Editorial

Demands to Support the Unsupportable

The deaths of six more young Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan last week led to renewed calls for Canada to withdraw its troops from that country. It also led to a spate of military spokespersons demanding that Canadians should unite as one in support of “our troops”, whether or not we support their mission in Afghanistan. It is understandable that the family and friends of the fallen soldiers may repeat this refrain as they try to make sense out of the senseless death of their loved ones. However, the demand that we should “support the troops” even though we oppose their mission makes even less sense than their deaths.

This demand originates in the U.S. where the attitude “my country, right or wrong” is also quite prevalent. It is accompanied with the implied threat that anyone not accepting this demand will be labelled a traitor to their country. Capitulating to this pressure, that section of the U.S. anti-war movement most closely associated with the Democratic Party has sought avoid the stigma of being ant-American with the slogan: “Support Our Troops, Bring Them Home”.

The fact of the matter is that the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan was in violation of every principle of international law and did not even have the approval of the UN Security Council. While that approval would not have made the invasion legal and the UN Security Council later went on to violate its own Charter by endorsing the occupation of Afghanistan, according to international law the lack of prior UN Security Council approval means that every participant in that invasion is guilty of a crime against humanity. How can one support those of any nationality, especially their own, while they are participating in crimes against humanity?

Of course, the U.S. and its sycophants - including the Canadian government, various Canadian military spokesmen and the media - attempt to hide these illegalities by presenting everything in the jargon of the U.S. “war on terror”. According to them, regardless of what one may think in regard to the legality of the war, it is far preferable to “fight them over there than on Canadian soil”. The fact is that no evidence has ever been presented implicating the Taliban or any other Afghan resistance forces of committing acts of terrorism either at home or abroad. No Afghan citizen was linked to the September 11, 2001 events or any subsequent terrorist attacks anywhere else in the world. The Taliban has never directed its attacks against the Afghan people, but against military targets and those who are collaborating with the occupying forces.

It is a well-recognized principle of international law that the people of an occupied nation have the right to use violence against the occupiers and there is a long tradition acknowledging that this includes collaborators. The Taliban are doing nothing that was not also done by the partisans during the Second World War and, at that time, only the Nazi occupiers referred to them as “terrorists”, while the rest of the world saw them as freedom fighters. In other words, the justification that it is better to “fight them over there than on Canadian soil” is nothing more than the worst form of jingoistic nonsense.

Furthermore, Taliban attacks on military targets have claimed the lives of only a tiny fraction of the estimated 100,000 civilians who have been killed by the U.S., British and Canadian forces and who are dismissed in the most cynical and racist manner as “collateral damage”. From the perspective of the Afghan people, it is the foreign occupiers, including the Canadians, who are guilty of being terrorists by raining bombs, missiles and artillery shells down on their heads and homes.

The demand that all Canadians should support the troops is also often accompanied by the claim that they are risking and sacrificing their lives in the service of their country. Nothing could be further from the truth. The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has never been in the service of Canada, but rather in the service of U.S. imperialism and those Canadian monopoly capitalists who are profiting from the war. Their participation in that war and their propping up of the gang of warlords, drug dealers, rapists and murderers imposed by the U.S. as the government of Afghanistan have done more to destroy Canada’s international reputation than any other activity in recent times. The activities of the Canadian armed forces in Afghanistan do a disservice to Canada.

While the young men and women in the Canadian armed forces may be misguided and brainwashed into thinking that they are doing “the right thing” in Afghanistan, that neither makes it right nor worthy of support. It is tragic that young Canadian men and women are dying in Afghanistan, but it is equally tragic that Afghan people, young, old, women and men are dying at the hands of “our” troops in the name of freedom, democracy and “combating terrorism”. Are not those victims and their families and friends also deserving of our sympathy and support?

Unfortunately, the realities of war mean that when we support “our” troops and wish them well, we are automatically opposing and wishing ill to those Afghans who also see themselves as “doing the right thing” by liberating their country from foreign occupiers; and international law is on their side, not the side of the Canadian troops. Therefore, for Canadians to do the right thing necessarily means to oppose what our troops are doing in Afghanistan in our name and to demand that they be immediately withdrawn, along with all other foreign troops, and that the Afghan people be allowed to sort out their problems without foreign interference.