Harper Tries to Boost: Support for Canada’s: ‘Mission’ in Afghanistan

by Barry Weisleder / October 2006

Prime Minister Stephen Harper used the Sept. 21-23 Ottawa visit of Hamid Karzai—former Unocal oil executive, former member of the Taliban government, and current U.S.-sponsored president of Afghanistan—to try to shore up support for foreign military intervention by the Canadian state.

Several thousand people attended a pro-troops rally on Parliament Hill organized by soldiers’ families, aided by the military establishment. Harper seized on the occasion to say that Canadians would remain in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, past 2009 when the current military commitment ends.

New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton pointed out that Harper has committed Canada’s military to an open-ended mission, with “no end in sight”. The NDP has yet to show any gains in the polls following adoption of its ‘troops out now’ policy—perhaps the result of its delays and flip-flops, which tend to feed voter cynicism.

Although the NDP federal convention voted overwhelmingly for “a safe and immediate” withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan (see article this page), Layton spoke on CBC radio on Sept. 23 to “clarify” his stand. Layton indicated that he favours withdrawal of Canadian troops only from the war theatre in Kandahar, and supports the continuation of the “3D approach of Canadian foreign policy”.

Not only is this ‘clarification’ at odds with the policy voted by delegates, it identifies with the 3D policy of the previous Liberal government, “Defence, Development and Diplomacy”—in other words, the ongoing occupation and control of the country, just to secure a pipeline route for Jean Chretien’s friends in the oil patch.

While it is true that the resolution approved by convention gives Layton enough wiggle room to argue for re-deployment of Canadian forces to Sudan or Lebanon, and perpetuates the myth of UN peacekeeping, it is not ambiguous on the issue of Canadian troops exiting Afghanistan entirely and immediately.

Mind you, political clarity has never stopped NDP leaders from ignoring or openly violating the will of the membership. But the brass can be made to pay a political price for such despotic antics.

Rank-and-file members can exercise an advantage by defending gains democratically won at convention, and using those gains to rally forces inside and outside the party in the cause of social justice.

For that reason it is now particularly crucial that the antiwar movement, and leftist forces in the party, hold Layton and his parliamentary caucus to the adopted ‘out now’ policy, while mobilizing for the biggest and broadest possible turnout for the Oct. 28 protests against the wars of occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq.