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The Canadian component of the imperialist military
invasion and occupation of Afghanistan will cost more than $22 billion,
according to a yet-to-be-released study by David Perry, a former deputy
director of Dalhousie University’s Centre for Foreign Policy
Studies. His findings were discussed at a conference on maritime
affairs attended by military leaders and analysts from Canada, the United
States and several Asia-Pacific countries on September 17, according to
the Ottawa Citizen.
In a separate interview, Mr. Perry said he was not
surprised at the numbers he found. “We’re fighting a war on the
other side of the world and that takes a lot of resources,” said Mr.
Perry, currently in Ottawa. He projected the number of Canadian
veterans in Afghanistan to be about 41,000 by 2010. That far
exceeds the estimated 25,000 Canadian veterans from the Korean War.
The figures do not include the cost of ‘aid’ to
Afghanistan, or the cost of the occupation for other federal departments,
such as the RCMP and Foreign Affairs. Such figures are anticipated
since Parliament’s new budget officer, Kevin Page, pledged on September
17 to release his comprehensive study of the cost of the war.
Under pressure from all three major opposition
leaders, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he has no
objection to the release of the report, after “independent peer review”
of it. The fear is that the process of completion and review of the
report could drag on past the October 14 federal election date.
A majority of Canadians oppose the war and occupation
of Afghanistan, which has cost the lives of nearly 100 Canadian soldiers
and thousands of Afghan civilians, for the sake of propping up a corrupt
regime of war lords and drug exporters in Kabul. Conservative and
Liberal politicians, who agreed to extend the war through 2011, would
prefer to keep the issue out of the election campaign. Meanwhile,
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is asking for military
commitments beyond 2011.
Some figures used in the Perry study came from the
Department of National Defence. Other elements were estimated based
on cost models of the U.S. military in the Iraq and Afghan wars.
The breakdown of the Afghan expenses is as follows:
$7 billion for the cost of the war. This is an
incremental sum from late 2001 to 2012. It includes everything from
ammunition and fuel to the salaries of regular force military personnel.
$11 billion is the estimated bill for Veterans’
Affairs and DND for long-term health care of veterans and related
benefits, including traumatic stress disorder among troops.
Veterans’ Affairs Canada predicts an increase of 13,000 soldiers to its
client base by 2010. Using U.S. estimates, between 10 to 25 per
cent of returning veterans may experience mental health problems as a
result of their overseas deployment. U.S. studies estimate that
country’s long-term health care and disability costs for its Iraq and
Afghan veterans to be between $350 billion to $650 billion.
$2 billion is for the purchase of mission-specific
equipment. That includes everything from Leopard tanks, howitzers, six
Chinook helicopters, countermine vehicles to aerial drones. Defense
officials argue that such equipment will be used on future missions
beyond Afghanistan – now that’s a comfort. The figure did not
include the latest $95 million lease for additional aerial drones.
$2 billion is for the replacement of the military’s
LAV-3 fleet. $405 million is for repair and overhaul costs.
The study also shows that the previous Liberal government provided extra
funding to the Defence Department to cover 85 per cent of the Afghan war
costs, while the current Conservative government is funding only 29 per
cent of the cost to DND, with the remainder coming out of DND’s existing
budget. In other words, the Tories are providing more funding for
the war, but less transparently.
In January, army commander Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie
warned that the military was stretched to the breaking point and
replacement stocks of equipment for Afghanistan have long been used up,
either destroyed by the resistence or in the process of being
repaired.
So, to use military-speak, this may be an ideal time
to ‘cut our losses’ and ‘re-deploy forces’ from the widening
counter-insurgency quagmire in Asia, towards more useful engagements,
such as rescue and natural disaster relief missions on Canada’s land and
waterways – and in the process, re-direct a few billion dollars for
progressive social purposes.
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