Canada in Afghanistan: The New Conquistadores

By David Orchard | Global Research, February 23, 2008

The Harper government is seeking to prolong Canada’s military involvement in Afghanistan. So far, Canada has spent six years, billions of dollars, 78 young lives (many more wounded) and inflicted unknown casualties on that country.

The terms used to describe our occupation and ongoing war are remarkably similar to those used over a century ago by colonial powers to justify their ruthless wars of colonization. Then, it was the white man’s burden to “civilize” the non-whites of the Americas, Africa and Asia. As cub scouts we were taught Kipling’s unforgettable prose about the “lesser breeds,” but nothing about the real people who paid horrendous costs in death, suffering, destruction and theft of their land and resources.

Today, we are involved in a “mission” in Afghanistan to “improve” the lives of women and children, to install “democracy,” to root out corruption and the drug trade.

Waging war with bombs and guns is not helping women or installing democracy. It is, however, strengthening the Afghan resistance — hence our increasingly shrill cries for more help from NATO.

The U.S. is involved in a similar “mission” in Iraq. So far, over a million Iraqis — many of them children — have died, some two million have fled the country, another two million are “internally displaced,” untold hundreds of thousands wounded in an endless war waged by the world’s most advanced military almost entirely against civilians.

The toll of dead, wounded and displaced for Afghanistan is not being published.

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