Earlier this month, I participated in the Canadian Peace Alliance's [1] biennial convention in Toronto, which gathered activists representing anti-war groups from across the country. We discussed the challenging task the peace movement faces: finding a way to turn the largely quiet and demobilized majority already against the war into an effective movement that can force the politicians in Ottawa to end Canada's quagmire in Afghanistan. The Dec. 5-7 convention coincided with the political firestorm in Canada; the fact that the now-in-doubt Liberal-NDP coalition had agreed the war was 'off the table' [2] sharpened the focus of activists and reminded all present of the importance of independent social movements.  

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Canada should continue fighting the war in Afghanistan after the mission's scheduled end in 2011, the United States' top military official hinted today.

U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates made a quick visit to Kandahar to speak with front-line commanders. He said they described U.S. and NATO forces as "holding their own" against the insurgents in the south.

"Everybody would agree that holding your own isn't good enough," Mr. Gates said, adding that two more U.S. combat brigades will arrive in Afghanistan in the spring.

Obama would be foolish to imagine that Petraeus can work a miracle cure in Afghanistan.

Derrick O’Keefe told the Straight he thinks there is “some protest fatigue going on” because widespread antiwar sentiment is not translating into political action.

Prisoners captured by the Canadian military in Afghanistan are once again being transferred to Afghan officials, the Canadian Armed Forces said Friday.

"We exercise discretion each and every time we transfer a detainee," Lt. Col. Grant Dane told reporters in Kandahar on Friday, noting the decision to transfer prisoners was being made on a case-by-case basis.

27/02/08 "AlterNet" -- - They say journalists provide the first draft of history. With the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, that draft led to an almost universal consensus, at least among Americans, that the attack was a justifiable act of self-defense. The Afghanistan action is commonly viewed as a "clean" conflict as well -- a war prosecuted with minimal loss of life, and one that didn't bring the kind of international opprobrium onto the United States that the invasion of Iraq would lead to a year later.

Those views are also held by many Americans who are critical of the excesses of the Bush administration's "War on Terror." But there's a disconnect there. Everything that followed -- secret detentions, torture, the invasion of Iraq, the assault on domestic dissent -- flowed inevitably from the failure to challenge Bush's claim that an act of terror required a military response. The United States has a rich history of abandoning its purported liberal values during times of war, and it was our acceptance of Bush's war narrative that led to the abuses that have shattered America's moral standing before the world.

The case of Parwiz Kambakhsh, a reporter for the local newspaper, “Jahan-e Now,” and a student at Balkh University, requires the urgent attention of journalists and activists for freedom of expression.

John Manley, head of the Harper-appointed panel to study the government's Afghan
War, stated upon the release of its report: "we are a rich country; we've got to
do some of this stuff".