Canadian Peace Alliance and Supporters Mislead Canada

[ruxted]

Canadian Peace Alliance and Supporters Mislead Canada

The Canadian Peace Alliance (CPA) ( http://www.acp-cpa.ca/en/ ) plans to hold a series of demonstrations on 28 Oct 06 as a “Call for Action.” The CPA has a right to express its views; it has no right to manufacture ‘facts’ to support them.

It is frightening to think that Canadians might be convinced by the hollow arguments of the CPA. It has no rational alternatives to suggest; indeed, in some cases it appears to support the Taliban. Its position smacks of conspiracy theory-induced paranoia and of grasping at the flimsiest of straws.

Ruxted contends that the CPA and its supporters are either misinformed or are deliberately trying to mislead Canadians.

To facilitate open debate, the Ruxted Group offers some guidance to help the CPA correct its underlying premises:

1. Canada is not occupying Afghanistan. Canada, like other members of the United Nations-authorized International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), was invited by the legitimately elected government of Afghanistan to help bring peace, security and aid to that unfortunate country.

2. Afghanistan is not an American effort. The US is one of more than 35 members of ISAF. This makes much of the CPA’s knee-jerk anti-Bush propaganda irrelevant. The democratically elected government of Afghanistan is, steadily, gaining control, and international military forces throughout the whole country fall under the direction of the ISAF which acts in support of the Afghan government.

3. There is no American Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (TAP). Since the Taliban was ousted in 2001, a proposal for an India/Pakistan-financed pipeline has gained some support from the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan. However, continuing instability in the region deters potential investors and there is no concrete plan four years after the initial discussions. Moreover, UNOCAL (the Americans) have had nothing to do with the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline for over eight years. Clearly the CPA is still seeing the US corporate-industrial bogeyman under every international bed. They love a conspiracy theory and revel in yet another attempt to wheel out this long-discredited canard. Their argument is nothing but a pipe-dream.

4. The CPA is out of step with most of the international peace and human rights community. The UN, the International Crisis Group and Care International, amongst others, support the Canadian combat mission in Afghanistan because they understand that it is essential to have security before real development can take place. The world wants Canada to succeed because it wants equal rights for Afghan women and children; the CPA talks a good fight but is unwilling to provide real, tangible help for women and children in Afghanistan. As with the NDP, the CPA has abandoned it's traditional support of the UN, Non-Aligned Movement and multilateralism simply because it cannot see past its anti-Americanism.

The Ruxted Group believes that some of the CPA’s supporters are misrepresenting their members’ views for partisan political purposes.

Union endorsement of the CPA is a good example. Do the men and women who are carrying on the legacy of their forefathers in the shop floors and union halls of Canada really side with groups who apologize for al Qaeda? Do they really want to be seen as supporting terrorists and thugs who hang teachers, burn schools and blow up markets in Afghanistan? We think not.

What genuine union purpose is advanced by union leaders when they decided to give financial and moral support to those who mislead Canadians about Afghanistan? Union leadership support of the CPA has absolutely nothing to do with saving Canadian lives. Nor does it have anything to do with making life more secure for the desperate people in that poor country. For the union leadership it is all about "getting" Stephen Harper and bringing down the government at any cost, to some people nothing else matters. Will unions expend their members’ dues and their own political capital supporting those who will tell any lies, distort any truth, hide any contradictory fact, bend any rule, threaten, intimidate and shout down anyone necessary, and heap scorn upon those who support the Canadian mission by slurring them as warmongers or fascists?

It is true that Canadian soldiers are shedding much blood for what may be the most worthwhile UN mission this country has undertaken. Yet the people who oppose the mission appear to take gleeful opportunistic pleasure in their hollow expressions of sorrow.

The soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan are first cousins to the Canadians on the shop floor; the soldiers are outraged by the CPA and fellow travellers and wonder how union members, with that true Canadian characteristic of fairness, pride and resolve, can, passively, support such tripe. Hard earned wages diverted to pay union dues are wasted for Machiavellian political purposes while the sweat equity earned in developing a good name and a proud union heritage is usurped and soiled. And for what? Helping the poor, oppressed people of Afghanistan? Saving Canadian soldiers? Not likely. It is about partisan politics.

Canada is a free country, more than a hundred thousand Canadian sailors, soldiers and aviators have died to make it so. Thus, the CPA has a right to promote its views, however ill-founded, and other groups have a right to ‘endorse’ them, including those which seem to oppose peace and free choice for the Afghan people.

Ruxted questions the motives of the CPA and of all who ‘endorse’ an organization which, through either ignorance or malice, misrepresents Canada’s mission in Afghanistan.

Post your comments below or visit http://ruxted.ca/index.php?/archives/26-Canadian-Peace-Alliance-and-Supporters-Mislead-Canada.html

 

[McG]

Anyone interested in the list of who is actually supporting this can look here: http://www.acp-cpa.ca/en/OCT28Endorsers.htm

 

[George Wallace]

Interesting List.  Nearly 50% are Islamic organizations.  A lot of Green Peace types and then the Socialist crowd.

Endorsers List for Oct 28

Canadian Labour Congress
Canadian Islamic Congress
Le Collectif Échec à la guerre
Council of Canadians
Canadian Arab Federation
National Union of Public and General Employees
Canadian Union of Public Employees
Canadian Union of Postal Workers
United Steelworkers - National
Canadian Auto Workers Union
Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade
Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association
Greenpeace Canada
Act For the Earth
Muslim Unity Group
New Democratic Party Youth Caucus
Canadian Youth Climate Coalition
Canadian Peace Congress
The Muslim Services, Toronto
Al-Hidaya Association (Montreal)
Adala - Canadian Arab Justice Committee
United Front Canada
ICNA Canada
The Islamic Supreme Council of Canada
Islamic Association of Canadian Women
The Canadian Muslim Forum (CMF)
The Association Musulmane du Québec (AMQ)
The Alternative Perspective Media (APM-RAM)
Ahlul Bayt Assembly of Canada
The Muslim Community of Calgary
Al Ansar Islamic Centre
The Salaheddin Islamic Centre
Dar Al Tawheed Islamic Centre
The Islamic Foundation of Toronto
The TARIC Islamic Centre
Al Hoda Centre
Not In Our Name (Toronto)
Halifax Peace Coalition
Fredricton Peace Coalition
Rassemblement outaouais contre la guerre
NoWar-Paix - Ottawa
Student Coalition Against War - Ottawa
Toronto Coalition to Stop the War
November 16 Coalition - Hamilton
Hamilton Steelworkers Area Council
People for Peace (London)
UVic Students Against War
Victoria Peace Coalition
Edmonton Coalition Against War and Racism
Students for Palestinian Rights - Waterloo
Solidarity For Palestinian Human Rights - McMaster
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights - Toronto
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid
Ottawa Raging Grannies
The Boundary Peace Initiative
Kootenay Region United Nations Association
Kelowna Peace Group
October 28 Coalition - Nanaimo
Peace Alliance Winnipeg
Palestine Community Centre of BC
Niagara Coalition for Peace
Niagara Secular Humanists
Burlington Association for Nuclear Disarmament
Stopwar.ca Vancouver
Gerald and Maas
Global Importune
Boiling Frog
Green Party of Ontario
Canadian Action Party
Communist Party of Canada
Socialist Project
International Socialists

 

[career_radio-checker]

1. Canada is not occupying Afghanistan. Canada, like other members of the United Nations-authorized International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), was invited by the legitimately elected government of Afghanistan to help bring peace, security and aid to that unfortunate country.

I'm all for the mission but lets not kid ourselves. Afghanistan cetainly did not invite the US into its borders back in 2001 nor did they invite us 6 months later. Wasn't Hitler and Weirmacht 'invited' into Austria back in 1938? Now I am not trying to equate us with the nazis, but to say that we were invited -- along with the other NATO members -- after we had already set up our bases and brought out the lawn chairs is like asking a friend for a drink after you already went into his fridge and helped yourself to a can.

Lets say that it was necessary intervention -- like in Bosnia -- and work our arguement from there.

 

[McG]

The elected government is asking the international community to stay (as in “please don’t leave we still need you here”).  This sounds an awful lot like the international community is still there on the invitation of the Afghans.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Glad PSAC did not support them or I would have to scream at them again! Mind you a e-mail to the Union President reminding him that Federal employees support their comrades in uniform.

 

[vonGarvin]

I'm all for the mission but lets not kid ourselves. Afghanistan cetainly did not invite the US into its borders back in 2001 nor did they invite us 6 months later. Wasn't Hitler and Weirmacht 'invited' into Austria back in 1938? Now I am not trying to equate us with the nazis, but to say that we were invited -- along with the other NATO members -- after we had already set up our bases and brought out the lawn chairs is like asking a friend for a drink after you already went into his fridge and helped yourself to a can.

Lets say that it was necessary intervention -- like in Bosnia -- and work our arguement from there.

Well, to be fair, what happened five years ago is that after refusing to turn over Bin Laden et al, the US bombed Afghanistan.  The Northern Alliance then went to work, and THEY ousted the Taliban, though the air campaign certainly helped them!  The US did go in, but they did not, as the Germans did in 1938, turn Afghanistan into another state of the Union.  (I believe that the Germans called Austia "Ostmark", a translation of "Marchia Orientalis".  then became "Alpen und Donau Reichsgauen")
As for the invitation, you're right, we sort of filled a void (at the behest of the UN IIRC), but once Afghanistan started to right itself, it looked about and said "thank you, please stay for tea.  Oh, and if you don't mind, would you mind helping us take out the trash?"

 

[Comdessert]

Hey folks,

Not to mention the UNSC in Dec 2001 authorized the creation of the ISAF. It's interesting to see these left-wing groups back-pedaling on internationalism and human rights.

I suspect some of these groups are talking out of both sides of their mouth and simultaneously saying we should intervene in Darfur - ignoring, of course, the fact that the Sudanese government has stated that if any Western troops enter Sudan it will be considered an act of war. Which is just what we need, another pissed off Muslim country. Of course, this is the same Sudan that was buddy-buddy with UBL (under Turabi, though, not the current Bashir).

- CD