Mounting casualties compel Canada to send Afghanistan reinforcements

Canada’s minority Conservative government announced yesterday that it will deploy between 200 and 500 additional Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel to the Kandahar region. The cabinet has also approved a CAF request to send fifteen heavily-armored Leopard tanks and an undisclosed number of armored engineering vehicles, called Badgers, to Afghanistan. The 42.5 ton Leopard has a 105-mm cannon, capable of firing explosive shells at long range, as well as several fixed machine-guns.

CAF chief General Rick Hillier said that four of the tanks will be shipped to Afghanistan by air as soon as possible. Although he termed the reinforcements small, Hillier claimed that they will “dramatically multiply” the CAF’s “opportunities to secure and stabilize” the Kandahar region.

Reinforcing the 2,300-strong CAF contingent in Afghanistan is one of several steps Canada’s minority Conservative government has taken in recent days to counter the growth of Taliban resistance in southern Afghanistan and mounting opposition among the Canadian public to the CAF waging war on behalf of the US-installed and dependent government of Hamid Karzai.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper devoted his address on the occasion of this week’s fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack to arguing that the CAF should play a leading role in suppressing the Taliban as part of Canada’s contribution to the “war on terror.”

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/sep2006/cana-s16.shtml