Words of Ken Stone, a friend who has long been active in anti-war movement in Canada, and who is a member of the Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War. Ken Stone lectures on R2P (see attached business card at bottom):
“…both the Taliban and ISIS are creations of the USA. The Taliban was organized, funded, trained, and armed by the USA in order to drive the forces of the former Soviet Union out of Afghanistan in the 1980’s. Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda was created for the same purpose and later helped the USA to overthrow the government of the former Yugoslavia and to foment trouble for Russia in Chechnya. ISIS is the direct result of the Anglo-American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Saddam Hussein had never allowed Al-Qaeda to exist in Iraq. But the US & UK invasion destroyed the state of Iraq and opened a Pandora’s box for Al Qaeda to emerge. ISIS grew out of the covert aggression against Syria, sponsored by the so-called “Friends of Syria” Group of countries which includes the USA, Canada, Britain, France, Turkey, the Arab monarchies, and others. In the illegal aggression against Syria since 2011, Obama, Harper, Cameron, et al have openly funded terrorist mercenaries who have laid waste to much of that country and its infrastructure, beheaded thousands, sold girls into slavery, destroyed churches and monasteries, executed prisoners of war, killed journalists, caused the deaths of over 200,000 people, turned millions into internal and external refugees, and produced youtube videos proudly displaying their crimes against humanity. Where was the indignation of the politicians and the mainstream media for last four years over the war crimes in Syria?
The USA and its allies have a history of using terrorists for their foreign policy ends. For example, they supported Al Qaeda militants in Libya against the government of Muammar Gadaffi. Indeed, in NATO’s regime change operation there, NATO (including Canada) provided air and naval support for the Al Qaeda mercenaries who overthrew and assassinated Gadaffi and have turned Libya (which had the highest standard of living in all of Africa) into a living hell, a failed state. Much of the arms from Libya’s national arsenal fell into Al Qaeda hands and have been trans-shipped to Syria, Mali, Niger, Chad, Nigeria, and other African countries where terrorists daily commit crimes against humanity.
Why do the USA and its allies use terrorists as their foot soldiers? There are several reasons: terrorist mercenaries come cheap, are expendable, and get no death benefits from the USA for their families; they replace US “boots on the grounds”; they faithfully serve US foreign policy goals to destabilize and pillage the mineral-rich countries of the Global South, balkanize these countries along ethnic and confessional lines (the better to control them), and to redraw the national boundaries set by the two world wars in the USA’s national interest. And, best of all, when the USA and other neo-colonial powers no longer have a use for them, the terrorists serve as a rationale for western military intervention, as in Afghanistan, or now in Iraq, or in Mali (for the French).
The USA runs its interventions by a basic script that was rehearsed in Panama and Yugoslavia. The only really new wrinkle is Canada’s big contribution: R2P, the “responsibility to protect” which was finally approved in practice in 2011 by the UN to allow NATO to create a “no-fly zone” over Libya and over-ride the 400-year-old foundation of international law, namely, the sovereignty of nation states.
The Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War has a petition, addressed to Canadian MP’s, which you could sign and share, calling on them to withdraw from the US-led coalition to bomb Iraq and Syria. It’s at:
https://www.change.org/p/john-baird-withdraw-from-the-us-led-coalition-for-war-in-iraq-and-syria?recruiter=7269943&utm_campaign=mailto_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition
Canadian CF-18 fighter-bombers are dropping bombs in Iraq WITHOUT UN APPROVAL and may soon start doing so in Syria. Syria is an ally of Russia, a member state in good standing of the United Nations, and a sovereign state. We all need to oppose this latest adventure of Harper in the Middle East, which could easily explode into a wider regional war, or even into another world war.
…at least one Canadian naval vessel has been sent to the Black Sea, CF-18’s dispatched to Poland, and some Canadian troops to Romania, all as part of the Harper government’s contribution to NATO’s Reassurance Program for Ukraine, where the USA staged a coup d’état in April of this year to bring a western-friendly junta (including six neo-nazi cabinet ministers) into power, in a territory which has been an integral part of Russia for centuries. Since the demise of the former Soviet Union, NATO has broken every promise to Russia and marched inexorably closer to Moscow. Here again is another powder keg for World War III.
Yes, 2014 was a very bad year for peace. But, if 2015 is going to be any better, we had better start talking about getting rid of Harper; keeping Canadian hands off Syria, Iraq, Ukraine; ending the huge military expenditures proposed by Harper for nine new military bases around the globe and F-35 fighter jets in favour of expenditures on social programs and infrastructure; and getting Canada out of NATO and into the Non-Aligned Movement.”
Filed under: anti-imperialism, Canada, international solidarity, resisting Zionism
