Israel is not a member of NATO and there is nothing in the NATO Charter that would force Canada to become militarily involved in the Sudan.
According to former Gen. Rick Hillier and Stephen Harper, Canada's military is overstreatched in Afghanistan and is currently unable to make commitments anywhere else.
See my comments on NATO in The Afghan people will win - Part 3 thread.
Statement from Jack Layton on the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide
"When the killing started in Rwanda, the rest of the world made the decision to turn away. This is why it is so important now for Canada to follow the example of Roméo Dallaire and participate wholeheartedly in efforts to bring peace and stability to the Darfur region of Sudan, and to the Democratic Republic of Congo."
http://www.ndp.ca/press/statement-from-jack-layton-on-15th-anniversary-r...
This was Prime Minister Paul Martin's sentiment in 2005. While Gen. Rick Hillier was pushing for redeploying troops from Kabul to Kandahar, Martin wanted to send a mission to the Sudan.
Martin: "Will Canada's role in Southern Afghanistan be humanitarian?"
Hillier: "Yes"
Martin: "Will our troops be engaged in combat?"
Hillier: "The mission of our troops will be to protect the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). Should there be any combat, I expect it to be light."
Martin: "The Canadian military will then be able to support both the Afghan as well as a Sudan mission in Darfur?"
Hillier: "Yes."
As events turned out, we know that insurgent activity in Southern Afghanistan was not "light" (the Afghan war has been escalating ever since) and the Canadian military was not capable of conducting both operations.
What our military lie? 
There is a reason the military has a propaganda arm.
Every organization has a propaganda arm.
Yeah, the kinder, gentler word is "spin". The Army refers to its "spin doctors" as Public Information Officers or Assisstants - PIOs or PIAs - something the Army probably borrowed from civilian marketing (advertizing) agencies.
Dewar called on the Canadian government to:
"Canada's reaction to the escalating humanitarian crisis in the Congo has been inadequate" concluded Dewar. "Congo is calling - will Canada answer?"
http://www.ndp.ca/press/dewar-congo-calling-will-canada-answer
"to divest Canadian institutions from holdings in the worst offender companies doing business in Sudan." from #53 above.
this seems to be the lynch pin. if this is done, UN forces may not be needed in a country. if it's not done, UN forces will have too many privately funded paramilitaries to contend with, and be overpowered.
I can't tell if Layton is, like Harper, exploiting imperial assaults on weak nations because he's a cynical, power-hungry prick, or if he genuinely believes in "humanitarian intervention".
The latter is a more dangerous postition.
Jingles, I know that many people are appalled at the way military 'humanitarian' intervention has been abused by powerful states.
Maybe its important to more clearly define what 'intervention' can be, and what forms of it are not good.
Or maybe different terms should be used altogether.
Like, particularly wrt the DRC, stopping Canadian corporations from exploiting the DRC's resources.
As its our bankers and corporations, funding and fueling the conflict there, taking responsibility for our own behaviour is key.
Is this what they call 'economic sanctions'? or does that term refer to strangling the indigenous development efforts of peoples in the DRC?
i need some clarity on that definition, if any can help. thanks.
"Blanket" economic sanctions would be a cessation of all trade.
"Targeted" economic sanctions would target that trade which funds (fuels) the insurgency in the DRC and surrounding countries.
I would like to know what difference the NDP believes the Canadian Forces will make in the Congo?
Webgear, do you mean Congo (DRC) or Sudan?
Canadian troops are already stationed in the DRC, engaging in peacekeeping under the U.N.
There are no Canadian troops (not formally, that I know of) stationed in the Sudan.
Do you mean "What difference the NDP believes the Canadian Forces will make in the Sudan?"
What role do you think they should play: U.N. peacekeeping like in the DRC, or NATO peacemaking (warmaking), like in Afghanistan?
There are a minimum of 12 soldiers already operating in the DRC and at least 30 operating in Sudan.
I will expand my question to the follow:
"What difference the NDP believes the Canadian Forces will make in the Sudan or the DRC?"
As for the role I am only interested in what the NDP or the left in general feels as what our role should be.
Current Canadian operations link
http://www.comfec-cefcom.forces.gc.ca/pa-ap/ops/index-eng.asp
My opinion is that we should avoid the war is the only option mentality. When discussing what, it anything, should be done in the DRC or the Sudan, we should discuss all options, including maintaining the status quo and doing nothing. War should be the last option.
This should be our guiding principle: "Act so as to ensure the greatest good and the least harm to the greatest number of those involved" (may include "non-human actors" ie., the environment and animal beings).
Do you believe the NDP's press statements?
Do you realize that 143 UN personnel have died in the DRC since 1999 and almost 50 have been killed in Sudan since 2005. Total UN forces in both countries under 40,000.
So what's your point?
Is it that same old crap argument that because European soldiers have died in a foreign conflict we have to send more soldiers to die (for multinational corporations) so that they will not have "died in vain"? How do you resolve that contradiction?
As I've said before, war is killing, injuring and destroying.
So tell me Webgear, who benefits from war?
Sorry, my cut and paste did not work well.
I meant to add a long and detailed paragraph about the dangers of entering these two countries.
Here is the Coles Notes version:
I did not believe we should go in to Africa.
Stand Canada and other activists are urging the Canadian government to publicly condemn the government of Sudan and work closely with the international community to bring justice and aid to Darfur.
They want Prime Minister Stephen Harper to publicly state his government's support for the ICC's findings and to confirm that it will arrest Mr. Bashir if the opportunity arises and turn him over to the ICC.
Canada should also "appoint a high-level envoy for Sudan to provide constant, timely information on the fate of the Darfuri people and Canadian citizens providing aid in the region."
Finally, Canada, as co-chair of the Friends of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), should push for full deployment of this mission, the activists said.
The UNAMID was expected to be operating in full force in 2008 with 26,000 police and military personnel, but Mr. Laski said that to date only about 60 percent of the troops have been deployed.
In addition, Stand Canada is urging the Canadian government to provide more helicopters for the mission and consider supporting creation of a no-fly zone over Darfur.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/15308/
STRONGER ROLE FOR CANADA: NDP Foreign Affairs Critic Paul Dewar speaking at the April 7 rally on what more Canada can do in Darfur
They want Prime Minister Stephen Harper to publicly state his government's support for the ICC's findings and to confirm that it will arrest Mr. Bashir if the opportunity arises and turn him over to the ICC.
Stooges. Well they demand Harper arrest Bush or Rice on arrival, or are they only interested in punishing Africans?
In addition, Stand Canada is urging the Canadian government to provide more helicopters for the mission and consider supporting creation of a no-fly zone over Darfur.
Or, "I (heart) Imperialism!".
"No Fly Zone", because the experience in Iraq was such a rousing success? Did the illegal aerial siege and concurrent genocidal sanctions against the people of Iraq strike them as a great idea to try in Africa?
Bourgeois twits.
More soldiers is not the solution but more effective use of the force that is there in the DRC. The recent successes have occurred through more cooperation between the Rwandan government and the DRC government. More effort is being made to cooperate with the Ugandan government as well to deal with as many rebel factions as possible that affect stability in the region as a whole. Canadian efforts need to be placed on increased diplomatic efforts and support for disarmament programs like AMANI which has been successful in other conflicts in disarming rebel groups cooperatively and working to reintegrate them into their respective societies. This isn't easy to call for. I think the myth that military power stills symbolizes a superior contribution to diplomatic or development aid is very strong in the minds of most Canadians. This is a trap I think both the ndp and greens find themselves in. How do you manoever to calling for what is needed and still appeal to the call for military involvement. Peacekeeping isn't just about sending troops into the conflict. So if the ndp leadership believes that simply sending more troops is all that is required then they are on the wrong track and that isn't how to create a real peacekeeping focus for Canada.
Endorsing the arrest of Bashir also doesn't accomplish anything because it took more than one person to kill over a million people in the last decade in African conflict. It's tragic that it appears to take only the condemnation of one man to satisfy moral outrage and ultimately allows war crimes and violations to continue. It also allows the terms genocide and ethnic cleansing to be used as a mask for the real ambitions in the region. The DRC is still largely about economic and resource exploitation and ethnic conflict is not the real issue. So I agree with the idea that it is the conduct of economic policies and the activities of Canadian mining corporations and others in the region that must be addressed. Support should be given to the African Union to keep working on solutions and for the Great Lakes Region Peace and Security pact to be supported and developed into reality. Canada played a key role in advising on the development of the GLR Peace and Security pact and that is the role it should increase and focus on.
R2P may sound good. Peace making may sound good but these doctrines are not used for the altruistic purposes they propose. Article 3 of the R2P doctrine talks about the need to endorse the responsibility to prevent before military intervention can be used. Yet this is presented and defended in an atmosphere that has guaranteed that there are mechanisms in place already to prevent this from being achieved. We already have all the necessary agreements in place to help prevent conflict through the very nature of development aid but we don't use it effectively. The UN security council is still used exclusively for the the exploitation of countries by the veto holding powers. Until the UN security council is reformed article 3 will remain ineffective and unused. But the call for military intervention is alive and well even as Canada, the main driver of R2P, claims it is only a last resort tactic.
So I don't believe the ndp when they make their public claims because I can't believe that this is the real debate going on internally. I'd like to believe that the ndp are having the same conflicts as the greens in this area. How to disengage from the seduction of military intervention and only paying lip service to diplomatic and development efforts and to call for a real endorsement of the ICC and war crimes in the world. That requires a party that can publicly stand up to Canadian allies as well as African violaters. Do the ndp and the greens actually have the resolve to do this? So what is the ndp policy and plan to revive and finally achieve the goal of making Canada a peacekeeping/building nation? That needs to become the public statement focus from the party in order to bring about the real debate that is necessary. Bill Siksay has started a draft of private members legislation to form a Canadian Department or Ministry of Peace. He believes that it needs to be a stand alone full Ministry and not a department within DFAIT. A Ministry of Peace has been Green Party policy for twenty years and this is an area that the ndp and greens can cooperate to bring about a real debate on Canada's approach to international conflict intervention.
These are recent policy resolutions I helped bring through at the recent Green Party convention in February. It continues to be my effort to convince my colleagues that Canada needs to publicly disengage from the myth of military intervention and the idea of 'humanitarian war'. The shift has to be on cooperative support for the African continent through whatever means Africans themselves see fit. If that is the African Union, which it seems to be, then Canada needs to support the African Union to find its own solutions to continental conflict.
G08-p075: Support for the African Union
BE IT RESOLVED that the Green Party of Canada support recommitting and strengthening Canada's support for the African Union and development in African nations by
1. providing diplomatic support for the further strengthening of the African Union as needed and requested by it;
2. providing increased peace keeping expertise and financial support and training as needed and requested by KAIPTC (Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre) and or other African peacekeeping training centre that may evolve in future in order to develop strong African Union peacekeeping forces;
3. committing to providing further support in the development of regional peace and security agreements that are negotiated by African nations for African nations;
4. recommitting and strengthen foreign aid as appropriate to individual recipient African nations under the Green Party of Canada's "whole of government" holistic approach;
5. continuing to pressure oppressive governments in cooperation and consultation with the African Union to cease human rights violations, government sponsored violence.
G08-p074: CIDA Reform and ODA Level of Assistance
BE IT RESOLVED that the Green Party of Canada support Canada taking immediate steps to enhance its level of and delivery of foreign aid by
1. Increasing its foreign aid each year in a manner that reaches the goal of 0.7% of GDP by 2016 and further will attempt a target of 1% of GDP by 2020 and further commits to 'untie' all aid in regards to required Canadian procurement provisions in the spirit of the 2005 Paris Declaration;
2. Reforming and restructuring the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in a manner that achieves the most effective aid delivery possible in cooperation with recipient and other donor countries and to the unique, specified needs of recipient partner countries; and
3. Moving CIDA operations under the operations umbrella of a newly created Canadian Department of Peace and Security, and create a new senior Cabinet position for a Minister of Peace & Security to replace the junior Cabinet Minister position for the International Cooperation/CIDA portfolio.
mimeguy
Thank you for the interesting posts, I have a few questions for you?
1. In what manner would the Green Party reorganized/restructure the Canadian International Development Agency?
2. Is the Green Party only focusing on Africa for aid?
3. It is my understanding that both the UN and AU are calling for additional troops/technical support increases for Africa missions does that change the Green Party's view on Canadian troops being deployed to either the Sudan or DRC?
Hi webgear. Thanks for the questions.
1) Since this is my portfolio on the Green Party shadow cabinet I have been interested in the debate over a complete restructuring of CIDA. As stated above we would move CIDA under to umbrella of a Canadian Ministry of Peace as opposed to a department within DFAIT. DFAIT would be broken up instead with many roles being oriented from the Mof P. The unanswered question is whether the military stays separate under a Ministry of Defence with a strict peacekeeping mandate. Many military people I have spoken to and heard from are very apprehensive about what a department of peace would do to the military and its budget. These are legitimate concerns which I take seriously. In terms of CIDA directly the plan would be to remove CIDA from influence under military missions. CIDA needs to focus on conflict before and in the rebuilding era after a peace has been achieved. Decentralization is the important debate with more on the ground operations management in the field. Ottawa would not be the central bunker it is now and the mandate would be shifted to be more responsive than directorial. Especially from a political point of view as CIDA has been abused by the former liberals and present conservative governments. CIDA needs to respond independently to changes on the ground and work in partnership with other donor countries. It is of course doing this to some extent now and many partnerships work. Programs need to be developed with the recipient country with strict emphasis on respect of sovereignty, fair trade, fair labour practice and grassroots programs. For us in the Greens environmental programs would gain more attention. Reforestation in Haiti for an example which is part of our Haiti policy.
2) No. I only posted our African policy since the thread discusses the DRC and Sudan. I also introduced policies on Latin America, Carribbean Islands, and disaster relief. These passed as well with some ammendments by the convention. I can send them to you or post them if you'd like.
3) Here is the debate on whether soldiers are contributed or trainers and support. From my perspective the emphasis should be on training and investing heavily in producing more African peacekeepers. Canadian personnel in the command structure of the missions perhaps. The problem remains the resolve of the UN troops to commit to the full mandate of their missions and this remains a criticism of both missions. My main emphasis from within the Greens would be support not direct troops. I don't believe we have significant numbers of troops to send. Afghanistan will not end before 2011 and perhaps not even then. If it does I don't think soldiers should be sent on another mission immediately and Canada should debate our role. That means that Canada in my opinion cannot be seduced into thinking that 200 soldiers or even 400 would make a significant difference considering the UN's reluctance to enforce its mandate. The emphasis should as I say be significant investment into the other aspects of peacekeeping. That's my personal view and the one I'm advancing within the Greens. I make no pretense however that we may not in the end succumb to the pressure of sending troops for show and I would be overruled. I would hope not as I would hope the New Democrats would also resist this. We are actively debating R2P and its implications from a party of peace perspective.
Can't get the post to look right so it may be bunched up and hard to read so apologies if that happens. I'm having trouble with the new babble format.
The Government of Sudan, protected by China's need for its oil, continues to defy the United Nations. It even attacks, with impunity, the UNAMID troops deployed to protect Darfuris and aid agencies. It is emboldened by world leaders who have turned a blind eye to the genocide.
Dr Clement Apaak, founder of Canadian Students for Darfur, declares "After the preventable Rwandan genocide, world leaders, who did nothing to stop it, swore 'Never again!' but now they are callously facilitating another genocide."
Confirmed speakers include MPs Don Davies, Sukh Dhaliwal & Bill Siksay, Adrienne Carr of the Green Party of Canada, Dr Michael Byers, Professor Peter Prontzos and high-school & university students. Letters of support from Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP MP Peter Julian will be read. In addition to live African drumming, there will also be live music.
At the protest, Canadian Students for Darfur will release its new position paper explaining what the Harper government can do to stop the genocide.
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Canadian-Students-For-Darfur-979694.html
"Letters of support from Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff..."
He supported the Iraq war, torture to swiftly gain 'urgent' information and he supports the Afghan war.
"Dr Clement Apaak, founder of Canadian Students for Darfur, declares "After the preventable Rwandan genocide, world leaders, who did nothing to stop it, swore 'Never again!' but now they are callously facilitating another genocide."
There is no evidence that the Rwandan genocide could have been prevented. If Dallaire had received the troops he requested and the UN defended its mandate more aggressively it would have slowed it down. The genocide happened with lightning speed occurring over a period of mere months. The UN is incapable of reacting within this short a time frame under any aspect of R2P including military intervention. The roots of the motivations for the genocide also go back into the history of the region and would not prevented, only altered it. No one knows how many lives the UN could have saved if it had listened to Dallaire. Rwanda is not the model to use because there are other genocides happening. Afghanistan and Iraq prove there are no short wars when it comes to intervention. We have killed more Afghans than the former Taliban government could ever dream of, even if they were as barbaric as they were portrayed to be. We have all the mechanisms we need to prevent things like DRC and Darfur already but they require self examination. They require not only the concept of Responsibility to Protect but more importantly, responsibility not to be complicit. So long as we refuse to acknowledge this truth there is no solution only duplicity. The carnage in Darfur continues because the government is protected by China? It's protected because oil and oil exploration is exempt from sanctions including western oil companies not just China. Why are we outraged by China but not the U.S., Canada, and Britain over Iraq and Afghanistan? Zimbabwe is protected by South African resistance to sanctions and pressure. North Korea is free to continue the internal abuse of its population. Canada was and remains complicit in Haiti even as we proposed R2P and are set to defend it again this spring. Why is the systematic killing, torture and abuse of political groups exempt from our outrage? Why is it less horrendous than ethnic killing?
A lot of questions. No answers except maybe the lame ones like, "Well we can't be everywhere." This has never been the point and never will be.
"oil and oil exploration is exempt from sanctions" [from#81]
can you elaborate on this please? is this part of an official UN agreement?
Is there a connection between the NDP/Liberal foreign policy towards Sudan/DRC and their connection to President Obama?
http://www.embassymag.ca/page/view/chatter_house-5-6-2009
Parliament Hill staff and a handful of MPs gathered in Centre Block's elegant committee rooms last Wednesday to focus on what Canada could do to end the plight of sexual violence suffered by women and girls in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Darfur.
NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar and the all-party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity hosted the event to raise awareness of the tragedies and turn the tide on the "silence and indifference" they say have characterized the global response for too long. The committee hopes to propose an action plan for Canada in the Congo.
"There is no more war in Darfur, according to the outgoing military commander of the joint UN-African Union (UNAMID) peacekeeping force of the western Sudan region."
"'As of today, I would not say there is a war going on in Darfur,' Martin Luther Agwai told correspondents."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090827/wl_africa_afp/sudanconflictdarfur
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congolese government soldiers killed at least 50 Rwandan civilian refugees during United Nations-backed operations against rebels in the east earlier this year, a U.N. investigator said on Thursday.
The report is likely to intensify pressure on the U.N.'s Congo peacekeeping force, which is already under fire for backing the army in operations against Rwandan rebels despite complaints about abuse by soldiers and the high number of civilians being caught up in the violence.
"I think the general details are fairly straightforward in terms of the (army) going into a camp which was occupied largely by women, children and the elderly, carrying out a determined attempt to eliminate everyone in the camp," said Philip Alston, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions.
Alston said the massacre happened when the soldiers, mainly former Congolese Tutsi rebels integrated into the army as part of a January peace deal, attacked the village of Shalio on April 27 during an offensive into South Kivu province.
"At least 50 people were killed. Some 40 women were abducted and raped. Some of those have not reappeared since," he added.
The killings provoked a reprisal attack by the Rwandan Hutu rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) on the nearby village of Busurungi on May 10, in which [at] least 96 civilians were killed.
The incident highlights the cycles of violence in Congo's east, three years after the U.N. helped the vast nation hold a poll meant to draw a line under a decade of war and chaos...
... Rights campaigners and humanitarian agencies want the U.N. to withdraw its support if civilians cannot be protected.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091015/wl_nm/us_congo_democratic_massacre
The Lord's Resistance Army, one of the most feared guerrilla groups in Africa, has moved into Darfur, one of the continent's most troubled regions, intelligence sources in Sudan say.
The unexpected move by the LRA comes just as the war-weary west of Sudan recedes from world headlines and after the UN mission there had tentatively declared the fighting to be over. The possible arrival of a messsianic cult notorious for rape, civilian massacres and the enslavement of child soldiers threatens that fragile peace. The LRA has been terrorising the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo for 18 months but the bulk of its forces have now crossed into southern Darfur, a senior official in the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) told the Independent.
"We have confirmed that the LRA are there and they have clashed with the local population," said Major-General Kuol Deim Kuol.
He said the LRA had moved into the area to stock up on weapons and supplies and accused the Sudanese government in Khartoum of funding militias to destabilise the region but the UN and Sudan experts are both taking the latest reports seriously.
The rebels, led by the self-styled prophet Joseph Kony, have waged a campaign of terror in central Africa for two decades...
... The group's arrival in Darfur comes at a critical juncture and threatens to undermine efforts to build an end to major clashes in the region.
The Sudan analyst John Ashworth said: "Having people like the LRA there could exacerbate the conflict. If they are a proxy of Khartoum, they could be used in Darfur in the same way as the Janjaweed. This could be mutually beneficial to both groups."
The Janjaweed, an Arab militia on camels and horseback, were drafted in by Khartoum to deal with disgruntled Darfuri groups who took up arms against the government in 2003.
International experts say that at least 200,000 people were killed in the six years of fighting and almost three million were forced to flee their homes. The Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, which is also after Kony.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/darfur-a-deadly-new-chapt...
Winter of Bashir's Discontent
http://www.creative-i.info/?p=5943
"Americans need to recognize that the administration of President Barack Obama has begun to step up war for control of Sudan in keeping with the permanent warfare agenda of both Republicans and Democrats. The current destabilization of Sudan mirrors the illegal covert guerrilla war carried out in Rwanda - also launched and supplied from Uganda - from October 1990 to July 1994.
The Rwanda Defence Forces (then called the Rwanda Patriotic Army) led by Major Paul Kagame achieved the US objective of a coup d'etat in Rwanda through that campaign, and President Kagame has been a key interlocutor in the covert warfare underway in Darfur, Sudan.."
Keith Harmon Snow is an excellent source of information on this area: see www.allthingspass.com
U.N. DRC exit strategy:
The United Nations is quietly preparing an exit strategy for its troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the biggest U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world, diplomats and officials said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, diplomats and U.N. officials said President Joseph Kabila was putting pressure on the U.N. and Security Council ahead of the country's 50th anniversary next year to come up with a plan for ending the peacekeeping mission, known as MONUC.
MONUC has been in the former Belgian colony since 1999 to help the government of Congo as it struggles to reestablish state control over the vast central African nation following a 1998-2003 war and humanitarian disaster which have killed an estimated 5.4 million people.
"It's partly a question of dignity," one Western diplomat told Reuters. "Kabila's eager to show that his government's reliance on U.N. peacekeeping is decreasing. It's understandable. No leader wants to give the impression that he needs U.N. peacekeepers to stay in power."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091115/wl_nm/us_congo_democratic_un
That's interesting considering the bill that Senator Russ Feingold has introduced in the U.S. A strategy for the U.S. to take a major role in Northern Uganda and a campaign to isolate the LRA from other rebel groups.
"Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Washington, D.C. - The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed bipartisan legislation today authored by U.S. Senator Russ Feingold and cosponsored by Sam Brownback (R-KS) requiring the Obama administration to develop a new multifaceted strategy to confront one of Africa's longest running rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). For more than two decades, under the leadership of Joseph Kony, the LRA has kidnapped more than 66,000 children and forced them to fight as child soldiers, wreaking havoc in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, and more recently, northeastern Congo and Central African Republic. Feingold's bipartisan Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act requires the United States to work with multilateral partners to develop a viable path to disarm the LRA, while ensuring the protection of civilians."
The militarization of human rights and the mess in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is as bad as Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/world/africa/10congo.html?ref=global-home
The Human Rights Watch report is likely to add to the growing criticism of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo, which many advocacy groups say has failed and must be reformed to protect civilians adequately.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/world/africa/14congo.html?_r=1&ref=world
If this is what the U.N. led peacekeeping mission in the DR Congo is like, imagine how much worse a NATO led peacemaking mission would be.
Travers: A military in search of a mission
"As a bright three-star general awaits his next assignment, Canada's battle-hardened armed forces may have to exorcise old demons as they define a new role."
NDP wants education, peacekeeping on G8 agenda
"But Dewar suggested one way of helping vulnerable countries would be for Canada to take up the peacekeeping role it performed from the 1960s until the focus changed to a combat role.
"One thing Canadians would like to see is Canada getting back into peacekeeping," he said, adding there are peacekeeping missions needed in both Congo and Sudan."
highly regarded counter-insurgency capacity
That is too freaking funny, highly regarded by only the lack wits in the military as counter-insurgency is a failed military strategy that has never worked.
"Expertise" in failed strategy, too bad Travers got off the pot before he shat a nonsensical column that twists every which way while trying to give a 3 Star. general media attention he does not deserve
I have seen some vague and poorly written news article today stating the NDP wants to remain in Afghanistan post 2011.
Paul Dewar is behind the quotes such as:
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100323/ndp_g8_100323/20...
You mean this: http://www.pauldewar.ca/en/in-parliament/133-speech-on-the-extension-of-...
I read through that. He could have been saying anything, or nothing, I can't really tell, but from my past experience, the latter is more likely than the former.
I must say, this is compelling:
We should be supporting the peace strengthening commission, which needs international support and has been championed by an Afghan Canadian. In fact, there will be no peace in Afghanistan unless a peace process is put together.
Will the Liberals or the Conservatives be able to find an Afghan of their own?
But that is probably old, hard to tell, his website doesn't date things.
There are plenty of Canadian-Afghans that will work for any political party. The current Governor of Kandahar is from British Columbia.
In that case Canadian politics might get a little bit more lively considering the means through which Afghan's practice politics. Will Kenny intervene and get Rashid Dostum citizenship so he can be enrolled as a party organizer in Alberta?
The reason, I see, why you did not quote what backs up your statement was because there wasn't any made ....to back up your claims....
Yeah, yeah. He just happened to drop the missive about "Canadians wanting to get back in to 'peacekeeping", as opposed to combat operations.... blue helmets all around... problem solved.
"Cannon told the business audience the unstable border between Afghanistan and Pakistan should be addressed as well as the latter's attempts to "weed out evil extremism."
That's certainly a priority, agreed Dewar, who added Cannon should also focus on Canadian involvement once our combat troops are pulled out of Afghanistan in 2011.
In particular, he said, there should be more support for democratic governance, human rights and education.
"There's a huge opportunity for us to help in education," Dewar said."
I find Dostum is a misunderstood person. He would be an effective party organizer, and would bring a large amount of leadership to any party he belongs to.
He does have experience working in the unions; maybe the CAW will take him. He could get them those government contacts that they always wanted.
still no back up......
