Europeans, Canadians See Afghan Mission as Failure

This is an older poll from Angus Reid. nevertheless it gives an idea of the negative views of Afghan missions in five European countries. The French are particularly negative but Sarkozy is bound and determined to suck up to George Bush. Canada is simply incidental. In fact the mission is not popular at all in Quebec either. Actually Canada was the most optimistic but even in Canada the ratio of success to failure is just one to two.

Polling Data
(Your country) has contributed troops to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) mission in Afghanistan. So far, do you think the war against militant groups in Afghanistan has been mostly a success or mostly a failure?
BRI Britain
FRA France
ITA Italy
GER Germany
CAN Canadian
A success
16% Britain
12%
18%
15%
22% Canada
A failure
63% Britain
63%
66%
69%
49% Canada
Not sure
21%
25%
16%
16%
29%
Source: Angus Reid StrategiesMethodology: Online interviews with 5,075 adults in Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy, conducted from Jul. 26 to Aug. 11, 2007. Margin of error for each country is 3.1 per cent.Complete Poll (PDF)

Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research
Europeans, Canadians See Afghan Mission as Failure
August 27, 2007
Abstract: (Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Few adults in five nations that have provided military assistance in Afghanistan believe the mission is proceeding adequately, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. Only 22 per cent of respondents in Canada think the war against militant groups in Afghanistan has been mostly a success.
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Few adults in five nations that have provided military assistance in Afghanistan believe the mission is proceeding adequately, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. Only 22 per cent of respondents in Canada think the war against militant groups in Afghanistan has been mostly a success.
Italy is next on the list with 18 per cent, followed by Britain with 16 per cent, Germany with 15 per cent, and France with 12 per cent. More than 60 per cent of German, Italian, British and French respondents—as well as 49 per cent of Canadians—think the military effort in Afghanistan has been a failure so far.

Why Germany may not send more troops or send them to the south.

US and Canadian politicians probably don't care two hoots about the fate of German politicians but almost all politicians are anxious to keep their seats. With a less than thirty per cent support for even the ISAF mission German politicians are not likely to send more troops or send them where there will be more casualties. If they do thne they risk becoming casualties themselves next election. This is from World Politics Review.

The German parliament recently renewed the "mandates" authorizing the German Bundeswehr to continue military operations in Afghanistan. On Oct. 12, the legislators voted to approve Germany's continued military participation in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF). On Nov. 15, the Bundestag extended by one-year the authorization permitting Germany's elite special forces unit, the Kommando Spezialkräfte, to participate in the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan, which also involves German naval patrols off the Horn of Africa.The OEF deployment, which focuses on counterterrorism, has proven more controversial among Germans than supporting the ISAF, which is often depicted as a humanitarian and civil reconstruction mission. Nevertheless, neither operation is especially popular given that over two dozen Bundeswehr personnel have died in Afghanistan and others have been held hostage there. According to a recent newspaper poll, only 29 percent of Germans favor continuing the ISAF deployment.

Gates sends stern letter to Germany over Afghan mission

This is from CBC. The article tells us absolutely nothing about the content of the German reply. The article tells us nothing in detail about the report of the senior NATO officers. Among the recommendations of that report are that NATO reserve the right to first strike nuclear responses and pre-emptive attacks. If NATO splits or even breaks up that would be a plus for world peace as far as I am concerned. It is used as means for furthering US and allies policy when the UN fails to comply with those aims or is unable to itself to supply military force. The NATO report constantly refers to the West. I guess this is the new substitute for the Free World of Cold War times.
Most civilian populations in Europe are unenthusiastic about the NATO Afghan mission. As in Canada the mission must be constantly "sold" to the population in terms of idealistic slogans or appeals to fear of terrorism or failed states. Strange that we do not invade Saudi Arabia or Yemen the sources of a great many terrorists and certainly Saudi Arabia is hardly a model democracy.

Gates sends 'stern' letter to Germany over Afghan mission: report
Last Updated: Friday, February 1, 2008 6:49 AM ET
CBC News
U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates is pressuring Germany to provide more troops to the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan, a German newspaper said Friday.
U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates is pushing for German troops to take on a larger role in Afghanistan.J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)
Gates sent an "unusually stern" letter to German Defence Minister Franz Josef more than a week ago, reported Suddeutsche Zeitung. His letter reportedly asked for more combat troops and helicopters.
Josef quickly responded with his own "direct and stern" letter of response to Gates, said the newspaper, which didn't quote either of the letters directly.
The report comes days after Prime Minister Stephen Harper backed a report recommending Canada not remain in Afghanistan past 2009 unless NATO provides more soldiers.
Roughly 2,500 Canadian soldiers are serving in the southern Kandahar province. Seventy-eight soldiers and one diplomat from Canada have been killed since the mission started in 2002.
Gates has asked Germany to send 3,200 troops to replace U.S. troops set to leave Afghanistan later this year, says the newspaper report. He also complains of a heavy burden on American troops and warns of a possible split within NATO.
Germany already has about the same number of soldiers working around the capital Kabul and the relatively calm northern part of the country.
Washington recently announced it would send a one-time deployment of 3,000 marines to Afghanistan.
Harper, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and former defence minister Gordon O'Connor have repeatedly called on NATO to send more troops to clamp down on Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency, complaining a small number of countries are carrying the heaviest load.
Canadian, American, British and Dutch troops are deployed in southern Afghanistan, where much of the heavy fighting against the Taliban frequently occurs.
French, German and Italian troops are under self-imposed restrictions that keep them out of combat operations.
Also Friday, a group of former senior NATO officers have written a report calling for a major overhaul of the alliance, said the New York Times.
The 152-page report, called Toward a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World, criticizes the organization for complicated rules surrounding its decision-making process, financing and its inability to maintain long-term missions.With files from the Associated Press

Western Canada recruits tradespeople in Germany

From the sound of the article the recruitment is mainly for Alberta whose economy is booming. I am not sure that rural areas outside of oil and gas production sectors are particularly booming. In rural Manitoba where I live there is no boom. There is even a moratorium on hog barn development!
I am surprised that the unemployment rate is so high in Germany when I thought they had a labor shortage and imported labor from poorer areas of the EU. Maybe this enforces downward pressure on wages and erodes the social safety net. It probably increases racism and intolerance as well as the working class anger at deterioriating condions will become directed against minorities and "guest workers".


German tradespeople eager to immigrate to Western Canada
Last Updated: Saturday, March 3, 2007 | 11:48 PM ET
CBC News
Western Canadian companies are holding job fairs in central Germany to recruit hundreds of skilled labourers needed for the boom in the oil, mining and construction industries.

The job fairs are well-attended as Germany is struggling with high unemployment — with a national unemployment rate of 9.3 per cent in February. The job fairs have been held for the past three years, but the Canadians found that the interest — and the number of companies wanting to recruit — has grown dramatically.

At one job fair in the city of Essen, where the unemployment rate is closer to 20 per cent, more than 1,000 German tradespeople crowded into a convention centre to talk to representatives of Canadian companies.

"It's terribly hard to find work here," Thomas Freiberg, a 42-year-old industrial electrician, said in German.

Freiburg said he was employed for the past 15 years until the factory where he worked closed last summer.

"I've submitted over 50 applications for various jobs. I've had a few interviews, but nothing positive, no job offers. So my family and I have decided to try and find something in Canada."

Continue Article

Freiburg said he knows it may be hard to move his family. His children, a 10-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter, are worried about leaving school friends behind and having to speak English.

But he said his family could forge a new life in Canada.

"My wife and I visited last year as tourists and we were really impressed. The country is beautiful and we met friendly, nice people. It's a bit scary to think about leaving here, but Canada is our number one choice of places we'd like to live. The idea just works for us, right now."

Germany's economy has been slumping in part because the mining, manufacturing and steel-making sectors have fallen on hard times.

In presentations at the job fair, the unemployed workers, some with baby carriages, listened attentively to the virtues of Western Canada, its wide open spaces, its outdoor lifestyles, its proximity to nature.

Owners of the firms on the lookout for help said they hope to have workers from German on the job in six to eight weeks. The new employees will be given temporary work visas that are valid for up to two years.

Company representatives said they do not think the economic boom in Western Canada is going to fade any time soon.

Joe Bova, an owner of Man-Shield Construction in Winnipeg, said experienced tradespeople are in demand.

"If this was just a temporary offer of employment, we wouldn't be here," Bova said. "We are not interested in short-term employees. We are looking for people who are interested in immigrating to Canada and making a living for them and their families."

Bova himself immigrated to Canada from Italy in 1962. He was in Germany to hire bricklayers.

"These people want a chance, not just to feed their children, because I think they can do that very well in Germany, by the way, but to give their children a better life. And I think they see Canada as that kind of country. And I'm very moved by this, being an immigrant myself. I'm touched."

Bernd Reuscher, an Edmonton resident who works for the German government, said Canada has much to offer.

"Germans are active people. That's why they like Canada. Going to the Rockies, canoeing, hunting, fishing. We have only four people per kilometres in Canada in Alberta. Here, they have 1,000 persons per square kilometre."

Christa Klemm, a carpenter, said a job in Canada would mean a fresh start. She said she has visited Nova Scotia, where she spoke to general contractors who encouraged her to look for work in Alberta.

"I've heard women in Canada are able to work in jobs that are traditionally for men and there isn't much discrimination," she said in German.

"I've got the highest training you can get and I've worked on and off for years, but when I apply for full-time, they always hire a man, first."

Klemm exchanged phone numbers with a few companies at the job fair. She wants to improve her English first, though.

"Finding a way in definitely seems easier there because the companies badly need tradespeople right now. Here nobody is hiring. I can walk the streets with all of my experience, for years, and not find anything," she said.

"For me, going to Canada is the answer."

Why US will not admit Arar's Innocence

This is from the Globe and Mail. Another reason is that Arar still has an appeal pending on his suit against the US government.


A world of Maher Arars
Why won't the U.S. admit Maher Arar's innocence? It may be fear of precedent. Tales of other suspects seized and sent abroad to face torture are beginning to come to light in Europe. This week, those stories helped bring down the Italian government. And as Doug Saunders reports, this could be just the beginning.
DOUG SAUNDERS

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

E-mail Doug Saunders | Read Bio | Latest Columns
On an October evening five years ago, a Gulfstream III executive jet appeared in the sky above Rome and requested a landing at Ciampino Airport, a small military and tourist-flight destination on the ancient Via Appia. On board the 14-seat plane were two pilots, a steward, five CIA agents and a tall, elegant Canadian wearing a green sweater, a pair of jeans and metal shackles.

The Gulfstream, registered to a CIA-connected firm known as Presidential Aviation, was on European soil for exactly 37 minutes. When it had finished refuelling, it left Ciampino at 8:59 p.m. and headed to Amman, Jordan. There, Maher Arar was carried off the plane, beaten, and loaded into a van headed to Damascus, where he would face 10 months and 10 days of horrendous torture.

Those 37 minutes are now coming back to haunt Europe.

Mr. Arar's ordeal, and the wealth of investigations and recriminations that have followed in Canada, has provoked a deep sense of alarm in European politics this week. This Syrian-Canadian's case, the abject apology he received from Prime Minister Stephen Harper last month and the bewildering lack of acknowledgment from Washington, has made a half-dozen governments realize that they may soon face similar public self-examinations.


The possibility, revealed in a European Union report last week, that as many as 20 more Arar-like cases may be emerging within Europe, is souring relations between Europe and the U.S. in anti-terrorism operations, and between European governments and their own people in electoral politics.

Major court cases are under way in Germany and Italy against domestic and U.S. agents for kidnapping citizens and sending them to Muslim countries to be tortured — cases that could implicate senior government officials and tarnish national leaders, as they have in Canada.

It is fair to say that Mr. Arar's spectre claimed its first major victim on Wednesday in Rome, when a parliamentary conflict over co-operation with the U.S. "war on terrorism," tainted by the use of Italian airports to transport Mr. Arar and others to sites of torture, led to the collapse of Italy's government.

Those 37 minutes that Mr. Arar spent on the tarmac in Rome, apparently with the consent of Italian authorities under anti-terrorism agreements with the U.S., have now become part of the controversy. An Italian magistrate, Salvatore Vitello, will travel to Canada later this winter as part of his investigation to determine whether Italians and Americans were guilty of kidnapping.

Across Europe, prosecutors such as Mr. Vitello have shifted their energies from charging potential al-Qaeda terrorists to investigating officials who may have overstepped the bounds of law in their pursuit of antiterrorism.

"We are investigating Mr. Arar's transit through Rome, which is itself a crime if behind it there was an actual crime — that is, if in the U.S. he was illegally kidnapped. If that is the case, if he was kidnapped, then Rome was part of it," Mr. Vitello told The Globe and Mail. "The fact that he was in Rome for those 37 minutes — somebody must have given permission for that."

A year ago, his investigation would have been another colourful sideshow in the flamboyant world of European jurisprudence. But Mr. Arar's precedent has changed that.

In Canada, the Arar case has led to the resignation of RCMP chief Giuliano Zaccardelli, to an apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the payment of $11.5-million in damages to Mr. Arar, and to tensions between a Conservative government and a U.S. Republican administration. Foreign minister Stockwell Day has engaged in a heated showdown with his U.S. counterparts over his demand that Mr. Arar be removed from an American no-fly list. And the Liberal Party, in a forthcoming election, will be confronted with its indifference and possible collusion in the Arar case.

The issue of "extraordinary rendition" — the U.S. practice of seizing suspected terrorists, placing them on unmarked airplanes, and sending them without charge or trial to countries that practice torture — has festered for years in the background of European politics. But it has been an issue that has mainly concerned political parties and activists on the far left, groups that are predictably anti-American. In mainstream politics, it has simply been part of the War on Terrorism's background noise.

There has now been a palpable change. The carte blanche given after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to U.S. authorities to conduct anti-terror operations on European soil has become a menacing liability, and the subject of potentially destructive investigations, in several European countries. Governments are also reducing military co-operation with the U.S: This week saw Britain and Denmark announcing plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, with others expected to follow.

And when the European Parliament last week released a report condemning the 1,245 CIA flights made in Europe and the 20 European citizens subjected to "rendition," the responses no longer fell along predictable left-right lines.

European leaders are now looking nervously to Canada. Mr. Arar's "rendition" in 2002 was probably the first major use of the practice to come to light, and Canada is the first country to have been scorched politically by the explosive discovery that innocent people were tortured as a result of the practice.

Senior Canadian government officials and European Union diplomats have told The Globe and Mail that they believe the U.S. is avoiding any apology or acknowledgment of wrongdoing in the Arar case because it could open a Pandora's box of recriminations from Europe, where two cases almost identical to Mr. Arar's are being tried in Germany and Italy and at least 18 more could be pending.

American intelligence officials are facing criminal charges in European courts, and an admission that mistakes have been made could transform transatlantic relations into an enormous forensic investigation, they say.

Europe is now feeling the pain that Canada has undergone, in part as a result of information unearthed in the half-dozen inquiries into Mr. Arar's treatment. In Italy, the fallout has centred on the case of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a Milan cleric also known as Abu Omar, who was seized by CIA agents in 2003 and flown to Cairo, where he was tortured and sexually abused in prison. He was released this week.

Last Friday, Italy had its Arar moment. Milan magistrate Armando Spataro indicted 26 U.S. citizens, including Italian CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady, and five Italians in the rendition of Abu Omar. All of them face charges of kidnapping. The Italian officials include the head of intelligence, Nicolo Pollari, who like the RCMP chief was forced to resign over the case, which is known in Italy as the Imam Rapito ("kidnapped imam") affair.

The U.S. has refused to acknowledge the Italian prosecution or to admit that the rendition occurred. It has also refused the magistrate's request to extradite the defendants (the Italian government has also decided not to press the extradition request at the highest levels). But Italian law allows people to be tried, convicted and sentenced in absentia, so the case will continue, likely revealing embarrassing information about high-level support for the renditions in Italian governments.

In Germany, a case strikingly similar to Mr. Arar's has led to arrest warrants against 13 CIA officers and damning revelations about German complicity in kidnapping. That case involves Khaled el-Masri, who was seized while on vacation in 2003 and sent to Afghanistan for five months (similarly, Mr. Arar, a computer programmer, had been returning from a family vacation). As with Mr. Arar, it appears that Mr. el-Masri has no relationship with terrorism and that his rendition was founded on completely false evidence.

Both Sweden and Portugal are also facing major investigations which accuse their governments of allowing citizens to be seized and sent to Egypt and other countries for torture, without any criminal charges.

Significantly, the case against the U.S. is now being made by judges and officials who have traditionally held pro-American, terror-fighting positions.

Mr. Spataro, the Milan magistrate, is as far from an anti-American firebrand as you can get in Italy: He has spent much of the past 30 years prosecuting terrorist and Mafia groups in Italy, and is not known for a hostility to U.S. interests.

"The job is the same — I have led many investigations against internal terrorism since the early 1970s. Many of my colleagues were killed by terrorist organizations," Mr. Spataro said this week from a Milan office filled with Americana — the wall behind his desk is dominated by a Norman Rockwell print chronicling the integration of southern U.S. schools.

"But we were absolutely sure that it is impossible to fight terrorism without respect for the laws. And with this investigation I hope that we can confirm that it is impossible to win over Islamic terrorism without the respect for law."

The Arar and Abu Omar cases were different in this respect: Along with his indictments of intelligence officials last week, Mr. Spataro laid criminal charges against Abu Omar himself, charging him with membership in a criminal organization (a crime in Italy). Mr. Spataro said that he strongly believes that Abu Omar could have been prosecuted for terrorism far more efficiently if the U.S. practice of rendition had not been followed. But now, he says, the terror-fighters are just as guilty as the alleged terrorist.

"I want to make clear that according to Italian law there is no difference between prosecuting terrorism and prosecuting those who fight terrorism," he said.

That seems to be the bridge that was crossed in Europe this week: It is now the people who were the most stalwart anti-terrorist fighters, the most loyal supporters of George W. Bush's approach to al-Qaeda, who are speaking out against the abuses of that system. With an eye on Canada, the moderates and centre-rightists of Europe are realizing that the U.S. is not prepared to offer a reasonable explanation for those abuses.

That was the case this week with Gijs de Vries, the EU's head of anti-terrrorism, who announced that he will step down in March because he has lost faith in his U.S. partners. He previously had embraced the American approach to counterterrorism, and harshly criticized the European parliament for its rendition-system investigation, with which he refused to co-operate. But on Wednesday, he said that the lack of U.S. explanation for its actions had made it impossible for him to do his job properly.

"The CIA renditions, together with Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and the military commissions act, unfortunately have tarnished the image of the United States in the fight against terrorism, among Muslims and non-Muslims," he told reporters. "I hope the United States, now that there is a new political dynamic in the U.S. Congress, can return to a mainstream interpretation of international human rights."

It was this sort of realization, on a larger scale, that led to the collapse of the Italian government on Wednesday. The expansion of a U.S. military base and the presence of Italian troops in Afghanistan were bound to be divisive in Italy, where Communists and other parties of the extreme left always have built a strong base on anti-Americanism. Those parties make up part of the left-wing coalition government of Romano Prodi, which took power from Silvio Berlusconi in last spring's elections.

But the U.S. base became a rallying point for more than just the far left. A public sense that Italian airports and bases have been used for immoral or questionable activities has led the wider Italian public to take part in protests against the expansion, drawing tens of thousands of people.

It created an environment where even the parties of Mr. Berlusconi's right could vote against the pro-American measures without upsetting their constituencies. On Wednesday, it was mainly right-wing politicians who voted against the military-base expansion and the Afghanistan measure, bringing down the government.

Sergio Romano, a former Italian senior diplomat and leading voice of the country's centre-right, told The Globe and Mail that he now believes that the U.S. should not have bases on Italian soil, because it has abused its friendly relationship with its European allies to the point that it can no longer be trusted.

"I believe that the very same people who have been most aware that terrorism is a threat are now the people who are critical in this case of kidnapping," he said from his Milan office. "I think that calling it a 'war on terrorism' has caused a number of mistakes on our part."

It is bizarre to find the likes of Mr. Romano, an ardently pro-American voice, calling for restrictions on U.S. rights in Europe. But with an eye to Mr. Harper's government, European leaders are realizing that it is perilous to support the Bush administration at this awkward political moment.

"I think there is a body of opinion which feels that this kind of thing should be looked at with new eyes," Mr. Romano said "We know very well that the Americans used their bases in Djibouti to attack al-Qaeda in Ethiopia this year . . . If they decide to attack Hezbollah, God forbid, they'll be using Italian bases to do it.

"And we won't be told beforehand. We'll learn the next day. And you become complicit in such things. We do not want that any more."

Doug Saunders is a London-based member of The Globe and Mail's European bureau. His Focus column, Reckoning, will return next week.