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2016 EVENTS | ||
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Bring the Troops Home Now Saturday, March 19, 2016 March 19, 2016 is the 13th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq which devistated the country and helped lay the foundation for the crisis that we see in the region today. Groups around the world have called for demonstrations to say no to war and no to racism. In Toronto we will be meeting at the office of Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland to call for all Canadian troops to be brought home. We need to stand up against this endless war.
WHY WE SAY NO TO THE WAR IN IRAQ AND SYRIA The Trudeau government has decided to recall Canadian CF-18s from Iraq and Syria. This is a good step but the plan to triple the number of troop trainers on the ground is a dangerous example of mission creep and must be opposed. Troop trainers are combat troops. Canadian soldiers have been in many firefights while on training missions including one fight which killed Canadian soldier Andrew Dorion. Canadians were also in combat just last December while on a training mission. The west has spent 15 years and more than $25 billion to train troops in Iraq and all of these attempts have been a failure. This is not because they haven't tried hard enough. It is because the Iraqi people have a deep anger and distrust of western military interventions. More training missions won't solve that underlying problem. This war is a product of the illegal and immoral US invasion of Iraq in 2003 that killed over a million people and created the conditions for ISIS and other militias to rise up in the first place. Each western military intervention in the region has bred more terror - not less. Our political leaders are simply doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results each time. In Libya NATO bombing led to the complete collapse of the state and the rise of ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Now the west is looking at further bombing missions in Libya to clean up the mess they made with the previous bombing campaign. It is an open secret that our "allies" in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar, have been supporting ISIS. It is shameful that Canada has decided to arm those same people. This war has created a refugee crisis with millions trying to flee the war zones. The refugees are the victims of this perpetual war – not the perpetrators of the conflict yet they are paying the price again with racist border controls and inadequate supports when they do arrive in Canada. This perpetual war also creates a backlash against Muslims in Canada and justifies the suppression of civil rights in the name of the fight against terror. Bill C-51 is only the most recent example of that curtailing of our rights. Expanding the mission will only fuel the cycle of endless war and racism. It has to stop. We call on the government of Canada to: Toronto Coalition to Stop the War
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| Toronto Coalition to Stop the War | ||
