You see, if a sane, intelligent person had committed soldiers to a country to fight an anti-democratic, fanatical religious movement that was trying to prevent that country's becoming a democratic, lawful state that respects the rights of individuals, and that sane, intelligent found out that we might be handing over scores of innocent civilians to a torturing prison system, that sane, intelligent person would want to know if this was true, because it would undermine the mission that their soldiers were fighting and dying for.
Instead, what we have here, is the harpercons and the morons shrieking about how none of this matters. This lazy, willfull blindness about who might have been tortured reveals their lack of commitment to the people of Afghanistan. If one innocent farmer has been tortured that's one too many. But according to Richard Colvin, we shipped so many innocents off to prison that the torturers themselves became irritated.
You would think that a country trying to teach another country about joining the international community and respecting the rule of law would care about respecting the Geneva Conventions.
You would think that people concerned about their own soldiers would object to anything that makes the peaceful surrender of their opponents less likely. You would think that people who scream loudly about how detestable our opponents are would want to be able to say that Canadians are better because we don't engage in detestable practices like torture.
You would think that if you're already spending only 1/10th of your total outlay on economic and democratic development, that when you spend the 9/10ths of your outlay on fighting that you can at least look after your prisoners. But according to Damian Brooks: "We're in the middle of a WAR! We can't be expected to worry about peripheral issues like the treatment of our prisoners and our adherence to the rules of war."
When serious issues of war crimes, of the abuse of the people we're supposed to be helping, of the barbarism of the government we're fighting, killing and dying for, of the pressures put on our soldiers, of the disarray and duplicity of our own government, explode before the public, that sane, reasonable people would want to get to the bottom of things. To have a full airing of the facts that would exonerate them.
But if you have a horde of stupid, thoughtless, ignorant, gutless, hypocritical fucks who are guilty of sin of war crimes or of supporting war crimes and the continued abuse of the people of Afghanistan, then obviously you're going to have what we're seeing today, the bottom third of the Canadian populace sticking their fingers in their ears shouting "Neener-neener-neener!" and their party of choice, the harpercons, leading the way with obstruction, arrogance, contempt and their own brand of idiocy.
The mission failed because the people in charge don't give a shit about the people of Afghanistan. They didn't prepare for the importance of their mission. They didn't (and don't) want to spend the money to do the job right. They don't care if we're handing over innocents to be tortured. They're demonstrably indifferent to the failures of the Karzai/Warlord government. They don't know. They don't want to know. They don't care.
To hell with them.
6 comments:
Of the two mission objectives, capturing bin Laden and establishing a functional democracy, only one could have been achieved through military action (capturing bin Laden). Neither objective can be achieved satisfactorily now (unless corruption vanishes and attitudes toward women change overnight).
The overall mission could have ended somewhat favourably for NATO had NATO been able to keep the trust of the populace. Unfortunately, as you stated, people in charge at NATO don't give a damn about the Afghan people. It starts to show after a while despite all of the nice PR. Talk of "collateral damage" and "acceptable losses" don't mean much to Afghans on the receiving end. Add more unscrupulous behaviour, like the transfer of Afghan detainees to be tortured, and support from the population can vanish very abruptly.
Having lost support and cooperation from the population, NATO has found itself on the wrong side of this war, the same way the U.S. ended up in Vietnam. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory/ semi-favourable outcome...
That's why i found the whole McCrystal thing sick. After 8 years, this new guy says essentially: "Why don't we start trying to do stuff for the actual people of Afghanistan? Y'know, hearts n' minds kinda shit?"
As if nobody had ever thought of that before (and rejected it). As if he's sincere about winning hearts n' minds himself.
To hell with them.
Excellent conclusion. I would have accepted "Fuck 'em", as well.
I want you to know that i thought about it.
"that sane, intelligent person would want to know if this was true, because it would undermine the mission that their soldiers were fighting and dying for."
That is it. That crystalizes the crux of the problem.
Proof again that incompetence is as incompetence does ...
Ignoring basic facts about a country in favour of structured bumpf is not restricted to Coca Cola's "patriotism" ads ( and can you imagine how well that meme sells on any feminist blog ? ).
The Durand Line was drawn by the British in such a way that it cut the Pashtun tribe in two : so dysfunctional that it separated goatherders' winter and summer pastures.
Afghanistan - whatever else the land of poppies is called - is plagued by chronic environmental destruction from the ravages of foreign assault on its citizens. Starvation is so bad that one can find articles on people selling their children.
The Canadian 'effort' is much worse than mere torture : it is part of genocide.
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