On the Manley Panel Report

The Globe reports that Manley's per diem was up to 1,400 not too bad.


"Manley's per diem up to $1,400
ALAN FREEMAN

Globe and Mail Update

OTTAWA — Nice work if you can get it. Former deputy prime minister John Manley, who was appointed last week to head a five-member panel of eminent persons investigating the future of Canada's mission in Afghanistan, will be paid between $1,200 and $1,400 a day by the federal government for his trouble."


Liberal hawks are a hot item on the market even Conservatives are snapping them up. In spite of being well paid part of Manley's report, his foreword, is a recycling of portions of a paper from Policy Options. I listened to some pundits on the CBC one of whom claimed that the report was valuable as explaining why we are in Afghanistan.
I thought that I would actually read part of the report to see how it explains how we go into Afghanistan and why? This is from the report:

"After 30 years of strife—in Soviet occupation, civil war and the coercive
repression of Taliban rule—Afghan men and women are building a government
committed to the democratic rule of law and the full exercise of human rights.
To preserve and pursue the progress made, Afghanistan relies on others for
support. Canada is one of 51 countries committed to the 2006 Afghanistan
Compact, a comprehensive international program of aid to Afghanistan’s
security, governance and development. For the years 2002-2011, Canada has
authorized $1.2 billion in international assistance to Afghanistan. That
country now receives more Canadian aid than any other, about three per cent
of all Canadian aid during this period."

and this:
" A DECISION FOR CANADIANS
Afghanistan is at war, and Canadians are combatants. It is a war fought
between an elected, democratic government and a zealous insurgency of proven
brutality. The war has already exacted a terrible cost in Canadian lives—a
sacrifice to be mourned and honoured by every Canadian. But Canadians are
not alone in the conflict. Canada is one of some 39 countries (including most
of the great democracies we know as our friends and allies) with troops
deployed in Afghanistan. These forces are in Afghanistan at the request of the
Afghan government, under the express authority of the United Nations.
This is a conflict of ferocious complexity in a region of violent instability.
History proves how readily Afghanistan can fall victim to regional rivalries and
foreign invasion. The present crisis in Pakistan, which shares a lawless
borderland with Afghanistan, adds new danger and new confusion to
Afghanistan’s future. For Canadians, moreover, the news from Kabul and
Kandahar in the past two years has been more often bad than good. It is
natural for Canadians to reconsider the wisdom and rightness of Canada’s
involvement in a war that has been so difficult and inconclusive."


There is nothing about how we got in to the war. There is nothing about the role of the US and our own role as junior partners or the role of the warlords of the Northern Alliance. In effect this is not really a war but an occupation with a government installed with the guidance of the occupiers all along. The insurgents are resistance fighters. Of course when the jihadists were on the other side fighting the Soviets the mainstream press would always describe them as a resistance fighting the Evil Empire occupiers.
The picture painted for us is of a mission expressly sanctioned by the UN. Of course it is but so is the US and allies mission in Iraq! The original regime change orchestrated by the US with our willing participation Operation Enduring Freedom was not sanctioned. We are now with ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) as part of NATO with UN blessing.
However, the original occupation was illegal. See for example Mandel:

October 9, 2001

"This War is Illegal

By Michael Mandel

A well-kept secret about the U.S.-U.K. attack on Afghanistan is that it is clearly illegal. It violates international law and the express words of the United Nations Charter.

Despite repeated reference to the right of self-defence under Article 51, the Charter simply does not apply here. Article 51 gives a state the right to repel an attack that is ongoing or imminent as a temporary measure until the UN Security Council can take steps necessary for international peace and security.

The Security Council has already passed two resolutions condemning the Sept. 11 attacks and announcing a host of measures aimed at combating terrorism. These include measures for the legal suppression of terrorism and its financing, and for co-operation between states in security, intelligence, criminal investigations and proceedings relating to terrorism. The Security Council has set up a committee to monitor progress on the measures in the resolution and has given all states 90 days to report back to it.

Neither resolution can remotely be said to authorize the use of military force. True, both, in their preambles, abstractly "affirm" the inherent right of self-defence, but they do so "in accordance with the Charter." They do not say military action against Afghanistan would be within the right of self-defence. Nor could they. That's because the right of unilateral self-defence does not include the right to retaliate once an attack has stopped.

The right of self-defence in international law is like the right of self-defence in our own law: It allows you to defend yourself when the law is not around, but it does not allow you to take the law into your own hands.

Since the United States and Britain have undertaken this attack without the explicit authorization of the Security Council, those who die from it will be victims of a crime against humanity, just like the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Even the Security Council is only permitted to authorize the use of force where "necessary to maintain and restore international peace and security." Now it must be clear to everyone that the military attack on Afghanistan has nothing to do with preventing terrorism. This attack will be far more likely to provoke terrorism. Even the Bush administration concedes that the real war against terrorism is long term, a combination of improved security, intelligence and a rethinking of U.S. foreign alliances.

Critics of the Bush approach have argued that any effective fight against terrorism would have to involve a re-evaluation of the way Washington conducts its affairs in the world. For example, the way it has promoted violence for short-term gain, as in Afghanistan when it supported the Taliban a decade ago, in Iraq when it supported Saddam Hussein against Iran, and Iran before that when it supported the Shah.

The attack on Afghanistan is about vengeance and about showing how tough the Americans are. It is being done on the backs of people who have far less control over their government than even the poor souls who died on Sept. 11. It will inevitably result in many deaths of civilians, both from the bombing and from the disruption of aid in a country where millions are already at risk. The 37,000 rations dropped on Sunday were pure PR, and so are the claims of "surgical" strikes and the denials of civilian casualties. We've seen them before, in Kosovo for example, followed by lame excuses for the "accidents" that killed innocents.

For all that has been said about how things have changed since Sept. 11, one thing that has not changed is U.S. disregard for international law. Its decade-long bombing campaign against Iraq and its 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia were both illegal. The U.S. does not even recognize the jurisdiction of the World Court. It withdrew from it in 1986 when the court condemned Washington for attacking Nicaragua, mining its harbours and funding the contras. In that case, the court rejected U.S. claims that it was acting under Article 51 in defence of Nicaragua's neighbours.

For its part, Canada cannot duck complicity in this lawlessness by relying on the "solidarity" clause of the NATO treaty, because that clause is made expressly subordinate to the UN Charter.

But, you might ask, does legality matter in a case like this? You bet it does. Without the law, there is no limit to international violence but the power, ruthlessness and cunning of the perpetrators. Without the international legality of the UN system, the people of the world are sidelined in matters of our most vital interests.

We are all at risk from what happens next. We must insist that Washington make the case for the necessity, rationality and proportionality of this attack in the light of day before the real international community.

The bombing of Afghanistan is the legal and moral equivalent of what was done to the Americans on Sept. 11. We may come to remember that day, not for its human tragedy, but for the beginning of a headlong plunge into a violent, lawless world.

Michael Mandel, professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, specializes in international criminal law. "

The resulting democratic government of Karzai aside from harboring former warlords and producing much of the world's opium already contains elements that are much like the Taliban as far as religious and civil rights were concerned. A Muslim who converted to Christianity had to be spirited off to Italy to avoid the death penalty. Now a journalist is threatened with the same penalty for distributing material offensive to Islam--not even his own writing. A female member of the legislature is kicked out for criticising the government. Even David Orchard has written about the Afghan mission.

"In reality, Iraq and Afghanistan are the same war.

That's how the Bush administration has seen Afghanistan from the start; not as a defensive response to 9/11, but the opening for regime change in Iraq (as documented in Richard A. Clarke's Against all Enemies).That's why the Security Council resolutions of September 2001 never mention Afghanistan, much less authorize an attack on it. That's why the attack on Afghanistan was also a supreme international crime, which killed at least 20,000 innocent civilians in its first six months. The Bush administration used 9/11 as a pretext to launch an open-ended so-called "War on Terror" --in reality a war of terror because it kills hundreds of times more civilians than the other terrorists do.

That the Karzai regime was subsequently set up under UN auspices doesn't absolve the participants in America's war, and that includes Canada. Nor should the fact that Canada now operates under the UN authorized International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mislead anyone. From the start, ISAF put itself at the service of the American operation, declaring "the United States Central Command will have authority over the International Security Assistance Force" (UNSC Document S/2001/1217). When NATO took charge of ISAF that didn't change anything. NATO forces are always ultimately under US command. The "Supreme Commander" is always an American general, who answers to the American president, not the Afghan one.

Canadian troops in Afghanistan not only take orders from the Americans, they help free up more American forces to continue their bloody occupation of Iraq.

When the U.S. devastated Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (1961-1975), leaving behind six million dead or maimed, Canada refused to participate. But today Canada has become part of a U.S. war being waged not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in a network of disclosed and undisclosed centres of physical and mental torture, like Guantanamo Bay in --let's not forget --illegally occupied Cuban territory. And what we know about what the U.S. government calls terrorism is that it is largely a response to foreign occupation, and what we know about American occupation is that it is a way the rich world forces the rest to surrender their resources.

General Rick Hillier bragged that Canada was going to root out the "scumbags" in Afghanistan. He didn't mention that the Soviets, using over 600,000 troops and billions in aid over ten years, were unable to control Afghanistan. Britain, at the height of its imperial power, tried twice and failed. Now, Canada is helping another fading empire attempt to impose its will on Afghanistan.

Canadians have traditionally been able to hold their heads high when they travel the world. We did not achieve that reputation by waging war against the world's poor; in large part we achieved it by refusing to do so."


The Manley panel did its job and deserves its generous per diems. They successfully issued an extensive report without ever bringing up any of the issues that Orchard and Mandel do. The mainstream media and the talking heads on CBC and elsewhere will avoid them like the plague as well.
We send more aid to Afghanistan than any other country. This simply props up the Karzai government and helps the US agenda although it seems to be ours as well. That aid could be spent much better elsewhere or at home. Aid cannot be separated out from the military role both have the same function. One is the carrot, the other the stick. The NDP is clueless about this no doubt because they share the arrogant moral hubris that says that we (the West to paraphrase the general's manifesto) have the duty to create an Afghan nation that is free and democratic---and it goes without saying capitalist. It is the Afghans that must create their own state of whatever sort. We can help but we cannot force them to embody our ideals and certainly the Afghan mission is designed only to create a state that does not interfere with western interests and power the present rights situation in Afghanistan shows that.
The idea that we can force tolerance and stamp out corruption in Afghanistan is an arrogant pipe dream.