canada out of afghanistan, part...

There's been a lot of Afghanistan-related news lately, and I haven't blogged about any of it. Most of it has been political news - people talking about what might and might not happen - and I generally don't blog about politics in that sense. I just pay attention.

About Canada's mission war in Afghanistan, I can only say the one word that matters: out. Canada has to get out, and the sooner, the better.

Afghanistan is not a peacekeeping mission, it's not in support of democracy, and Canada has no more business being there than the US does in Iraq.

To borrow Linda McQuaig's excellent phrase, Canada is "holding the bully's coat": making it easier for the US to do its dirty job, while giving the appearance of keeping its hands clean. And it's getting increasingly difficult to maintain even that:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper wouldn't answer questions Friday about allegations the governor of Kandahar was personally involved in the torture and abuse of detainees.

As The Globe and Mail reported Friday, the Harper government knew, but tried to keep secret since last spring, the allegations against Governor Asadullah Khalid...

Canada's presence in Afghanistan also makes it easier for Canada to deal with the US politically. And it seems to make many people - mostly Conservatives - feel good in a macho, players-on-the-world-stage kind of way. More thoughts on that coming soon, as I've just started reading Chris Hedges's War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning.

Maintaining my (inadvertant) tradition of blogging about news events after they've left the headlines, I'll remind you that in a torture-awareness training manual, Canada named the US and Israel on its list of countries that torture.

Oops, did we say that? Surely it was a mistake. Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said he ordered the manual to be rewritten and assured those fine countries that the document did not reflect the Government's position.

You can re-write a manual, but that won't change the truth.