Failing Afghanistan's Children

While Peter MacKay and Bev Oda are busy telling happy war stories in committee today, what they will predictably leave out are real indicators of the failed efforts over the past 6 years in Afghanistan.

As IRIN notes, the focus on military expenditures is basically handing poor, young Afghan men and children to the Taliban:

"In our district many young guys join Taliban ranks for pocket money, a mobile phone or other financial incentives," said Safiullah, a resident of Sangeen District in Helmand.

They don't want much, yet they are being deprived by the mishandling of foreign aid and so-called development funds. And they are willing to risk their very lives to get what they need.

High levels of rural poverty or unemployment are probably helping to drive young people like Malik to join the Taliban.

Due to insecurity in the southern provinces there are no available unemployment figures. However, a report by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission on the social and economic rights of Afghans estimated that in some parts of the country the unemployment rate was as high as 60 percent.

Another reason why there are so many rural poor is the fact that agriculture, which employs over 60 percent of the estimated 26.6 population, has received only US$300-400 million of the over US$15 billion of international development aid given to Afghanistan since 2002, Oxfam International reported in January.

But, whenever US and Canadian government officials comment about Afghanistan's agricultural problems, their focus is on the issue of opium production, which has skyrocketed. The solution, they claim, is to eradicate the crops and offer legal substitutes to farmers in bed with the warlords and the Taliban. However, when such a minimal amount of foreign aid money is actually directed to such efforts, the farmers are cut off at the knees. They have no choice if they want to survive and feed their families.

US spending in Afghanistan amounts to approximately $65,000 per minute. In Iraq, that number is $250,000. Military spending in both countries far exceeds the amounts required to reach the stated goals of creating and sustaining anything nearing a civil society, while corrupt government institutions and officials also stand in the way of progress for the average Afghan.

So what are the children to do? Especially when they're also victims of domestic abuse who are expected to help out in any way they can - including contributing to the family's income? Obviously, joining the insurgency looks attractive as a quick way to accomplish that responsibility, especially considering that only "32 per cent of boys complete primary school while only 13 per cent of girls do so". (The next time you hear government officials boast about the fact that 6 million children are now attending school, remember those percentages).

And, as far as Canada's so-called contributions are concerned, the Senlis Council was highly critical of CIDA in 2007.

The failure to demonstrably address the extreme poverty, widespread hunger and appalling child and maternal mortality rates in Afghanistan — let alone boost economic development — is decreasing local Afghan support for Canada’s mission and increasing support for the insurgency."

Norine MacDonald, of the Senlis Council, said the problem is a structural issue because the money the agency does have is not ending up on the ground.

"When you're on the ground in Kandahar, it's sad to say, despite good intentions, CIDA's efforts are non-existent," MacDonald said.

"We are confronted every day by people without food, without water, without shelter, without medical aid. So our efforts are so minimal as to be non-existent."

Tuesday's Conservative government budget boasted that aid to Afghanistan would be increased by $100 million but, when you read the fine print, the majority of that money will go towards "security initiatives, such as training police, [and the] army". As Brian Hutchinson wrote in the National Post this week, you'd be hard-pressed to find any CIDA officials on the ground in places like Kandahar. Bev Oda, the minister now responsible for CIDA has come under attack recently by Senator Colin Kenny, who claimed that CIDA had no idea where its' aid money was ending up. CIDA officials countered that they have a solid trail, but note this reality:

"Last year, Canada spent $179 million in aid in Afghanistan, one-third of which flows through multilateral partners like the United Nations and World Food Program, with the remaining two-thirds given to the Afghan government.

The corrupt Afghanistan government:

Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, former commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, says the greatest threat to success in Afghanistan is not the resurgence of the Taliban but "the potential irretrievable loss of legitimacy of the government of Afghanistan."
[...]
President Hamid Karzai has admitted there is a problem.

"All politicians in this system have acquired everything – money, lots of money. God knows it is beyond the limit. The banks of the world are full of the money of our statesmen," Mr. Karzai said in November.

As noted in that article, and according to Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board, Afghanistan's government rates as one the most corrupt in the world. Obviously, CIDA's defence that it knows where its' aid money is actually going is specious at best, and blatantly dishonest on its face. So, while Conservatives like MacKay and Oda are once again busy trying to sell this war, going after the hearts and minds of the Canadian people by insisting that they only have the best interests of the Afghan people in mind, the facts state otherwise. And the idea that the Liberal party would support an extension of this failed, misguided and completely mismanaged mission only adds further insult to far too many injuries.

The Afghanistan people need help, but the current NATO-structured mission plan has failed. Just ask the Afghan children who would sacrifice their fate for "pocket money" from the Taliban.
 

Okay. Can we fire O'Connor NOW?

Defence minister Gordon O'Connor has been an absolutely incompetent performer. He muddled his way through the recent controversy about the treatment and possible torture of Afghan detainees like a man stuck in mental quicksand. He lied about the ICRC's role in overseeing their detention. He lost track of 4 detainees who have disappeared into thin air. His department tried to stop one of the 4 investigations into the possible abuse of detainees by Canadian soldiers. And now, military police are investigating over 100 shady defence department contracts.

Military police have been called in to investigate irregularities surrounding almost $100 million worth of National Defence transportation contracts.

The Citizen first reported last month that the department's internal auditors had raised red flags over the "vast majority" of 109 contracts for air, rail, sea and road freight transportation.

Officials now reveal one employee has already been fired as a result and the military's law enforcement arm is taking a closer look.

The audit was highly critical of how bidders were selected for work with the department, citing problems such as improper sole-sourcing of contracts and the absence of a clear method to determine winning bids.

It found that "while 89 of these contracts were technically awarded via competition, the methods used -- i.e. e-mailing or faxing requirements to at least two selected companies -- may have omitted many potential suppliers and may not have resulted in the best price.

"For air transport contracts, there was no clear method of determining how the winning bid was selected, and 18 of the 87 sampled air contracts were sole-sourced with no documented rationale."

The sole-sourced contracts ranged in value from $22,000 to $5.7 million, the audit noted, adding one air broker landed 56 per cent of the work.

Frankly, investigating this level of corruption sounds like a job for the RCMP.

Oh, and in case all of that still isn't enough to fire O'Connor, how about this on top of everything else?

OTTAWA -- A massive backlog at National Defence means that 26,000 employees have not yet completed their security screening, according to a federal audit that raises serious questions about the clearance process in the department.

Not to state the obvious, but... :

"Personnel security clearances are the first line of defence against both domestic and international security threats," the audit said.

The audit said that issuing a security clearance to an "undeserving individual could . . . render security measures ineffective, thus subjecting people, classified information, and facilities and assets to unwarranted risk." Security problems would also affect "Canada's relationship and reputation with various member states of NATO," the audit said.

O'Connor: Worst.defence.minister.ever.

Update: O'Connor announced today that General Dynamics (a company O'Connor used to lobby for) has been awarded a $30 million DoD contract. How convenient.
 

Into the 5th: Stories From Iraq

March 19, 2003
President Bush Addresses the Nation
The Oval Office

10:16 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.
[...]
Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly -- yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.

Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory.

My fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.

March 19, 2007

Betrayed: The Iraqis who trusted America the most, The New Yorker:

Most of the people Othman and Laith knew had left Iraq. House by house, Baghdad was being abandoned. Othman was considering his options: move his parents from their house (in an insurgent stronghold) to his sister’s house (in the midst of civil war); move his parents and brothers to Syria (where there was no work) and live with his friend in Jordan (going crazy with boredom while watching his savings dwindle); go to London and ask for asylum (and probably be sent back); stay in Baghdad for six more months until he could begin a scholarship that he’d won, to study journalism in America (or get killed waiting). Beneath his calm good humor, Othman was paralyzed—he didn’t want to leave Baghdad and his family, but staying had become impossible. Every day, he changed his mind.

From the hotel window, Othman could see the palace domes of the Green Zone directly across the Tigris River. “It’s sad,” he told me. “With all the hopes that we had, and all the dreams, I was totally against the word ‘invasion.’ Wherever I go, I was defending the Americans and strongly saying, ‘America was here to make a change.’ Now I have my doubts.”

Laith was more blunt: “Sometimes, I feel like we’re standing in line for a ticket, waiting to die.”

ABC News: Voices From Iraq 2007: Ebbing Hope in a Landscape of Loss, ABC News:

Eighty percent of Iraqis report attacks nearby — car bombs, snipers, kidnappings, armed forces fighting each other or abusing civilians. It's worst by far in the capital of Baghdad, but by no means confined there.

The personal toll is enormous. More than half of Iraqis, 53 percent, have a close friend or relative who's been hurt or killed in the current violence. One in six says someone in their own household has been harmed. Eighty-six percent worry about a loved one being hurt; two-thirds worry deeply. Huge numbers limit their daily activities to minimize risk. Seven in 10 report multiple signs of traumatic stress.
[...]
The survey's results are deeply distressing from an American perspective as well: The number of Iraqis who call it "acceptable" to attack U.S. and coalition forces, 17 percent in early 2004, has tripled to 51 percent now, led by near unanimity among Sunni Arabs. And 78 percent of Iraqis now oppose the presence of U.S. forces on their soil, though far fewer favor an immediate pullout.

Iraqis see hope drain away, USA Today:

Some Iraqis say they regret having borne children to be brought up amid such hardship.

Zina Abdulhameed Rajab, a Shiite doctor, is so alarmed by the children she has treated who were injured on their way to school that she is keeping her 2- and 4-year-old sons at home. Her mother has moved in to help babysit.

"Whenever I watch my kids laughing or playing, I can't be so happy from inside my heart because I don't know what the next day will bring," she said. "I really regret the birth of my kids here."

She added: "I wish I could put them back inside me so I would know all the time where they are and how they are doing."

The regrets of the man who brought down Saddam, The Guardian:

His hands were bleeding and his eyes filled with tears as, four years ago, he slammed a sledgehammer into the tiled plinth that held a 20ft bronze statue of Saddam Hussein. Then Kadhim al-Jubouri spoke of his joy at being the leader of the crowd that toppled the statue in Baghdad's Firdous Square. Now, he is filled with nothing but regret.

The moment became symbolic across the world as it signalled the fall of the dictator. Wearing a black vest, Mr al-Jubouri, an Iraqi weightlifting champion, pounded through the concrete in an attempt to smash the statue and all it meant to him. Now, on the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, he says: "I really regret bringing down the statue. The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day."

From hope to despair in Baghdad, BBC News:

After Baghdad fell, I would satellite reports back to London about attacks in which one or two people were killed. It was big news in those days. Last Thursday, a bomb exploded near the end of the street in central Baghdad where the BBC has its office. Eight people were killed and 25 injured, and we had rather good pictures of it.

But I did not ring London to offer a report about it. To get on the news, or the front page of the newspapers nowadays, a lot of people have to die. I would say the current figure is 60 or 70; and it certainly wouldn't be the lead.

This is not because editors do not care; it is because it happens so often it scarcely seems like news.

Third of Iraqi children now malnourished four years after US invasion, Reuters AlertNet:

Vatican City – Caritas Internationalis and Caritas Iraq say that malnutrition rates have risen in Iraq from 19 percent before the US-led invasion to a national average of 28 percent four years later.

Caritas says that rising hunger has been caused by high levels of insecurity, collapsed healthcare and other infrastructure, increased polarisation between different sects and tribes, and rising poverty.

Over 11 percent of newborn babies are born underweight in Iraq today, compared with a figure of 4 percent in 2003. Before March 2003, Iraq already had significant infant mortality due to malnutrition because of the international sanctions regime.

The Killings in Haditha, CBS News, 60 Minutes:

(CBS) On Nov. 19, 2005, United States Marines killed 24 apparently innocent civilians in an Iraqi town called Haditha. The dead included men, women and children as young as 2 years old. Iraqi witnesses said the Marines were on a rampage, slaughtering people in the street and in their homes. In December, four Marines were charged with murder.
[...]
Wuterich does not believe 24 dead civilians equates to a massacre.

"No, absolutely not… A massacre in my mind, by definition, is a large group of people being executed, being killed for absolutely no reason and that’s absolutely not what happened here," he says.

The day after the killings, bodies were wrapped to conceal the sight of 24 civilians: 15 men, three women and six children killed by shrapnel and gunshot.
[...]
"As you understood them, what were the rules for using deadly force?" Pelley asks.

Wuterich says the biggest thing was PID -- positive identification.

"It means that you need to be able to positively identify your target before you shoot to kill," he says.

The kind of targets they were permitted to shoot to kill included, "…various things," Wuterich says. "Obviously, anyone with a weapon, especially pointed at you… Hostile act, hostile intent was the biggest thing that they had to have, so if they had used a hostile act against you, you could use deadly force. If there was hostile intent towards you, you could use deadly force."
[...]
"Normally, the Iraqis know the drill when you’re over there. They know if something happens, they know exactly what they need to do. Get down, hands up, and completely cooperate. These individuals were doing none of that. They got out of the car [and] as they were going around they started to take off, so I shot at them," he tells Pelley.

As the men ran from Wuterich, he says he shot them in the back.

"How does these men running away from the scene, as you describe it, square with hostile action or hostile intent? Asks Pelley.

"Because hostile action, if they were the triggermen, would have blown up the IED. Which would also constitute hostile intent. But also at the same time, there were military-aged males that were inside that car. The only vehicle, the only thing that was out, that was Iraqi, was them. They were 100 meters away from that IED. Those are the things that went through my mind before I pulled the trigger. That was positive identification," Wuterich tells Pelley.

Other witnesses, including Marines, dispute that the men were running. Wuterich is charged with lying that day to a sergeant, saying the Iraqi men fired on the convoy.

When the vehicle was searched, what was found?

"I believe nothing. I don’t remember partaking in the search," he said. "But, as far as I know, there wasn’t anything found."

And the men were not armed.
[...]
In two minutes, one Marine and five Iraqis were dead, but the killing had just begun Next, Frank Wuterich would lead his men to kill 19 more Iraqi civilians...

Gen. Petraeus and a High-Profile Suicide in Iraq, Editor & Publisher:

Col. Ted Westhusing, a West Point scholar, put a bullet in his head in Iraq after reporting widespread corruption. His suicide note -- complaining about human rights abuses and other crimes -- was addressed to his two commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, now leader of the U.S. "surge" effort in Iraq. It urged them to "Reevaluate yourselves....You are not what you think you are and I know it."

Bush to Ask for Patience in Iraq War, The Guardian, March 19, 2007:

Bush was expected to issue a plea for more patience in the war, which has stretched longer with higher costs than the White House ever anticipated. The president was to make a statement in the Roosevelt Room.

``It can be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that our best option is to pack up and go home,'' Bush was to say, according to an administration official who saw an advance text of his remarks. ``While that may be satisfying in the short run, the consequences for American security would be devastating.''
[...]
Democratic lawmakers say the public put them in charge of Congress to demand more progress in Iraq - and to start getting the U.S. troops out.

The timeline for troop withdrawal under the House bill would speed up if the Iraqi government cannot meet its own benchmarks for providing security, allocating oil revenues and other essential steps. The administration opposes setting such timelines.

The House plan appears to have little chance of getting through the Senate, where Democrats have a slimmer majority. Even if it did, Bush has promised to veto it. But the White House is aggressively trying to stop it anyway, fearful of the message the world will hear if the House approves a binding bill to end the war.

Whose Oil is it Anyway?
Bush Warns U.S. Security Will Suffer if Troops Withdraw From Iraq, The Washington Post, March 19, 2007

It's all about "good days and bad days" to Bush.

Identify one "good day" in Iraq since this war began, Bush. I dare you.

The FBI is Breaking the Rules, Again

You know, it's sad these days that the Bush administration and the powers that be have so trampled on people's rights that the public outrage meter is actually broken from extreme overuse.

Take the latest revelation about the FBI's abuse of those dreaded national security letters.

...[Justice Department Inspector General] Fine found that FBI agents used national security letters without citing an authorized investigation, claimed "exigent" circumstances that did not exist in demanding information and did not have adequate documentation to justify the issuance of letters.

In at least two cases, the officials said, Fine found that the FBI obtained full credit reports using a national security letter that could lawfully be employed to obtain only summary information. In an unknown number of other cases, third parties such as telephone companies, banks and Internet providers responded to national security letters with detailed personal information about customers that the letters do not permit to be released. The FBI "sequestered" that information, a law enforcement official said last night, but did not destroy it.

You can only bang your head against the wall so many times before you end up with brain damage over it all.

9/11 changed everything alright. It opened the door to the most corrupt, secretive, intrusive, destructive and downright fascist forms or powermongering that ordinary citizens just don't have much of a defence against anymore. Your mail is read. Your phones are tapped. Your phone records are seized. You're on camera whenever you step outside.

Those things have already been going on for a long time as everybody knows, but when government sanctions even more invasive methods of picking through every single detail of your mundane life, what do you have left? And beyond that, when agencies like the FBI already have far more legal powers than they ought to in what's supposed to be a free and democratic society and they take it upon themselves to go even further by trying to stetch the law when it's convenient for them, then what?

Oh, the Democrats will try to fix things that are so obviously wrong with the Patriot Act but, as with everything they'll try to reform or change, Bush will pull out his handy veto pen and basically flip them the bird with it. The courts aren't of much help either. Any controversial rulings that actually threaten Bush's unitary executive (kingly) power will be appealed by government attorneys and will eventually, way down the road, be taken up by the Supreme Court - a long and tedious process.

In the meantime, life ticks on and more people will have their rights and privacy violated while good old smirking attorney general Alberto Gonzales stares into the cameras and tells people not to worry - he's on top of things. And Bush will give even more speeches about the war on terror to scare people into compliance while their brains turn to nodding bubbles of mush. So it will go.

After all, if you're not one of the bad guys, why worry? Right? Now there's an attitude that's killing everything America is supposedly supposed to stand for, although it really hasn't stood for those ideals for a very, very long time if, in fact, those ideals were ever more than just comforting illusions that people had about their great country whose history of corruption goes back centuries to its very founding.

It's no wonder then that the energy to keep fighting those in the no longer hallowed halls of the White House is so hard to come by these days. So few take up the cause on behalf of so many and citizens hope that's enough. It isn't, of course, especially when that fight consists of continual below the belt punches from the opposing side. They don't play by the rules and that's how they win, something that those who want to set things right seem to have to do in order to get anywhere, but won't. It's a a painfully uneven match.

Maybe when those who get tired of watching it from the sidelines decide to join in with a willingness to start a massive proverbial rumble, things will change. Then again, the government will probably just send in the riot squads like they always do. But if no one takes that chance, how we will they ever know?
 

CP: 'Harper pays peanuts for personal use of government jet'

OTTAWA (CP) - Documents show that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives are paying only a fraction of the cost of using the government's Challenger jets for partisan and personal junkets.

Invoices obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act show that the Defence Department billed the Tories for three flights last year. The first flight cost a hefty $2,100 per hour of flying time.

But on the two subsequent flights, the Tories decided they would only pay the equivalent of commercial airfares, which don't even come close to covering the $9,000-an-hour cost of operating the Challenger.

One of those flights was for Harper and his entourage to attend a Maple Leafs game in Toronto.

The use of the military executive jets was a big issue for the Conservatives when they were in opposition.

The Tories, including Harper, accused the Liberals of blowing $11,000 an hour flying around the country in "flying limousines" for partisan purposes.

Oh, the irony.

I'm sure the "new government" of "accountability" will get right on top of paying its proper dues, right?

Not bloody likely.

It looks like Defence Minister O'Connor wasn't quite as forthcoming as he should have been back in October, 2006 in parliament:

Hon. Navdeep Bains (Mississauga—Brampton South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the minority Conservative government's obsession with secrecy and silencing public servants has spread to National Defence.

When asked by journalists to provide information on the Prime Minister's partisan political use of Canadian government jets, defence department officials were ordered by the powers to be to hide the true cost of the trip.

Why is the government muzzling defence department officials? Was the minister ordered by the PMO to participate in this Challenger cover-up?

Hon. Gordon O'Connor (Minister of National Defence, CPC): Mr. Speaker, there has been no political interference at all within the practices of DND, which were originally set by the Liberal Party. We are following precisely the rules set by the previous administration.

Hon. Navdeep Bains (Mississauga—Brampton South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, information previously available through access to information is now regularly blacked out, just like the names on these flights. Derek Burney's name was scrubbed from the Stealth flight to Washington. The names of the Conservatives who took joyrides to Halifax and went to hockey games with the Prime Minister are gone.

Last year the Conservatives said it cost $11,000 per hour to operate these flying limousines. Now they only claim 10%. Why will the government not release the passenger list? Will the Conservative Party settle its outstanding bills?

Hon. Gordon O'Connor (Minister of National Defence, CPC): Mr. Speaker, as I said, we are following the practice of the previous government. We have paid for any flights that were not on official government business. I want to point out that the previous government was using Challenger jets at twice the rate that this government is.

Those payments, however, were "peanuts" as we now see.