Canadian lives lost in service to corporate gains from oil and minerals in Afghanistan

Day after day -- as our boys die in ones and threes on the other side of the world -- my intelligence is insulted by Canada's political, military and corporate elite -- who sent them there -- insisting that the Afghan "war" is a "just cause" and that "we are gaining ground", etc. I am convinced that these people are either bare-faced liars, and/or are simply following the Yanks path that keeps them in the positions they hold, ( i.e: following the Washington code). It is also quite possible that many of them have no conception, whatever, of what is going on over there. If this is true, then these "leaders" should be removed from their positions of power and public influence.

Not ONE Canadian life is worth the "cause" in Afghanistan.

For anyone who is on the Internet and knows how to use Google, a few key words in the right fields will quickly reveal to them that our boys in Afghanistan are risking their lives to secure a transit route for oil and gas pipelines from the vast reserves of Turkmenistan to a shipping terminal on the Indian Ocean, in Pakistan. Their presence in Afghanistan has absolutely nothing to do with "reconstruction", "womens' rights", or schools for the kids, etc. If this were so, then why are we subjecting these Afghanis to so much "collateral damage"? Is this how we convince them that we are there to "help" them?

Having worked and lived in the Middle East and having paid a great deal of attention to what has been going on there, when I hear this sort of tripe, (and realize that so many Canadians actually believe it), I get sick to my stomach. It is clear to me, that no matter what label is hung on them, the people fighting George's "coalition of the willing" are simply fighting foreign, corporate occupation. It is also clear to me that we are well on the way to becoming "Ugly Canadians" in the "hearts and minds" of millions of people around the world. This is my motivation for sending this letter to as many Canadian papers as I can.

Our military's time would be infinitely better spent right here, in our Canadian Arctic, building an expertise in securing our coastline and islands. Our Canadian Arctic covers 3.4 million square kilometres, or 40% of our national territory and includes an immense archipelago which is almost uninhabited. Our Arctic Northwest could hold up to a quarter of the world's oil and gas reserves; An open Northwest Passage -- which is rapidly happening with climate change -- could shorten Asia/Europe sea distance by 7000 kilometres: Our worthy neighbour to the south, (on behalf of whose corporate interests our boys are losing their lives), has already shown contempt for Canada's sovereignty over it's arctic coast and islands. And finally, our current government -- in it's election rhetoric -- has acknowledged our Arctic security as critical. So why in Hell are we sending our boys into the nether reaches of the world to help the USA extend it's hegemony over global energy, when we should be preparing to protect our own... from that same hegemon?

[I have sent similar messages to our government members but.......... ]

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Keith Leal
Pincher Creek, AB