[I wanted to write this as a letter to a newspaper on Salt Spring Island, but I couldn't find anyway to do so. Instead I posted it as comment to an article I found on the web site of the Salt Spring News (http://www.saltspringnews.com/index.php?name=News&file=article &sid=14781&thold=0&mode=thread&order=0). It's pretty self-explanatory I think.]
So I am curious as to what the author might propose to solve these problems? At least, compared to many on today's self-described left, Bandow accepts post-9/11 American involvement in Afghanistan - though his describing of it as being "not an easy nation to conquer" while accurate is not really appropriate in this context since the majority of Afghans have no desire to be ruled by the Taliban and no country, especially the USA, has any desire to "conquer" it - but he here refuses to draw the seemingly necessary conclusion: Afghanistan needs more Western military support to enable it to free itself from the possibility of a resurgent Taliban.
While on Salt Spring Island this week, however, I found myself confronted by a poster while in Centennial Park in Ganges. Addressed to those concerned about Canadian involvement in Afghanistan, the poster consisted of a letter that purported to explain the situation. I wish I could quote from it exactly, but paraphrasing from memory will have to here suffice (those of you on S.S. can easily find the original I'm sure).
According to the anonymous author Canada has no business involving itself in Afghanistan. Afghanis have been fighting each other for centuries, that's just what they do, and us being there will only lead to inevitable attacks on Canadians at home and abroad by Taliban sympathizers so an immediate withdrawal of our troops is urgently called for. The author even quotes a high-level Taliban leader as having said that he was disappointed that troops from Canada and the U.K. were beginning to fight like those from the USA (whatever that means), but that if both were to remove their troops from the country immediately no harm would befall citizens from either country. Describing this as a "generous" offer, the poster's author urged that it should be accepted.
I have always loved the Gulf Islands ever since I first visited them while hitchhiking alone when I was 17 and am therefore saddened to see such rascist and reactionary sentiments expressed in a place that has always seemed to be such a model of progressive thinking in action. That Afghanistan has suffered years of war is unfortunately correct, but to label its people as being inherently warlike - barbarians essentially - is to engage in the most despicable of stereotyping. That what happens in Afghanistan is "of no concern to us" reveals the dangerous results of the unhinged cultural relativism that sadly plagues far too many and that stands in sharp contrast to the progressive left of the past. And that anyone could even think to consider offers made by the Taliban - that pinnacle of reactionary religious fascism under whose rule the majority of Afghanis lived for far too long: music being banned, women as virtual slaves, stonings and beheadings usual punishments for adultery and homosexuality, ancient statues of the Buddha destroyed for "idolatry" among other things - as being anything to consider seriously is truly frightening.
July 17 of this year marks the 70th anniversary of the revolt by Nationalist troops that began the Spanish Civil War that ended in 1939 with the Fall of Madrid and the beginning on Franco's fascist dictatorship. During this time over 40,000 mostly men, but some women, left their homes in countries around the world to fight, and often die, to help save the Republic and stem the rise of fascism. For them, and for the left traditionally, injustice anywhere meant injustice everywhere. For them, one should not hide behind national walls to say "it's none of my business" because people everywhere should be free to determine their own fate. Indeed for them, isolationism and lack of concern for those in other countries were the hallmarks of the very reactionary fascism that the progressive left was meant to oppose. How things have changed.
Is militarism a problem in the world? Most certainly. But one does not intelligently oppose the excessive spending and focus on military means by opposing any military actions whatsoever. It has always struck me as acutely ironic that the majority of whom are most concerned about American intrusions into Canadian sovereignty also seem to be the most against increased military spending; having the practical effect of leaving Canada ever more dependent on America for its defence. As to Afghanistan, this country needs Canada's help in many ways; one being fighting and killing those who wish to again subjugate it to a barbaric, tyrannical regime. There is sometimes no room for compromise, when to fight, kill and perhaps die is the unfortunate but necessary course to take. This is certainly the case with the Taliban as it was against fascism in Germany, Italy and Japan. We forget history at our own peril.
