28 October Pan-Canadian Day of Action
Pan-Canadian Day of Action: CANADIAN TROOPS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN !
Saturday, October 28, 2006
MONTREAL DEMONSTRATION
Dorchester Square (corner of Peel and René-Lévesque)
Departure: 13h00. Gathering time : 12h30
Canadian Troops, Out of Afghanistan!
No to Canada’s military partnership with the USA!
We are told that Canada is in Afghanistan to contribute to the establishment of stability and security, but after five years, the security situation in Afghanistan is crumbling and the number of civilian casualties is mounting.
We are told that Canada is in Afghanistan to extend the authority of a democratically elected central government, but the election was marred by pervasive intimidation and the Afghan Parliament is predominantly made up of the representatives of war lords and opium barons.
We are told that Canada is in Afghanistan to help lay the basis for a society that respects human rights, but the US Army and its local allies practice systematic torture and it is”our” Afghan allies, the drug lords, who are responsible for the largest number of human rights abuses, including the continued subjugation of women.
We are told that Canada is in Afghanistan to help its reconstruction and assist its development, but there can’t realistically be any worthwhile reconstruction or development when war is number one on the agenda and when military expenditures are ten times greater than the so-called “aid”.
We aren’t fooled. In Afghanistan, what’s taking place is war and military occupation, control and destruction. This war is being fought first and foremost along the strategic and economic interests of the United States and its allies, including Canada, interests that have nothing to do with the well-being of the Afghan population.
Our first responsibility towards the Afghan people is to cease all association with the logic of war that dominates the foreign intervention in Afghanistan. We therefore call for the immediate withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan.
Given the urgent and grave needs of Afghan society, but also in light of the insecurity and destruction for which Canada is in part responsible, we also have a responsibility to offer assistance and reparations. However, this responsibility must be fulfilled outside of the current logic of war, with a genuine respect for the self-determination of the Afghan people and in response to the demands that they will express themselves.
Download flyer to distribute here: www.echecalaguerre.org/docs/TractManifOctobre2006.pdf.
Where’ your support for human rights now?
Support Human Rights in Afghanistan!
This week, the university was host to the shameful scene of students actively supporting the abandonment of the people of Afghanistan to their violent former oppressors. These students are very likely the same activists who every other day claim to be the champions of human rights – but apparently, only when it’s easy. The very groups these people regularly claim to protect – gays and lesbians, oppressed women, religious minorities – are the very same people who would endure unbearable suffering were the Taliban return to power in Afghanistan.
Under the Taliban, women were beaten and murdered for showing the slightest of skin on their ankles, and were considered nothing more than chattel. Gays and lesbians were brutally crushed to death by having walls bulldozed on top of them. Little girls were denied the right to go to school, and changing your religion was punishable by a violent death. How can these students nonchalantly support a course of action that would see these horrifying human rights violations committed once more upon innocent people? Are they not moved by the piteous tears of the oppressed? Do they even care?
Our role in Afghanistan has always been two-fold since day one: fight those who would kill innocent women and children indiscriminately, and help rebuild a nation shattered by decades of war and oppression. But we cannot do the latter without accomplishing the former. As long as men who believe that changing your religion merits a death sentence and that women are nothing more than property threaten the peace and lives of innocent people, Canada will be there to say “no!” and to stand firm against these violent thugs. We must not sacrifice our reputation as an international defender of human rights.
But according to the blind ideology of these “protestors,” we should. They say we should scurry like frightened rats and abandon the people that we, as a nation, made a commitment to – a people that express their gratitude to our wonderful troops every day for saving them from the Taliban.
Many of you will remember the image of a smiling Afghan woman, her liberated fingers stretched in a peace sign and stained purple from her first time ever voting.
You’d better hold on to that memory, because if people like these protestors get their way, that’s all it will ever be.
Comment by Dante — October 23rd, 2006 @ 11:30 PM