Afghanistan

Are we really still questioning why Canadians are in Afghanistan? Why is it that we must have a debate now, instead of several years ago when the troops were sent there? Maybe most Canadians don't oppose the deployment, but going over the "Readers' comments" in the Globe and Mail is enough to drive me up the wall.

I was happy to hear Liberal Leader Bill Graham state recently that his party does not want to have a debate on the issue at this point (overruling his Health Critic's claim that they do). As for the people who claim that Canadians need to know what the troops are doing there, and open debate (and a vote, no less) in Parliament is the only way to determine if they should stay - well, frankly, you are lazy. What Canadians are doing there has been stated clearly many times by politicians, top soldiers, and the media. You could probably find it in a hundred places just on the internet. Start with the Foreign Affairs website. So inform yourself, or shut up. Seriously. Sure, we can have open discussion on the issue. Perhaps Canadians will then realize that the mission has actually been approved by the UN, that Canadians aren't traditionally just "peacekeepers," and that anyone who wants to sit at the table with the big boys has to earn a seat there. But this mission has already been committed to, and we have no right to back out now. If you still think that Canada shouldn't be in Afghanistan, that's fine. At least be informed. Maybe there will be a vote before any mission extension.

This is an excerpt from commentary on The Canadian Institue of Strategic Studies website:

The intent of the Kandahar mission is identical to previous peacekeeping operations: to give a battered country time to recover and administer to the needs of its people. The difference is that, this time, the recovery process is being opposed by groups who wish to re-impose a medieval political order (a goal not shared by the vast majority of Afghans) and who see no problem in employing extreme violence to establish it. If they must slaughter aid workers, diplomats, as well as thousands of their countrymen and co-religionists in the process, then so it must be.

If Canadians, including Mr Layton, believe that the end – a peaceful, stable Afghanistan - is truly worthwhile, then they have little choice but to support appropriate means to achieve it. And the means must include not only the “stabilization” tasks that Canadian troops have performed for the last four years, but also more proactive operations that will keep the insurgents off balance. Why? Because the aim cannot be achieved by having Canadians standing on street corners or patrolling the perimeters of their base while those who would kill and maim are left to roam the countryside or infiltrate the cities and set off car bombs. Put simply, peacekeeping and counter-insurgency operations (a.k.a. “limited war”) are complementary. One cannot succeed without doing both simultaneously. Afghanistan is too far gone for blue berets to ride to the rescue.

To be sure, peace restoration is not solely a military matter. The rehabilitation of a war-torn country will require diplomatic, economic, social, and technical assistance. Troops simply provide a secure environment in which the other partners can do their vital work. They buy time for the host government regain its footing and take care of its people. This noble goal takes place in a dangerous environment. Minimizing the danger will require good intelligence on what mischief the insurgents are planning, and the will to physically subdue them.

Still, Mr. Layton’s stance is attractive. It is tempting, even preferable, to believe that Canada has no enemies, and that it is not our destiny to offer offence to anyone. It is equally tempting to that believe that our values – which we constantly trumpet but have not defended in earnest for two generations – will simply prevail on their own. And it is easy to be beguiled by the credit our troops have brought to this country when deployed abroad as peacekeepers. How fortunate we have been to have the luxury of embarking, for the most part, on low-risk missions where our forces adhere to a latter-day version of the Hippocratic Oath, and do no harm.

How unsettling, then, is Afghanistan, where harm must be visited upon the enemies of the very progressiveness that Mr. Layton champions back home. How unusual that a self-proclaimed “peacekeeper” has taken sides, throwing its lot in with - wait a second - a democratically-elected government battling the forces of regression. And how haunting are the exhortations of President Hamid Karzai after last week’s suicide bombings in which Canadians and Afghans died together. Like a voice from the past imploring us not to succumb to the isolation of the 1930s, the Afghan leader beseeched the outside world not to abandon his country to the extremists who wish to usher in a new dark age.

Read the article here. Another, newer article can be found here and is more good reading if you wish to be informed on what your country is doing in Afghanistan.