Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Montreal: Evidence of Bad treatment of Afghanis by Canadian Soldiers

The Montreal French language newspaper La Presse has gotten footage of Canadian soldiers abusing Afghanis. There has been documentation of widespread abuse of Afghanis especially by US soldiers and regional warlords or druglords. This footage however, is the first major evidence of Canadian soldiers joining in that abuse.

In the footage there is the breaking down of civilians doors, which is a common tactic used by US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. When actually around civilians or inside the homes there are insults and death threats lodged at the civilians including the elderly. In one section Canadian forces try to bribe a civilian to show them where the 'Taliban' are. The civilian instead refuses saying its their land that they will defend. Due to this footage the paper called it the 'End of Innocence' for Canadian soldiers.

This comes right on the heels of a new largely increased defence budget of an additional $15 billion over the next few years. [1] The increase of military funding and extension of the occupation will only continue the control of Kandahar, a city which is along a route for the trans-Afghan pipeline. With the continued presence of Canadian forces more evidence of abuse may become exposed in the future. US forces have been documented in Afghanistan arbitrarily detaining people, using forced entry at night as well as the use of torture and rape. [2]

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3 Comments:

Blogger billie said...

i find it unfortunate that your country has become so much like mine. in the current climate, it isn't much to be proud of. i would apologize but i think that it would be wholly inadequate.

6:41 p.m.  
Blogger Jade said...

Well were not quite as bad, but things seem to be certainly be getting worse. The growing opposition to the war is encouraging though.

6:48 p.m.  
Blogger billie said...

you have my support in that endeavor for sure!

9:57 p.m.  

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