Opinions
2011 NATO lost 2433 soldiers, 1531 Americans and 157 Canadians; 11,722 Americans and 1859 Canadians were injured, many quite severely. It is unknown how many Afghanis lost their lives, both from military ranks and civilians.
One cannot yet tell whether Afghanistan has gained anything from this prolonged war. The country has the misfortune to occupy the only point where the western Himalayas can be reasonably safely crossed for commercial or military purposes. From time immemorial invaders advancing on India have seized it. But it was the Muslims that made the most enduring conquests, despite internal struggles among their component Turks, Persians, Mughals and Arabs, each wishing ascendancy. When the British displaced the Mughals in India in the 19th century they clashed with Russia and in the next hundred years fought several wars with the Afghans and eventually took control of their foreign affairs as protection from Russia. In 1919 Afghanistan regained its full independence. In the 1980s it fought a long war against the Russians with the help of the CIA and other US agencies. The CIA has been credited for the emergence of bin Laden and the Taliban having been duped by Pakistan's ISI and without any deep knowledge of either local culture or geography to guide them. So having armed the Taliban and forced to play by Pakistan's rules the inevitable happened just as it did with Saddam Hussein who too was armed by the United States.
Canadians entered this arena like babes in the woods. To my mind the major outcome, apart from medals and experience the men have earned, was the unnecessary death of 157 young men, whose families (and fellow citizens) mourn their loss with no more consolation than the vacuous words of militant politicians who put them in a needless battlefield. It was extremely arrogant if not ignorant of Harper to think that this small force could make any more than a token show in that difficult and troubled land. Even the British seemed to have forgotten their past confrontations. Afghanistan will probably return to its former state and the Americans would have lost lives and spent many billions of dollars simply enriching local chieftains and American corporations whose business it is to profit from wars.
The NATO military mission in Afghanistan is due to end in 2014. I do not believe that there is any power short of full-scale nuclear annihilation that could prevent the resurgence of militant Islam, equalling the Taliban, in Afghanistan or any other Muslim state, unless Islam sees the Christian West as fair and just, particularly in relation to Palestine. So far an intransigent Israel is the biggest promoter of fundamentalist Islam. Any further delays in settling the Palestinian-Israeli problem only increases the likelihood of deadlier future conflict.
Eisenhower's farewell admonition in 1960 was, "beware the military industrial complex." Edmund Burke had observed "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." The militarisation of US foreign policy seems clearly orchestrated by powerful global corporations that have commercial monopolies and seek a security base to fend off raiders like themselves; such security requires control of territories, governments, police forces and media. Monopolies aggrandize when wealthy individuals and corporations place irresistible pressures or inducements on politicians to scrap regulatory and other measures that promote competition or restrain financial adventurism.
The United States is at the point of financial crisis; common sense suggests that it can meet much of its obligations by making cuts in military spending. As it stands most of the monies owed are what have been paid over to corporations that profit from continuous conflict. The financial crisis of 2008 has impoverished many North Americans to a level that few had thought possible. But in the long run, in fact at all times, it is these ordinary citizens who foot the bill while rich individuals and corporations know enough or employ professionals to minimise their tax liability. This is what the Americans call democracy; the dictionary calls it plutocracy.
A family that picks together,
sticks together
Those were fun days making guava jam back home.
As a young boy I don't recall sleeping late on any morning. Not with the chorus of roosters starting up their bacchanal of crowing from 4:30 a.m. Add to this the baritone howling of the dogs. Then there were the early-risers – the working folks who set out to the fields at 5 a.m. There were sounds of cooking in the knocking of pot-spoons on iron pots, the splash of cold water during an outside bath, the singing of songs of praise during morning prayers.
It all conspired to make me an early bird. And yes, guava picking meant
beating the early bird to the fruit trees. In my day, to gather guavas meant taking a walk through the fields of dew wet grass on the flat lands between the rolling hills of the central range to the trees that grew among Immortelle, silk cotton and sandbox trees. A lazy river ran through the grasslands, its banks thick with tall groves of impenetrable bamboos. It was a random walk to these trees that were laden with fruit. We carried iron buckets that were weighty by themselves.
The trees would still be wet with dew. The rising sun would reflect of the droplets of night-water stranded on the leaves. We would time the picking well, so that the reaping would see us at the tree when it was laden with fruit ripened the day before. Branches would be bending downwards, beckoning to us with its yellow fruit. At times the early bird had beaten us to a few of the guavas. It would be pecked, the holes on the skin sharp with the imprint of the bird's beak, the insides of the guava raw and pink like an open wound. We would reach up to the branches and pull them towards us and wring the guavas from the stems. For making jam, the fruit had to be ripened to a rich softness. Each was assessed for firmness by cupping it in the hand and pressing it gently to ascertain the "give". It would be gently placed in the iron bucket.
We travelled from field to field, visiting all the known locations where the guava trees thrived. Fruit that had rotted on the branches would have fallen on the ground around the trunk of the tree. The branches higher up the trunk held the white flowers with its yellow filaments within. Young guavas waved among the leaves when the wind picked up.
We returned home with our buckets brimming to the top. The fragrance of the ripened guavas surrounded us as we washed them in a tub of cold water. Then came the cleaning – for some of us, this took courage. The guavas would be sliced in half. The seeds were then scooped out using a spoon. A few of the guavas would have been chosen by insects to lay their eggs. We would discover larvae inside, the size of white grains of rice, animated with a blind crawl through exposure to the harsh sunlight. The squeamish among us would drop these fruits with disgust. Obviously, these guavas did not make the grade.
The scooped out halves of the guavas would then be sliced and broken in a mortar and pestle. It would then be boiled down to a pulp in water, with sugar added for taste and sometimes a dash of lime juice. The smell of jam making filled the house, the fragrance of the guavas boiling in its sugar syrup nothing less than heavenly incense.
I recall jam making as a boy because as an adult today in a farther place I help the family with what has become an annual tradition in our household. It is the same Saturday event, but this time we are strawberry picking. July is the happiest month. We devote one Saturday to joining the surging crowd waiting at the gates of U-Pick-It Berry Farms ahead of the opening hour for strawberry picking. The car park is packed by 8 a.m. with plastic pails, floppy hats, and impatient households. The dedicated jam-makers gather at this time in a throng ready to hit the picking fields. A few of the hardcore pickers do warm up exercises ahead of the farmer's tractor trundling down to the gate before opening time.
For the family, we join the last of the rush to jolt along on the trailer heading out to the fields. In this time and space we are armed with the obligatory plastic bucket. But then there is the wide-brimmed hat to shade the eyes from the sun, insect repellant for protection against marauding mosquitoes, and knee-pads to help with the ergonomics of kneeling for at minimum an hour.
We eat the biggest, sweetest and reddest strawberries moments after the weigh-in and payment, washing them at a convenient sink at the farm. The rest of strawberries survive the trip home for the afternoon boiling down to jam, its infusion of preservatives, and the home-made designed labels that say with pride, "A family that picks together, sticks together."