Not a single youth for imperialist war

Youth in the forefront of opposition to imperialist war in the years since 9/11, Windsor, March 19, 2004.

By Alexandre Cubaynes

Besides the hundreds of thousands of people killed as a result of U.S. wars of aggression and occupation in which Canada has also participated, many young people have been killed and wounded and suffer post-traumatic stress as a result of crimes committed in Afghanistan and other countries. They are also victimized by the lack of care upon their return home. Youth for Democratic Renewal (YDR) is involving young people to look at the Canadian government’s continued efforts to mobilize youth for imperialist wars, war preparations and other provocative activities at the national and international level. YDR also opposes the militarization of cultural life and the education system in myriad ways and participates in antiwar activities to Make Canada a Zone for Peace.

20 Years of Resistance to US Wars / 20 ans de résistance aux guerres étatsuniennes

An inspiring people’s history in images from across Canada and around the world starting from 9/11 2001 accompanied by a beautiful musical score. (32 minutes)

Created by Jeunes pour le Renouveau Démocratique (Youth for Democratic Renewal in Quebec, Canada). In tribute to the memory of Mikis Theodorakis (29 July 1925 – 2 September 2021)

Please share widely

The cartel parties have no remorse about Canada’s crimes after 9/11

After 20 years, they said we need to reflect

We are in the midst of the 6th federal election held since 9/11. The Chretien Liberals were in power in 2001 and it was on October 7 that the Prime Minister officially announced Canada’s participation in the so-called “war on terror,” with warships deployed from Halifax in mid-October and 40 members of the Joint Task Force, the army’s secret special forces unit being deployed in December. This was in the midst of Canada’s hosting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly which launched the justification of the operation of the NATO alliance outside of the North Atlantic in the name of ensuring the “defence and security of North America and Europe.”

Get Canada out of the US war machine and Make Canada a Zone for Peace

Canadian people have consistently stood against joining the U.S. “war on terror” in Afghanistan. Above photo is of 2012 Windsor demonstration.

By Margaret Villamizar

Whatever spin Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may try to put on it, the defeat of the U.S./NATO aggressors in Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban is very much a defeat for the Trudeau government and the policy of successive governments to appease the U.S. warmongers by joining or supporting their dirty wars against nations and peoples that have done Canada and Canadians no harm. These illegal wars of aggression have always been based on lies, as are other acts of war such as economic “sanctions” against countries that do not submit to U.S./NATO dictate. The war in Afghanistan was no exception.

State funerals to promote the military

Oppose all-sided militarization of life and war preparations

Homemade signs of solidarity and affection are taped to a metal fence across from the Northwood Manor on Gottingen Street in Halifax’s North End | Ron Short, CBC

By Tony Seed

On May 24, 2020, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) held a high-profile public funeral in Halifax for its public relations officer, Capt. Jennifer Casey, a member of the RCAF’s Snowbirds aerobatic team. She was killed on May 17 when her plane crashed in a residential neighbourhood in Kamloops, BC, during it’s cross-Canada military public relations and recruitment tour codenamed Operation Inspiration. Fortunately, there was no additional loss of life. Casey was a former radio journalist and previously with NORAD.[1] 

The best friend of the United States

In its headline story today, Defense One reported:

“While animal rescue groups across the globe race to get dogs out of Afghanistan, Pentagon officials want to be very clear: The U.S. military did not leave any of its working dogs behind.”

For the United States, friends and enemies are interchangeable over periods of time according to “interests”, but the police dog remains its best friend. It will not be left behind!

Former US generals enriched off Afghan war

Then U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis (L) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford prepare to testify before the House Armed Services Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill April 12, 2018 in Washington, DC. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

By PRATAP CHATTERJEE*

(August 26) – Many of the military generals who directed the war in Afghanistan over the last two decades have taken up lucrative jobs as members of the boards of directors of major military contractors that take in billions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon every year.

Humanitarian murder

US soldier points his gun towards an Afghan passenger at the Kabul airport on August 16|Wakil KOHSAR / AFP

On August 16 the media showed people clinging to and even tied to the undercarriages of US airplanes at the Kabul airport. The C-17 Globemaster III transport planes were taking off for Qatar, one after the other, some partially empty, and people fell down from heights in the sky as the aircraft retracted the landing gear. One photo shows that three bodies were found in a residential neighbourhood which fell from the sky. Videos also emerged capturing people falling from the sky. Another video shows a US Army helicopter propelling people off the runway so that an American transporter can take off. The whole world saw this.

Canadian generals quick to change their tune on Afghanistan

… with their tails between their legs. All the talk about sending troops abroad in the name of high ideals. Americans pull the plug and not an eye is batted by Canadian political leaders. It was all empty phrases – lives squandered, billions spent, a country left in ruins.

Maj-Gen David Fraser (above left) & Maj-Gen Dean Milner (above right)

By Scott Taylor*

(July 12) – Over the past few weeks the news out of Afghanistan has not been very re-assuring. In keeping with U.S. President Joe Biden’s election campaign promise to end the war in Afghanistan, American troop withdrawals have begun in earnest.

Australia joins parade of war criminals en route to war conference

March 20, 2003. Mass anti-war action as Australian people reject U.S. imperialist aggression in Iraq alongside people around the world.

Angus Campbell, chief of Australian Imperial Defence Staff, is billed as a lead speaker by the NATO-sponsored, US-organized ‘Halifax’ Imperialist Insecurity Forum (HISF) now underway. He is to speak on a panel on the Plenary 5 pabel: “Go Canada! Middle Powers Show The Way.”[1] 

An official inquiry has just confirmed Australian soldiers were involved in the unlawful killing of dozens of Afghan civilians.

It found 25 special forces soldiers killed 39 civilians in practices known as “throwdowns” where concealable weapons were placed on the bodies of those killed in order to photograph evidence to justify the killings.

The ominous jihadis war: From Tripoli to Tripoli

GHASSAN KADI on a potentially huge situation brewing in Libya that barely makes the news

The ‘War on Syria’ is far from being over, and it will continue until all foreign forces illegally present on Syrian soil retreat; either willingly, or defeated.

And even though the American presence in Syria has no clear and realistic political purpose other than wreaking havoc and making it hard for Russia to help reach a decisive victory, in a twist of fate, the focus of the Russo-American conflict in the region may soon move away from Syria.

U.S.-Taliban pact: Agreement on a new war in Afghanistan

By HOSSEIN AMIRI

Tehran (March 11) – After months of ups and downs, finally, a peace deal was signed between the Taliban and the United States in Doha on February 20, 2020.

It was struck at the presence of representatives of about 30 countries, mostly U.S. allies in the Afghan war. However, no representatives from the Afghan government were present at the signing ceremony.

NATO military infrastructure in Afghanistan

This map provides a general look at the active NATO-led military infrastructure in Afghanistan. Click to enlarge | southfront.org

Never Again – Theme of Windsor commemorations

The Windsor Peace Coalition convened a meeting on September 27 of all those interested in ensuring that the anti-war conscience of the working people of Windsor-Essex is affirmed in commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Attending the meeting were long-time activists from the Peace Coalition, Women in Black and the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada, veterans of the Canadian and U.S. Armed Forces, a local member of the Royal Canadian Legion, a number of active and retired teachers, artists and others.

Afghanistan: a general admission of abject failure – again

By TONY SEED

U.S. General Scott Miller, who took over command of the U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan on September 2, admitted in an exclusive interview with NBC News on Tuesday, October 30, that the war in Afghanistan “is not going to be won militarily.”

US heroizes drug-dealing, torturing Afghan thug as its golden boy

Civilians and military personnel stand beside the grave of Gen. Abdul Raziq, Kandahar police chief, who was killed by a guard, as they pay respect during his burial ceremony in Kandahar, Afghanistan on Oct. 19, 2018 | AP

Designed to fail: American aggression in Afghanistan

A review of Carlotta Gall’s The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan | OMAR AHMAD

US Marines stand in formation during a transfer of authority ceremony at Shorab camp, in Helmand province, Afghanistan April 29, 2017 | Reuters/James Mackenzie

In 2003 I attended a hearing on Afghanistan at the US Senate. During the hearing, at which a serving general and a few other experts were giving their testimony, the then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden, leaned forward and said something to the effect of, “I’ve always felt that rather than sending 100,000 troops to Iraq, we should have sent 25,000 troops to Waziristan instead.”

No new war monument at the Ontario legislature!

No to the Glorification of War and Aggression in our Name!

Statement of Windsor Peace Coalition – Labour Day 2018

Along with being vehemently anti-worker and anti-union the Ford government is setting itself up to be a champion of U.S.-led wars of aggression. On June 27, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that his government intends to construct a second monument on the grounds of Queen’s Park to those who fought in Afghanistan. Federal Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan is reported to have commended Ford on the project. There already is an Ontario Veterans’ Memorial on the Legislature grounds that commemorates those who served in all of Canada’s military missions, including Afghanistan. This begs the question: why build another monument?

No to the glorification of war and occupation in our name at Queen’s Park

Sign condemns Canada’s so-called 3D policy in Afghanistan of “defence, development and diplomacy.”

On June 27 while he was still premier-designate, Doug Ford announced he was going to construct a new war memorial on the grounds of Queen’s Park to those he called the Canadian heroes of the war in Afghanistan. He plans to do this even though there already is a 30-metre Veteran’s Wall on the legislature grounds, erected in 2006, that commemorates Ontarians who served in all of Canada’s military campaigns, including the one in Afghanistan.

Why the rise of fascism is again the issue

Red Army doctor attends to Auschwitz prisoner after its liberation In January, 1945

By JOHN PILGER

The recent 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was a reminder of the great crime of fascism, whose Nazi iconography is embedded in our consciousness. Fascism is preserved as history, as flickering footage of goose-stepping blackshirts, their criminality terrible and clear. Yet in the same liberal societies, whose war-making elites urge us never to forget, the accelerating danger of a modern kind of fascism is suppressed; for it is their fascism.

Glorification of Nazism and the US marines who only ‘advise’

Members of Charlie Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion in Camp Pendleton, Afghanistan, in front of a flag with a logo of the Nazi SS. Photograph: AP

Only in Europe? The USA, Canada and Ukraine were the sole countries in the world that voted in November against the United Nations anti-Nazi resolution condemning the glorification of National Socialism and Nazi collaboration. Both the USA and Canada are the only two countries to send armed forces to assist the Kiev regime, including hundreds of “military advisers” to a Ukrainian army that now officially incorporates Neo-Nazi armed battalions.

Both Washington and Ottawa have received their fascist representatives at the highest level (see photo, below).

Obama secretly extends US combat operation in Afghanistan

President Barack Obama has secretly signed an order that expands the United States’ direct combat role in Afghanistan throughout 2015, the New York Times reported.

Signed over the last few weeks, the secret order permits American forces to continue to battle the Taliban and other militants that pose a threat to either the Afghan government or US personnel. According to the Times, US jets, bombers, and drones will be able to aid ground troops – be they Afghan or US forces – in whatever mission they undertake.

Fighting ISIL is a smokescreen for US mobilization against Syria and Iran

By MAHDI DARIUS NAZEMROAYA

(Sept. 17) – THE ISIL or IS threat is a smokescreen. The strength of the ISIL has deliberately been inflated to get public support for the Pentagon and to justify the illegal bombing of Syria. It has also been used to justify the mobilization of what is looking more and more like a large-scale U.S.-led military buildup in the Middle East. The firepower and military assets being committed go beyond what is needed for merely fighting the ISIL death squads.

Harper’s cynical celebration (III)

Anti-war picket in Edmonton, March 15, 2014.

Harper’s national tributes to the destruction of Afghanistan and Libya were no celebration of victory and cannot be memorialized, writes Scott Taylor, editor of Esprit de Corps magazine, in the Halifax Chronicle Herald on May 11th, as he asks, “Why single out Afghanistan?”

In his column, Mr Taylor points out that “The last time a nationwide celebration of this sort was even proposed was at the conclusion of the Great War in 1918. The idea had been the brainchild of Gen. Sir Arthur Currie, but due to the lengthy logistics involved in shipping home the Canadian Expeditionary Force it was decided to keep individual parades and tributes on a local basis.

Harper’s cynical celebration (II)

When it comes to military personnel and their families, the Canadian government is like an abusive boyfriend

TS note: This message was sent to David Pugliese, Defence Watch, from an individual who is involved in the Canadian military system and whose spouse is also in the Canadian Forces. Mr Pugliese writes, “they have asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution from government and senior leadership.”

THE Canadian government is like the abusive boyfriend who brings flowers to his girlfriend at her workplace after a fight.

Her friends think he’s awesome. They see his nice clothes and his friendly smile. They think he is hardworking and smart. They see his friends treat him with respect. But they have never been alone with him. They don’t know what is really going on behind the façade.

Harper’s cynical celebration (1)

Harper dictatorship erases memory of the victory over fascism in Europe and instead uses May 9th to pay tribute to the destruction of Afghanistan in a triumphalist ceremony on Parliament Hill. Reject all attempts to memorialize Canada’s criminal role in Afghanistan!

By TONY SEED

The Soviet Victory Banner is raised over the German Reichstag in Berlin by two Red Army soldiers, April 30, 1945, shortly before the surrender of German forces in the city and the decisive victory over the fascists on May 9, 1945. (RIA Novosti)

US Empire: Old Testament armed forces

Under the pretext of “religious freedom,” religious zealotry runs rampant in the US military, and among those wishing to deploy it

Philip Giraldi (Feb . 12) – THE connection between America’s wars in the Middle East—and its wars more generally—with the more fundamentalist forms of Christianity in the United States is striking. Opinion polls suggest that the more religiously conservative one is, the more one will support overseas wars or even what many might describe as war crimes. Fully 60 per cent of self-described evangelicals supported torturing suspected terrorists in 2009, for example. That is somewhat puzzling, as Christianity is, if anything, a religion of peace that only reluctantly embraced a “just war” concept that was deliberately and cautiously evolved to permit Christians—under very limited circumstances of imminent threat—to fight to defend themselves.

Spirited actions of veterans and their supporters across the country

The Harper government’s three “Ds” for the military are now “Deny, Delay, Die” rather than “Defence, Diplomacy and Development,” says a young veteran of the war in Afghanistan. “The Prime Minister claims the opposition to the closures is trouble-making stirred up by ‘unions.’ However, the emcee pointed out that it is the Harper government which is being self-serving. Had it not been for the action of PSAC, veterans and others would have been in the dark and the government would have simply slipped the closures through Parliament without anyone knowing until after the fact.”

TML Daily (Feb. 3) – ON JANUARY 31, thousands of Canadian military veterans, many in their 80s and 90s, from World War II to the present, along with people from all walks of life including many representatives of trade unions, participated in actions at the Veterans Affairs Canada district offices slated for closure that day in eight cities across the country – Kelowna, Saskatoon, Brandon, Thunder Bay, Windsor, Sydney, Charlottetown and Corner Brook. A common demand at the actions was for the immediate resignation of Minister of Veterans Affairs Julian Fantino and Prime Minister Harper because of their despicable treatment of veterans.

US-NATO’s drive into Asia

ASIAN NATO CONCEPT FLAG | Pnyxblog

A global military bloc | RICK ROZOFF

(January 29, 2009) – With the sixtieth anniversary summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to occur jointly in the French city of Strasbourg and and the German one of Kehl on April 3-4, the world should take note of how far from its original area of operations this, history’s first international military bloc has expanded in the interim since its creation in 1949.

Feverish expansion of the special forces of Obama’s outlaw state

An investigation by American journalist-author NICK TURSE* reveals that the secret military of the United States now operates in over half the nations on the planet, including the United States and Canada. It is expanding rapidly, despite claims aiming to minimize and downplay the extent of its global reach; simultaneously, the promotion of the Obama doctrine of drone warfare is unfettered. This is the reliance of U.S. imperialism on drones to conduct targeted assassinations, coupled with use of black ops (including so-called Information Warfare) to foment civil wars, mayhem and chaos. Politically, this is a desperate hope born out of anarchy that the U.S. can prevail over its rivals, including both competitors amongst the imperialist powers and against developing nations’ intent on making a way for themselves and against the peoples of the world fighting for their right to be. The drone war doctrine gives Obama a new false narrative – that the U.S. is no longer engaged in any wars, and hence its special forces are allegedly being cut back. – TS

US Special Operations Forces around the world, 2012-2013 (key below). Click here to see a larger image.

Key to the Map of US Special Operations Forces around the world, 2012-2013

• Red: Special Ops Forces deployed in 2013
• Blue: Special Ops Forces working with/training/advising/conducting operations with indigenous troops in the US or a third country during 2013.
• Purple: Special Ops Forces deployed in 2012
• Yellow: Special Operations Forces working with/training/advising/conducting operations with indigenous troops in the US or a third country during 2012.

Tomdispatch (Jan. 7) – “DUDE, I don’t need to play these stupid games. I know what you’re trying to do.” With that, Major Matthew Robert Bockholt hung up on me.

More than a month before, I had called US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) with a series of basic questions: In how many countries were US Special Operations Forces deployed in 2013? Are manpower levels set to expand to 72,000 in 2014? Is SOCOM still aiming for growth rates of 3%-5% per year? How many training exercises did the command carry out in 2013? Basic stuff.