FROLITICKS

Satirical commentary on Canadian and American current political issues

May 22

The Hypocrisy of Trump’s Foreign Policy Stance

by bcurry

This week, President Trump sat in a press conference and berated President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, a democratic state, with false claims about a genocide being committed against white Afrikaner farmers.  On the other hand, just a week ago President Trump had traveled to three Middle East countries ruled by repressive and non-democratic regimes and told them he would not lecture them about how they treat their own people.  The above meeting was subsequent to the administration’s fast tracking of the refugee status of dozens of white Afrikaans to the U.S. from South Africa, claiming that they were being persecuted by the government of that country and their lives and livelihood had been threatened.  No proof of the accusations was provided.

In contrast, one of Trump’s first actions on taking office in January 2025 was to issue an executive order suspending the Afghan resettlement program and leaving those eligible in legal limbo.  Approximately 180,000 Afghans had been admitted to the United States after August 2021.  Some were given special immigration visas (SIVs) that provided a path to permanent residency, while others were given humanitarian parole and granted temporary protected status (TPS) that allowed them to stay and to work in the U.S.  On April 11th, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced its decision to end TPS for more than 9,000 Afghans because Afghanistan “no longer continues to meet the statutory requirement for TPS.” Those targeted were given the option to self-deport before May 20, 2025.  Some of these Afghans had served with the American forces as interpreters and in other capacities, and any return to Afghanistan would most likely prove to be fatal to them and their families.

The encounter with President Ramaphosa in some ways echoed the previous February visit to the Oval Office by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.  Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelensky in front of TV cameras, cutting short a visit meant to coordinate a plan for peace.  At one point, Trump even suggested that the Ukraine was responsible for starting the war with Russia which is completely false.  Since then, Trump has subsequently met with Zelensky and had a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin in seeking to begin discussions for a permanent cease fire and resolution of the dispute.  However, most experts believe that Putin is simply stringing Trump along and has no intention of committing to fair and equitable negotiations with Zelensky.  Having failed to get both parties to the table, Trump now appears to have decided to concentrate only on economic talks with Ukraine, including those over that country’s rare minerals, and to forgo his intermediary status in the talks.

On May 6th, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Trump met at the White House and held a brief news event that focused on tariffs, trade and Trump’s repeated assertion that Canada should be the 51st state — a notion that Carney again clearly rejected.  While this meeting was somewhat more cordial in tone, the primary discussion of the existing Canada-U.S.-Mexico (CUSMA) didn’t really get addressed.  Instead, Trump simply restated that there wasn’t anything Carney could say to convince him to lift the existing tariffs.  However, Carney has called the CUSMA as “the basis for a broader negotiation.”  Remember, that it was under the previous Trump administration that the current trade agreement was signed, which has now been violated with Trump’s recent tariffs on both Canadian and Mexican imports to the U.S.

What we have to date is a weird collage of approaches to foreign policies under the Trump administration.  Where Trump believes there are positive economic returns to the U.S., such as in the Middle East, he is quite willing to enter into bilateral trade arrangements, despite having to deal with non-democratic and repressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.  His administration has even alluded to possibly reducing or eliminating existing economic sanctions on Russia imposed after Putin’s past invasion of Crimea and the current armed invasion of Eastern Ukraine.  All of this contributes to the evident hypocrisy of Trump’s foreign policy stance.

Afghanistan Canada Donald Trump Foreign Policy Immigration NAFTA The Middle East Trade with U.S. Ukraine Ukraine US

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Sep 4

Removal by Canada of Former Afghan Interpreters Was Not an Easy Matter

by bcurry

Canada concluded combat operations in 2011 and left Afghanistan in 2014.  However, many Canadians believe that the Canadian government should help those Afghans who served with Canadian troops and officials, often as interpreters, during that period.  Even in the first years of Canada’s 2006-2011 combat mission in Kandahar province, there were numerous reports of the Taliban murdering interpreters.  For this reason, the Canadian government launched a program in 2009 to bring interpreters and their families to Canada.  About 800 interpreters immigrated here, but the program was often criticized for being too restrictive.  At that time, these Afghans and their families would have not been declared as “refugees”, but would have been brought into Canada under the Afghan special-immigration measure. 

Not applying refugee status at that time was for a number of reasons.  First, the Afghan government did not threaten them or persecute them.  The primary danger was from the Taliban insurgents, from whom the Afghan administration and security force were to provide security as the legitimate governing body.  Secondly, these Afghans would not have been recognized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees under the Refugee Convention.  Thirdly, refugees must be outside of their home countries, that is, they must enter another country before they can claim to be refugees.  Fourthly, to be classified as a refugee, a person must be persecuted because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion and membership in a particular social group as per the above convention.  War, violence and poverty are not enough to qualify for refugee status.  Thus, it was not until the Taliban had overthrown the previous Afghan government that one could even contemplate giving any Afghans such a status.  As Afghanistan teetered on the brink of collapse, Canada took almost two months for the new special immigration measure to be announced in late July.

However, no one, including the Americans, believed a few months and even weeks ago, that the Afghan security forces would have failed so quickly to repel the Taliban assault.  Once this became clear, Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) officials moved quickly to attempt to assist Canadian citizens and former Afghan interpreters and their families to fly out of Kabul.  Regrettably, we all saw the unbelievable chaos that ensued once the Taliban had taken possession of Kabul.  In the end, some estimate that only 18 percent of the 2,000 ex-employees and family members managed to get onto flights to Canada.  Unfortunately, there are still hundreds of similar Afghans wanting to flee to Canada who are currently stuck in the country and remain in danger.  Needless-to-say, Canadian vets of Afghanistan are not happy with the delays and the results.  One cannot really blame them, except to repeat that these former Afghan allies and friends could not have been processed any faster under the difficult circumstances existing in Taliban-controlled Kabul.

Some observers have argued that, instead of funnelling everyone to Kabul, IRCC officials should have encouraged them to head immediately to safety in neighbouring countries.  Of course, there are risks with doing so! They then would have to be declared convention refugees by the United Nations or other governments.  As refugees, these Afghans could then apply to come to Canada.  However, under the UN’s process, this would normally take years.  Can Canada speed up the process?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.  The fact is that, like the U.S. and other allies, the ability for Canada to accommodate the immigration of Afghan interpreters and their families was limited by the former Afghan government and the unusual difficulties in declaring them to be recognized as refugees under the existing international convention.  In order for Canada to live up to its humanitarian responsibilities, one can only hope that these Afghans can be helped in a timely way so as to eventually live in a country wishing to demonstrate its gratitude for their sacrifices.

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Feb 28

Once Again, We Have Forgotten About Afghanistan

by bcurry

Yes, the primary news today and during the past year in North America is all about the pandemic and how governments are attempting to cope.  However, loss in all of this is the deteriorating state within Afghanistan.  I have previously blogged on issues surrounding the survival of the current American-backed government in Kabul and the past tremendous investments that Western countries, most notably the U.S., made in that country as noted in: Afghanistan-good-investment-or-sink-hole-and-lost-cause/.  In the meantime, the Taliban have been encroaching on key cities around Afghanistan for months, threatening to drive the country to its breaking point and push the Biden administration into a no-win situation just as the United States’ longest war is supposed to be coming to an end.

Under the deal struck by President Trump with the Taliban last year, all foreign troops — including the remaining 2,500 U.S. service members who support Afghanistan’s army and security forces — were scheduled to have withdrawn by May 1, 2021, leaving the country in an especially precarious state.  As talks between the Afghan government and Taliban continue, the reality is that insurgents already hold much of the country.  The Taliban is back to using terror and fear tactics to control the population in those parts of the country occupied by its forces.  They have a loose network of prisons wherein many people are being tortured.  They also operate a parallel network of civilian courts in which religious scholars adjudicate land disputes and family disputes, much like they did when they ran Afghanistan’s government two decades ago.  Supported by the local tribal officials, Taliban courts also try murders and suspected moral and religious offences. 

It has been argued that if the U.S. delays its withdrawal deadline, the Taliban would likely consider the 2020 deal with the U.S. void, likely leading to renewed attacks on American and NATO troops.  The result potentially could draw the U.S. deeper into the war to defend Afghanistan’s beleaguered army and security forces, whom the Taliban could still retaliate vigorously against.  Unfortunately, many Afghans see the current government as corrupt and its justice system as crooked. 

Then, there’s the ongoing cost of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.  According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the total military expenditure in Afghanistan from October 2001 until September 2019 was $778 billion.  In addition, the U.S. State Department – along with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other government agencies – spent $44 billion on reconstruction projects.  Then there were the American lives lost.  As of July 2018, there were over 2,300 U.S. military and over 16,000 civilian deaths in the Afghan war.  In addition, over 20,000 American service members had been wounded in action up until then.  There were also over 1,700 U.S. civilian contractor fatalities.

All of this leads one to understand the American hesitancy to simply pack up and leave Afghanistan as it did during the Vietnam war.  Much has been sacrificed in a cause that was a no-win from the outset, demonstrating the dangers associated with trying to impose democratic ways in a poor country which has only known authoritarianism.  Unfortunately, without U.S. support, the current Afghan regime obviously cannot stand on its own.  It’s a difficult decision for President Biden to make, but it’s one that has to be made sooner than later given the daily costs, human and financial, associated with sustaining the current regime in Kabul.  Afghanistan is certain to be back in our headlines once again.

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Aug 1

Afghanistan: Good Investment or Sink Hole and Lost Cause

by bcurry

Well, here we are over ten years later and one is still uncertain as to what has been accomplished in Afghanistan. Let’s look at a few facts:

• In 2013, $4.7 billion U.S. is being allocated for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), an amount that the U.S. government can’t continue to expend.

• Questions about the ability of the ANSF to provide the necessary security against future Taliban attacks and incursions continue to surface.

• How many American troops will be permanently assigned there after 2014 is still up in the air, and to what effect?

• The State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have to date never issued a remotely credible report on the progress and impact of the civilian surge or any aspect of the civil aid program.

• Amid complaints of corruption, support among the populace for President Hamid Karzai’s government continues to be weak.

• Beyond Kabul, Afghan warlords are still in control of much of the country, often financed by the ongoing drug trade and American contract monies.

• Support from other NATO countries for the so-called reconstruction phase in Afghanistan is luke warm.

• It appears that any real meaningful negotiations with the Taliban are not likely to happen any time real soon. Especially as the Taliban are patiently awaiting the withdrawal of foreign troops and the level of trust on both sides is extremely low.

• The Taliban are not viewed by locals in the same way as al-Qaeda was, al-Qaeda having all but disappeared from the landscape.

• The Taliban are securely entrenched in Pakistan where the authorities are unable and unwilling to deal with the insurgents.

Have there really been any significant changes within Afghan society over the past ten years? It would appear from recent evidence that the answer is a strong “no”. Recent interviews by journalists of the New York Times with dozens of Afghan youth paint a picture of a new generation bound to their society’s conservative ways; especially when it comes to women’s rights, one of the West’s single most important efforts in the country. Attempts to alter women’s roles in society remain controversial among the younger generation. In addition, many Aghans consider democracy a tool of the West. The vast majority of Afghans still rely on tribal justice, viewing the courts as little more than venues of extortion. There continues to be strong support for adherence to Shariah law in Afghanistan, much of which actually comes from tribal traditions. Afghanistan is still an ancient and poor country with tribal ways, always suspicious of western ways and culture.
What does all this mean? Afghanistan has become a continuous burden to the American taxpayer, a real sink hole. Obama and other western leaders had better get out while they can, and let the Afghans resolve their own issues and employ their own measures. Only then, can they realistically determine their future, whatever that might be. I don’t think that we can afford another ten years of the same.

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