Canada's Role in Afghanistan

 
Kathy Gannon is a reporter who has been to Afghanistan and writes with clarity and authority. She recently gave a speech in Toronto at a lecture sponsored by the Atkinson Charitable Foundation. Joseph E. Atkinson is the former published of the Toronto Star newspaper.

You can read a summary of Gannon's speech at "Canadian efforts have backfired, writer says".

This is a complicated issue. She makes several points that need to be debated in order to decide whether Canada is doing any good in Afghanistan.

"What they have failed to do is make allies of Afghans. Instead they have made enemies of ordinary Afghans," says Kathy Gannon, an award-winning journalist who has worked in the strife-torn country for more than 20 years.

"That to me is the biggest error that has occurred, (and) it has occurred because they've gone in with a mixed mandate to reconstruct and rebuild as well as go on the offensive. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to do both."

This is a good point but it's one that's often overlooked, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. Is it possible to win the hearts and minds of a people when you're killing them at the same time? Have we blown whatever chance we had to be their friends?

Gannon points out that the troops who are fighting a war against insurgents tend to see everyone as a potential enemy and they tend to be trigger-happy. This is not a criticism, it's quite natural under the circumstances. However, it does make it difficult to be friends and allies of the very people who may be harboring the insurgent who blew up your best buddy yesterday. Troop moral under those circumstances is very much an issue. Our Governor General, Michaëlle Jean, has just returned from Afghanistan in an attempt to show support for the troops. This overt support is increasingly necessary because the soldiers themselves are having doubts about their mission, according to Gannon.

Afghans don't trust foreigners. This seems so obvious when you write it down on paper—after all, they have a 500 year history of fighting foreign invaders. But the truth of the matter is that we often forget that simple fact. We figure we're somehow different than the British and the Russians and everyone else who failed to control Afghanistan in the past. That's very naive. In the eyes of Afghans we're no different that anyone else.

Afghanistan is ruled by warlords. Here's what Gannon says about that,

The Western countries that ousted the Taliban have also made a serious mistake in allowing vicious warlords back into power, said Gannon, who witnessed the collapse of communism, the rise of Osama bin Laden and the war that ousted him along with the Taliban in 2001.

Because of the return of the warlords who killed, raped and pillaged before the Taliban seized power, the Afghan government has lost credibility, Gannon said.

"The Afghans knew exactly who it was that was coming back to power. But ... they really believed the international community understood who they were. That (it) would keep them in line. That (it) wouldn't let them gain control and reduce the country to the anarchy that it was in before."

But, she said, the warlords "behaved exactly as they had the last time. They reduced the country to what it was before, and now you have all those international soldiers in the mix. They are halfway around the world in a completely alien environment to what they know."

There are two problems here. The first is that we are supporting a corrupt, useless, figurehead government that barely controls the capital city. That fact isn't going to win any hearts and minds in Afghanistan. It means that we have a huge uphill battle if we want to convince the average citizen that we're there to help make Afghanistan into a freedom-loving democracy. We look like hypocrites because we are hypocrites.

Second, there is no law and order because the place is controlled by warlords and tribal rulers. If the average citizen doesn't feel secure on a daily basis then a few squads of well-equipped foreign troops zipping through town in their APC's isn't going to make them happy. We aren't fighting the warlords, we're supporting them. And the warlords aren't making the people secure. Is this a good idea? I don't think so.

Finally there's Pakistan. Unless Pakistan controls its borders there's very little we can do to stamp out the one faction of warlords that we've decided to attack. It's a hopeless battle.

Gannon doesn't think the situation is hopeless. She says,

"You have to make allies of the Afghans. You have to stop using a mixed mandate, doing reconstruction as well as an offensive. You have to have better intelligence so you can go after specific individuals."

And, she said, the Canadian forces in Kandahar should find out information on the whereabouts of Afghan prisoners removed by American forces from areas where the Canadians are now posted: that would win them "goodwill from the entire village," she said.

I agree that Canada should find out where the prisoners are and we should stop turning over any more of them to the Americans. It's the last thing we should do before withdrawing our troops. I don't think we can "make allies of the Afghans" at this time. We've had five years and we've blown any opportunity we had after 9/11. Let the Afghans sort out their own problems, if they can. They'll do a better job of it if we get out of their way.