What
You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter
How the U.S. Army Kills Its Own Soldiers
A horrifying,
exclusive report from JoAnn Wypijewski on the grim secrets of
Fort Sill, Oklahoma. How a sadistic drill sergeant tortured basic
trainees, amid brutal indifference that led to the death on March
19,2006,of 21-year-old PFC Matthew Scarano. Dead Movement Marching? Cockburn and St Clair
assess the failures of the national antiwar groups, even as popular
opposition to the war tops 60 per cent. Stalin or Confucius? Chris Reed on
the Secrets of the Garden of Bliss, otherwise known as North
Korea.CounterPunch
Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember,
we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition
of CounterPunch. Please
support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter,
which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or
by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions
are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
Sorry, Mr. Prime
Minister, Afghanistan is Not Canada's War
By JOHN CHUCKMAN
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
says he has trouble understanding Canadians who feel ardently
that their country's soldiers should not be involved in Afghanistan.
Toronto Globe
and Mail
Afghanistan is not our war, Mr. Prime
Minister.
We are not threatened by voices
in the Middle East opposing American policy, unless you believe
one reference in a recording of bin Laden mentioning Canada along
with other countries. That recording, along with other post-invasion
recordings, was almost certainly a CIA fraud, for Osama bin Laden
had to be killed in the heavy bombing of his mountain redoubt.
Even if you do not believe
that bin Laden is dead, what is beyond question is that American
activities in Afghanistan and Iraq are building a vast reservoir
of resentments and a training school for future terrorists. Tens
of thousands of disaffected young Muslim men not only now have
something to deeply resent but they have the operational conditions
to perfect their arts of covert war. According to countless witnesses
from Afghanistan and Iraq, America's brutal, thoughtless tactics
have only inflamed tempers. Canada's good name should not be
associated with this.
The previous government's making
an under-the-table deal with Bush to place Canadian troops in
Afghanistan surely does not make it our war. Your continuing,
rather shrill, insistence still does not make it so. The deal
was, of course, an effort to placate Bush for our not supporting
his illegal invasion of Iraq. America is Canada's neighbor, but
it is a fatuous and immoral argument that you help your neighbor
in criminal activities just because he is your neighbor.
You and other voices from Western
Canada have made much of reforming Canada's democratic institutions,
and I agree that a number of them do need reforming. Yet no greater
vice to democracy can exist than a government's committing the
lives of young people and the whole nation's reputation to war
without any consultation or debate. If you believe in democratic
values, as you claim, you cannot support such behavior.
The argument is all the more
powerful when war is the behavior of a minority government. Your
government represents the will of less than forty percent of
Canadians. How can you believe then that your views on the war
should be the views of most Canadians? Through polls and every
other indication of public opinion, the majority of the Canadian
people have made it clear they do not support America's wars
in the Middle East.
The Canadian general in charge
of operations in Afghanistan has made public statements that
are shameful to Canada's reputation in the world. Stuff about
going over to do some killing. He sounds like an American wannabe
raised on Rambo movies.
Canada did have a terrorist
incident every bit as dreadful as 9/11. I refer to the bombing
of the Air India flight years ago. Taking account of Canada's
size, this event killed proportionately more Canadians than 9/11's
American victims. While the outcome of that investigation has
been disappointing, Canada never contemplated bombing Sikh communities
because of it. America's logic in the war on terror is simply
that ridiculous.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
