This video is called The Ghosts of War - Canada wages peace in Afghanistan.
From the Canadian Press:
Peace group plans protests in 20 cities over extended mission in AfghanistanDemonstration in Montreal: see here.at 19:04 on March 14, 2008, EST.
TORONTO - Canadians must stand up and make their voices heard if politicians are to be convinced to end the military mission in Afghanistan, protesters said Friday as they drummed up support for rallies in 20 communities across the country this weekend.
Protesters in big cities and small towns plan to speak out against the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and Thursday’s vote in the House of Commons to extend Canada’s presence in the country until at least 2011.
“We want to make sure that voices we have not been hearing in the debate that has occurred over the last few days around the extension of the mission in Afghanistan are heard,” said Sid Lacombe, national co-ordinator for the Canadian Peace Alliance.
Report of the demonstrations: here.
NATO may ask Russians for logistics help in Afghanistan
Peter O’Neil, Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, March 05, 2008
BRUSSELS — The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, meeting today to consider new strategies to bring development and peace to increasingly violent Afghanistan, is looking to its old Cold War rival for help.
NATO is seeking assistance from Russia even though Afghans on both sides of the current struggle have bitter memories of the old Soviet Union’s brutal 1979 invasion and decade-long occupation that ended in a humiliating withdrawal of troops by Moscow.
The transatlantic alliance will stop short of asking for Russian troops or the dreaded attack helicopters used in Afghanistan during the 1980s, since that would represent a huge propaganda coup for the Taliban insurgents.
But NATO is interested in Russian help in transporting equipment and troops into Afghanistan through Russian territory, officials said Wednesday.
The Russian government could make contributions that would include “regular use of Russian transport means to get supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan [and] possible Russian contributions to the re-equipment of the Afghan army,” said Robert Simmons, NATO’s special envoy for the Caucasus and Central Asia, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, who arrived here Wednesday for a meeting with European Union officials to discuss Canada-EU trade as well as the Afghanistan mission, was not immediately available for comment on the matter.
But Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has been particularly cool towards Russia, not sending a congratulatory message this week to newly elected President Dmitry Medvedev.
The Harper government twice last year issued sternly worded official statements questioning Moscow’s slippery slide away from democracy under former president Vladamir Putin, who hand-picked Medvedev as his successor.
NATO foreign ministers, led by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will be confronted today by one of the many examples of flagging public support for the Afghanistan mission — Canada’s ultimatum that it will withdraw its 2,500 troops from the dangerous Kandahar region unless NATO finds substantial reinforcements.
Bernier plans to reiterate once again to colleagues that Canada will follow through on its threat unless it gets a 1,000-troop reinforcement and better equipment such as transport helicopters.
The gathering sets the stage for a NATO summit in Bucharest next month at which Harper is expected to find out if his diplomatic gambit will yield fruit.
Comment by Administrator — March 18, 2008 @ 12:21 pm