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How correct he is when saying that our conservative leadership only wishes to snuggle up closer to the Bush crime family, and in the process... stumbled ignorantly into a pointless occupation that is only punishing the Afghan people. Once our government chose to participate in these actions, we have now become complicit in it's fallout.

And for what?

So we can puff out our chests, and pat each other on the back for kicking some terrorist butt?

The whole war is a fraud to begin with... The people of Afghanistan had nothing to do with 911, and by getting involved in other countries affairs through the use of a military is dangerous business. We have now lowered ourselves into the slop that the Americans wallow in.

Kudo's for Mr. Margolis, and his accurate representation of what is really happening, minus the fluff and stuff about fighting bogeymen with TNT wrapped around their waist. The reality of these actions is far more complex and brutal.



CANADA’S DIRTY HANDS


Eric S. Margolis - 4 May 2007


Canada is one of the world’s most respected, law-abiding nations. Yet recent shocking revelations show it has become a party to the torture of prisoners in Afghanistan and a violator of the Geneva Conventions?

The story begins in 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Soviet KGB created a mirror -image secret police for its Afghan puppet government, KhAD. Having been pursued by KhAD agents, I can speak with personal knowledge of this subject.

KhAD sought to eradicate all opposition to the Communists. It also ran the education system and religious establishment. KhAD quickly became notorious, even in a famously brutal society, for its cruelties.

All political prisoners – that is, anyone who opposed the Communists – were subjected to systematic tortures. These ranged from garden variety beatings, pulling of finger nails, near-drowning and electric shocks to more refined cruelties. Prisoners were flayed alive, thrown into vats of sulphuric acid, blinded, buried alive, burned with gasoline, or slowly frozen in refrigerated rooms.

Psychological tortures - sleep deprivation, long isolation in darkness, sound assault, mock executions and psychotropic drugs were also used by KhAD under KGB supervision. The same tortures, known as `enhanced interrogation,’ are routinely used today by the CIA.

The Communists killed 2 million Afghans. Canada turned its back and refused to aid the mujahidin battling Soviet occupation. After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the newborn Taliban movement drove the remaining Afghan Communists – rebranded the Northern Alliance – into the far northeast.

In 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan, allied itself to the Northern Alliance, and overthrew Taliban. A figurehead, Hamid Karzai, was put in power. Real power, however, was held by the Communist-dominated Northern Alliance.

Once the Northern Alliance took Kabul, the KhAD, rechristened NDS, was quickly reestablished. The old Communist torturers and war criminals went back into business.

Today, an estimated 60% of NDS personnel are former KhAD agents. US and Canadian forces fighting to pacify southern Afghanistan have been routinely handing captives and suspects over to the NDS secret police– in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Canada’s conservative government, reeling from public outrage, feebly claimed to have assurances from the Afghan Communist secret police - which had murdered or maimed tens of thousands of victims - to treat prisoners humanely.

How did Canada get into this mess? Conservative politicians in Ottawa saw a chance to win new voters by whipping up false patriotism in a jolly little war against `evil’ Muslims that was supposed to be….a slam dunk. They sought to curry favor with their ideological mentor, the Bush Administration.

No one in Ottawa had any knowledge whatsoever about Afghanistan, its tribal politics, or history. Even so, they dispatched 2,500 combat troops and $1 billion in aid to Afghanistan.

Senior Canadian officers and politicians who claim not to have known they were handing over prisoners to the Afghan secret police for torture are either stunningly ignorant or lying. I guess they never read Rudyard Kipling’s famous admonition to British soldiers fallen wounded in Afghanistan, `save your last bullet for yourself.’

This writer, who has covered many guerilla wars in Asia, Africa and Central America repeatedly warned in recent years that the longer Canadian troops stayed in Afghanistan, the more they would become brutalized and involved in war crimes. Such is the nature of all guerilla wars.

Canadians who still believe the fairy tale their forces in Afghanistan are `nation building’ or doing social work should reflect on the grim fate of prisoners their soldiers handed over to the mercies of the Afghan secret police.

Ottawa’s deal this week with Kabul for inspection of NDS prisoners is a sham. The KhAD had the same empty `agreement’ with human rights groups in the 1980’s.

It’s bad enough Canadian and other NATO troops are defending Afghanistan’s warlords who run its booming heroin industry. Now Canada is hand in glove with the Communist Party’s veteran torturers.
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copyright Eric S. Margolis 2007

   

Wow Eric right out to lunch again.

I'll just address this one point which reveals Erics bias towards the right. For the umpteenth time, troops were committed to Afghanistan under the Liberal Party of Canada. Somehow I don't think the "bully from Shawinigan" was seeking favour with the Bush Administration.

Congrats dummy, you were so blind in your attempt to discredit the CF and the Conservative party that you missed the obvious mistake in Erics little rant. You seem to be giving "thelaw" some competition in dumb posts.

   

Ah!! Posting one of "Red Eric's" articles, a true act of fiction......

For starters the Northern alliance was not the remnants of communist collaberators but the remnants of the Hujahedin who actually fought/defeated the Russians.

Remember Margolis position was that the Isreali's recent advance into Lebanon was an act of unprovocked aggression.

THE COLD WAR IS OVER AND YOUR SIDE LOST.......

   

Ho hum, more Eric. <insert jaw cracking yawn here> I find it interesting that he characterizes the troops as brutal accomplices in the commission of war crimes, or would that be the obligatory bit of sensationalism newspapers need for their bottomline?

I think Rifleman #3 would have a few things to say to Eric about being labelled as such.

   

Dammit! I thought after Avro was given the boot we would be rid of this horribly bias unknowing fuck wit.

   

Doesn't this remark only serve to lend credence to Margolis' point?

   

A soldier wanting to tell off Eric for being a douche means he is an accomplice in war crimes?

   

Okay: Margolis argues that the longer our guys remain in A-stan, the greater the likelihood that Canadian soldiers will commit atrocities against the locals. Maybe Margolis could have been a little more nuanced in how he made this point, but essentially he's correct.

Here's where things get more interesting, though: Margolis makes his point - however clumsily - and now we hear that "Rifleman #3" has "a few things to say" to him - a not-so-subtly implied threat of violence. Wouldn't you agree that using a not-so-subtly implied threat of violence maybe isn't the best way to refute Margolis' argument that our soldiers are becoming increasingly "brutalised"?

   

I didn't take it as a threat of violence....

   

Margolis likes to rant, make acusations and pat his own back, but his work always seems to lack that one thing........sources.

   

Sources on what? He's simply stating FACTS.

There is nothing he's saying here that isn't true... you just don't like the implication that he's correct since it doesn't fit within your delusional mind filled with armies of mad rabid terrorists seeking to saw off your head with a dull rusty butterknife while yodelling "Alla Akhbar!!"

Boo

ps. Go read a history book before attempting to discredit Mr. Margolis. Unlike you I'm sure, he's spent a career reporting on ME affairs.

   

Try dealing with the content of the article vs switching the focus to the Cons. Everyone knows that the Liberals kick-started this fiasco... that's not the point. The cons are the flag-bearing cheerleaders for the better part of this "mission", what-ever that might be.

And don't kid yourself... this is more about kissing US ass than anything. The majority of Canadians apose US foreign "policy" of pre-emptive, or in Afghanistans case "pointless" war. Our military need not be used to act as ME security to suppress the PO'd Afghani's who can't seem to get the hang of being OCCUPIED without making such a fuss.

Those silly Afghani's... hating us for our "freedoms" and all If they would just behave themselves like good little arabs this whole thing would end soon.

   

Where his proof or sources for this:




and this comment is right out to lunch

   

Why would Margolis have to dodge the Khad or the KGB-----he was one of their useful idiots....
Margolis was a favourite with the Soviets.....

Margolis avoids history books...

Masood, the Al Qaida assasinated leader of the Northern Alliance was one of the major players in the anti-soviet Hujahedin........Masood was certainly not a communist........

Margolis knows better, he's just counting on your ignorance to bolster his leftwing, anti-west rant.

Eric Margolis makes Michael Moore look like a truth teller........

   

More like "having been persued by the ravages of madness.." more like.

Just as 2Cdo pointed out and everyone except the liberal spin-meisters knows, John Chetien put us in Afghanistan.

   

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