.Canada has learned hard lessons in Afghanistan
Ottawa
When it's not just pure hell, war is a learning experience. Afghanistan is a tough teacher and Canada an improving student.
It's a wiser as well as sadder country taking its prominent place at today's pivotal NATO summit. Beyond the cost in lives and money, Afghan has educated Canadians with bitter experience. It has taught history to Stephen Harper, counter-insurgency to the military and the importance of truth in political advertising to the rest of us.
Each lesson touches this week's troubling question about Kabul's fluid support for basic human rights. Why is Canada still investing blood and treasure in a war the Prime Minister says can't be won, fought in a primitive county that cares so little for its own women?
One answer, shaped by outrage, mounting frustration and selected facts, is that there is no point. Canada has done more than its share to change a country rooted in feudalism, steeped in fundamentalism and united only against invaders.
Even if the answer is reasonable, the response isn't viable. Yes, Canada is paying dearly for trying to fast-forward Afghanistan from past to future, for attempting to glue Western rights to Islamic culture and for facing an enemy that shakes off foreigners like fleas. But it's just as important to recall why successive federal governments committed so much to Afghanistan, how rewards will be calculated and what may be accomplished.
First, be perfectly clear why Canada went to a country of no interest to Ottawa before 9/11. It wasn't to lift it out of poverty, create a modern democracy or allow girls to go to school. It was, and is, to demonstrate that Ottawa, particularly after the Liberals refused to join the Iraq adventure, is as committed to continental security as Washington; there's no need to build border walls that would keep out trade along with terrorists.
Other rationales sprouted from that primary motivation. Over time they were wrapped, together with patriotism and the defence of human rights, around a war that governments were slow to fully grasp and, fearing voter rejection, never fully explained to Canadians.
That marketing campaign started fragmenting when Harper repeated on U.S. television what he and others have said here on the impossibility of outright military victory. It imploded when President Hamid Karzai was caught electioneering with women's freedom.
Lost in the Prime Minister's comments and the president's politicking is what's been discovered about Afghanistan so far and why the final test is years away. After kidding themselves about the enemy determination and Canadians about the war's purpose and prospects, the federal government, along with the Obama administration, is coming to grips with current realities, reducing expectations and eyeing an ever more beckoning exit.
All of that turns on Afghanistan's hard lessons. Canadians now know that even courageous, technically superior soldiers are a poor match for insurgents who are indistinguishable from non-combatants and enjoy home-field advantage. We know that an election doesn't make a democracy and that progress is glacial in turning an ancient society into a modern state. We know the best we can hope for is a political solution and an Afghanistan stable enough not be a threat.
Should Liberals have known some of that in 2001 and Conservatives told the country the rest much sooner? Of course. But what matters most when NATO considers mission options today is that Afghanistan has taught and Canadians have learned.
TheStar
When it's not just pure hell, war is a learning experience. Afghanistan is a tough teacher and Canada an improving student.
It's a wiser as well as sadder country taking its prominent place at today's pivotal NATO summit. Beyond the cost in lives and money, Afghan has educated Canadians with bitter experience. It has taught history to Stephen Harper, counter-insurgency to the military and the importance of truth in political advertising to the rest of us.
Each lesson touches this week's troubling question about Kabul's fluid support for basic human rights. Why is Canada still investing blood and treasure in a war the Prime Minister says can't be won, fought in a primitive county that cares so little for its own women?
One answer, shaped by outrage, mounting frustration and selected facts, is that there is no point. Canada has done more than its share to change a country rooted in feudalism, steeped in fundamentalism and united only against invaders.
Even if the answer is reasonable, the response isn't viable. Yes, Canada is paying dearly for trying to fast-forward Afghanistan from past to future, for attempting to glue Western rights to Islamic culture and for facing an enemy that shakes off foreigners like fleas. But it's just as important to recall why successive federal governments committed so much to Afghanistan, how rewards will be calculated and what may be accomplished.
First, be perfectly clear why Canada went to a country of no interest to Ottawa before 9/11. It wasn't to lift it out of poverty, create a modern democracy or allow girls to go to school. It was, and is, to demonstrate that Ottawa, particularly after the Liberals refused to join the Iraq adventure, is as committed to continental security as Washington; there's no need to build border walls that would keep out trade along with terrorists.
Other rationales sprouted from that primary motivation. Over time they were wrapped, together with patriotism and the defence of human rights, around a war that governments were slow to fully grasp and, fearing voter rejection, never fully explained to Canadians.
That marketing campaign started fragmenting when Harper repeated on U.S. television what he and others have said here on the impossibility of outright military victory. It imploded when President Hamid Karzai was caught electioneering with women's freedom.
Lost in the Prime Minister's comments and the president's politicking is what's been discovered about Afghanistan so far and why the final test is years away. After kidding themselves about the enemy determination and Canadians about the war's purpose and prospects, the federal government, along with the Obama administration, is coming to grips with current realities, reducing expectations and eyeing an ever more beckoning exit.
All of that turns on Afghanistan's hard lessons. Canadians now know that even courageous, technically superior soldiers are a poor match for insurgents who are indistinguishable from non-combatants and enjoy home-field advantage. We know that an election doesn't make a democracy and that progress is glacial in turning an ancient society into a modern state. We know the best we can hope for is a political solution and an Afghanistan stable enough not be a threat.
Should Liberals have known some of that in 2001 and Conservatives told the country the rest much sooner? Of course. But what matters most when NATO considers mission options today is that Afghanistan has taught and Canadians have learned.
TheStar
posted by madtom at 8:24 PM
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