[Lydiaswingert]

From Esprit de Corps (definitely NOT anti-military...)

Debate Afghan mission

On Target/April 3, 2006
By SCOTT TAYLOR

Last week was yet another test of mettle for the Canadian battle group in Kandahar. In addition to the heightened incident rate of explosive devices, suicide bombings and sporadic shelling, our soldiers also experienced a full-scale guerrilla attack at a remote outpost. The death of 22-year-old Pte. Rob Costall in that firefight brought the Canadian death toll in Afghanistan to 12, and the number of wounded has climbed to 48.

The sudden increase in casualties last month caused Canadians finally to sit up and take note of the fact that our role in Afghanistan has changed dramatically. With that awareness came the first serious questions being asked of the government, such as "When the hell did we agree to go to war?" and "What exactly do we hope to achieve in the end?" Rather than airing these issues in a full-fledged parliamentary debate or simply providing direct answers, Prime Minister Stephen Harper chose to fly into the forward operating base in Kandahar to hold a pep rally for the troops.

That was a rather gutsy move on Harper’s part, but the singular message emitted by Harper was that "Canada doesn’t cut and run." The public responded well, and within days the 70 per cent opposed to the mission had been flipped to 70 per cent in favour.

However, when the casualty lists continued to lengthen and as the Taliban attacks become more brazen, the new soft support quickly dissipated. The Defence Department has mounted a major public relations campaign to "sell" Canadians on the war.

There exists a short list of talking points that are repeated ad nauseam to confuse the public. For those of you following this debate closely, the following statement will be familiar: "We have been invited into Afghanistan by a democratically elected government." The reality is that after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, which collapsed the Taliban regime, Hamid Karzai was appointed to the presidency by the U.S. State Department.

Propped up by American and international security forces, Karzai’s interim government was elected by fewer than one million voters in a country of 23 million citizens. Karzai’s first act as a democratically elected official was to invite the foreign forces that installed him to remain to prop up his administration.

Another little nose-stretcher is the old line about Canada’s obligations to fight the war on terror because "24 Canadians died in the 9-11 attacks." Despite the insinuation of Afghanistan’s involvement in the attacks, not oneAfghan was listed among the hijackers, and Osama bin Laden’s operatives included sleeper cells in the U.S. — not Central Asia.The standard prediction is that the rebuilding of Afghanistan will take "at least a decade" and can only be accomplished through a long-term commitment of foreign troops. The hope is that by demonstrating to the various factions the benefits of a democratic federal state, we will have effectively recreated their social fabric into our own likeness.

When the Soviet Union was "invited" into Afghanistan by the hard-pressed Afghan Communist Party in 1980, the Russians also felt that their socialist ideology could take root if they propped it up for a decade. We all know how well that turned out.

Our troops are committed to this current mission. No one is suggesting we "cut and run" from our present obligation. However, before we contemplate an extension of this deployment we must have a serious debate, with facts — not rhetoric and disinformation. Some Canadians would say Mr. Taylor has 'no balls'. His credentials would say otherwise.