Maritime Morning - Andrew Krystal

During the famous Watergate investigations by young reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein in the early 1970s, the term “follow the money” was used by the mole, codenamed “Deep Throat”, whom we later found out to be the F.B.I’s number two man Mark Felt.

“Follow the money” meant, at that time, that the Committee to Re-elect the President (Nixon) had sent cash to a group known as “the plumbers” (who fix leaks) for break-ins. The money trail was eventually traced back to Nixon himself. Facing impeachment, Nixon resigned.

Today, “follow the money” can also be applied to Afghanistan.

Billions are being spent. Whole bureaucracies are being engaged. Helicopters are being ordered, aerial drones bought, roadside bomb counter-technology scheduled and shipped, manpower adjusted, people trained, back-room promises given, political and otherwise.

The millions Canadians have spent, and will spend, on U.S. (surprise) equipment all goes to U.S. arms manufacturers in un-tendered contracts.

To put the politics of procurement into perspective, British Historian Max Hastings was talking to me a few months ago about the air war over Germany in WW2. The bulk of the destruction at the end of the war, both in Germany and Japan, was gratuitous; nonetheless, rubble was bounced and cities that were desperately trying to treat the wounded and escaping civilians, jammed with women and children and old people, were fire bombed. The kids and old people had no where to go.

I asked him why? Hastings explained that war has logic of its own when the factory for war gets geared up and rolling. Late in WW2 the bombers were still being produced, the bombs made and shipped, the crews scheduled, the radar technology improved, the fighter protection technology improved (the fighters, early in the war had limited range) with more and more fighters shipped to Europe.

Hastings said to me that, whether the bombing campaign was militarily successful or not, you simply wage war the way that you can, and with what you have and that you wage war according to production lines and the huge infrastructure that you set up, regardless of changing circumstances. Until the war was over the bombs would still find targets — even if there weren’t any.

Once the orders have been placed, and the factories readied, the war will go ahead, like it did in
Vietnam and like it does now in Iraq. It is hard to cancel contracts. In the case of Iraq, too much has been spent. But Canada’s spending for Afghanistan has only just begun

I will conclude the WW2 procurement analogy by saying, in the end, that most historians agree that the diversion of half a million men to defend German cities itself helped the allies win despite the fact German war production actually went up during some of the highest saturation bombing periods mainly as a result of underground factories, etc. 

In other words, all the resources allocated, all of the factories engaged, and all of the bombs dropped, had only an indirect decisive account on Germany – that was not the goal of the air war at all. But, because of production assembly lines, money allocation, huge ego careers, and internal bureaucratic politics, no one could stop it.

So, here we are in Afghanistan and what do we see? We see the Tories opening Canada’s wallet to spend billions waging war in Afghanistan.

How much of this money will actually go to help the people of Afghanistan?

Everyone even now admits the money earmarked for hospitals is not getting through due to Western incompetence and systemic corruption (we need the warlords so they do whatever they want).

The Pashtun tribes people, referred to as “the Taliban”, somewhat erroneously, as even some undeclared Taliban are fighting the infidel occupiers and Afghan drug lords whom the Western powers are propping up (why do think poppy production is at record levels?), have an unlimited supply of men and are highly motivated on religious grounds   and the fact that outsiders have invaded.

I will say it again that the Afghan war is not winnable without 100,000 troops positioned there for 25 years. Even then it will only be drug lords that we are propping up in the end.

Somalia and the Sudan (Osama’s home away from home before the West chased him into
Afghanistan), are warlord-rife, militant Islam-ridden countries, yet, we are not invading them. They, too, are terrors’ incubators.

It is unbelievably naïve of people to say that Canada should stay and fight because they won’t tell you the truth — so they tell you it in pieces.

No one in Ottawa really has any idea how long it will take to win, or what “winning” really constitutes. So, they bullshit us in increments talking about “extensions”, each time about two years in length. No one is going to come out and tell you that to “win” will cost “x” number of Canadian lives and so many more wounded, 40 billion dollars and 25 years. — and that is only providing that the U.S. commits Iraq-like troop levels which it currently doesn’t have, not to mention does not have in terms of stomach and political will.

People can argue with me about this all day long. But history and common sense itself seems to be on my side (and a number of international relations experts who know a hell of a lot more than anyone in Ottawa does). Right now, in Ottawa, all they have is wishful thinking and military contracts to support.

Stephen Harper is a bright man. But bright men must stick to their disciplines. Do not ask a trained economist to be either an historian, and international relations expert, or a pro hockey coach.

Canada’s military role in Afghanistan reminds me of Martin Sheen’s Viet Nam maddened character in “Apocalypse Now”. 

“We were going to the worst place in the world and we didn’t even know it yet.”