Alone Among the Parties: The NDP is Right on Afghanistan

On Thursday, the NDP tabled a motion in the House of Commons calling for the “immediate and secure withdrawal of Canadian troops from the combat mission in Afghanistan.” Alone among the parties in the House of Commons, the NDP is right on this issue. The NDP takes the position to which the majority of Canadians have come, no thanks to the Conservatives, the Liberals and the Canadian media.

The Western military occupation of Afghanistan, provoked by the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington, was rash from the beginning. It is now proving untenable, as was the case with previous invasions of Afghanistan. The western military presence in the country is a part of the problem, not the solution. Afghanistan has been embroiled in military conflict for decades. The Taliban, that ruled most of the country prior to the American led invasion in the fall of 2001, was a part of the Mujahideen, that arose with the full political, and monetary backing of the United States in opposition to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in support of the regime it preferred. The Americans were not bothered by the theocratic, anti-democratic, misogyny of the Mujahideen when it came to driving out the Soviets. Their “concern” for democracy and women’s rights in the country only emerged when they had their own reasons for invading.

The western position in Afghanistan is entering its terminal phase. The military mission there was never supported by the people of most NATO countries. The governments of Germany, France, Italy and Spain, for instance, have only participated in the mission in pro forma fashion so as not to alienate Washington.

The only western countries that have seriously fought in Afghanistan have been the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Of these, on a per capita basis, Canada has suffered the largest number of casualties.

Now the political winds have shifted dramatically in both Britain and the United States. Within a few weeks, Tony Blair will be out of office. His successor, likely Gordon Brown, will quickly place plans on the table for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq and likely Afghanistan. Unless he does this, he will have little hope of winning against the Conservatives in the next UK elections.

In the U.S., George W. Bush enjoys the support of only 29 per cent of Americans. The Democrats, with their own pusillanimous record on Iraq, are now taking every opportunity to insist that American troops must come home. Even though most Democrats in the Senate supported the notorious 2002 resolution that provided the administration with its legal cover for the invasion, Hillary Clinton et al have now repudiated that position. For the Democrats, victory in 2008 is tied to withdrawal from Iraq.

For Americans, Iraq has been the central arena, while Afghanistan has been the sideshow. The American Afghan mission will not long outlast the withdrawal from Iraq. The endgame in both conflicts is at hand. Next on the agenda will be negotiations with people the White House formerly insisted had to be defeated in a total victory, with "mission accomplished."

With the exception of the NDP, this has not been the finest hour for Canadian politicians. The Conservatives, happy to have their own war to fight, have dug in for a long haul that will never come. Well before February 2009---the date the Conservatives chose last year, when they extended the Canadian mission in Afghanistan for two years---negotiations will be underway to end the conflict. Most Liberals opposed the two year extension in the parliamentary vote last year. Now absurdly, to achieve unity between Stephane Dion, who opposed the two year extension in 2006, and Michael Ignatieff, who supported it, the Liberals have chosen the 2009 deadline as their own. They are giving Canadians the appearance of wanting to terminate a conflict they launched while they were in power by choosing Stephen Harper’s date for ending it. As for the members of the Bloc, they have floundered in opportunistic disorder on the Afghan question from day one.

When the NDP voted in opposition to the Liberal motion to terminate the military mission in Afghanistan in February 2009, they did the only thing they could. CBC reporters and analysts couldn’t seem to get their heads around the logic. When Alexa McDonough explained the party position on Don Newman’s Politics show, he cut her off in a contemptuous dismissal. The great strength, and greater weakness of Newman’s show, is that he thinks the House of Commons is the centre of all human reality. Not so, Don. The mission of the Western powers in Afghanistan will not proceed according to the logic of the Canadian parliamentary calendar.

In 1970, I was proud to be a New Democrat when Tommy Douglas and David Lewis stood up in lonely opposition to the imposition of the War Measures Act by the Trudeau government. Today I am proud to be a New Democrat at a time when Jack Layton is willing to take the heat to say that Canada should not be embroiled for one more day in the combat mission in Afghanistan.