August 18 MAWO Forum Report

On Wednesday August 18th, antiwar activists and peace-loving people gathered at Joe’s Café in Vancouver to take part in a forum entitled “What is the Future of Occupied Afghanistan?” The forum, organized by Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO), comes at a time of new manoeuvrings from the governments of Canada and the US as they continue their occupation of Afghanistan. With the resignation of former chief of forces in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, his replacement David Petraeus is now at the head of a media campaign claiming that the occupation forces are progressing in Afghanistan. Also recently, on July 25th the website WikiLeaks obtained and released a total of 91,000 secret military documents, which show the criminal and brutal acts committed by the occupation forces in Afghanistan.

The forum opened up with an introduction by MAWO co-chair, Andrew Barry, before going into a series of film and documentary clips about the recent developments in the war on Afghanistan. The film clips put the continued claims of “progress” from US government officials into contrast with the increasing attacks against the occupation forces by resistance forces, and ongoing misery and destruction faced by the Afghan people.

After the film clips was the forum’s speaker Nita Palmer, who is an executive Committee member of MAWO and writer of the new book “War & Occupation in Afghanistan: Which Way Forward?” released earlier this year by Battle of Ideas Press. Nita spoke about the significance of the WikiLeaks documents, which are just a snapshot of the ongoing atrocities that the Afghan people are suffering under the occupation. Nita also reported on the recent protests in Afghanistan against the Canada/US/NATO occupation, and spoke about the responsibility the antiwar movement has to stand with the Afghan people in their demands for self-determination and an end to the occupation.

A discussion followed which focused on the antiwar sentiment of people in Canada and the US, and the important role that antiwar organizations have in bringing people together to protest the war.

This forum is one of MAWO’s bi-monthly public forums, and part of MAWO’s campaign to demand: “Canada/US/NATO Out of Afghanistan Now!”