests at the second Lima Group meeting in Canada, including an impressive disruption of the final press conference. At a talk last year, NDP MP Matthew Green declared “we ought not be a part of a pseudo-imperialist group like the Lima Group” while a resolution submitted (though never discussed) to that party’s April convention called for Canada to leave the Lima Group.

Hopefully the Peruvian and St Lucia governments’ recent criticism marks the end of the Lima Group. But, we should seek to ensure it doesn’t disappear quietly. We need a discussion of how Canada became a central player in this interventionist alliance.

 

On August 12 Yves will be interviewed in a live discussion on Canada’s role in Venezuela.

 

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