Canada in Afghanistan
In Kabul, Washington, Brussels, London, Paris, and Amsterdam, the debate over NATO’s role in Afghanistan is building. President Obama is not only considering the possibility of General McChrystal’s recommended troop surge and tactical shift towards far greater civilian protection, but more importantly, he is reconsidering the broader strategic objectives of the mission. Is the goal to protect America from a resurgent al-Qaeda, to build an Afghan state that can hold the Taliban at bay, or to reconfigure both Afghanistan and Pakistan? The answer will drive his decision in the coming weeks. As the president deliberates, the U.S. media and public are increasingly engaged.
In Canada, while there is a similar conversation occurring behind the closed doors of government – our mandarins must decide what we will do after the 2011 deadline set by parliament in March 2008 – there has been an astonishing silence in the public domain. What should Canada be doing in Afghanistan post-2011?
The government of Canada has skirted this issue in public with various opaque statements by the prime minister, the minister of Defence and other members of the Conservative cabinet. They have confirmed our withdrawal but have given hardly any indication as to what this will look like, whether a military presence will remain to carry out the development and training tasks they assert will continue or whether the U.S. will fill the void. Meanwhile Lt. General Andrew Leslie, the head of the Canadian army, has stated that they “currently do not have any plans, or even any line diagrams on a blank sheet of paper for post-2011.”
Motivated by the belief that decisions need to be taken long before 2011, that we can’t just up and pull out – that there are substantial strategic, ethical, and financial considerations – last week we convened a roundtable at the University of British Columbia in order to discuss these critical issues. We started with our own “blank sheet” and to fill it in, several seasoned Canadian experts who have lived and breathed Afghanistan over the last eight years, including Gordon Smith, Chris Alexander, and Graeme Smith. We posed a series of guiding questions that we hoped would incite debate. They were as follows:
1) Public support for the Afghan mission stands at 37 per cent in Canada and roughly half of Canadians are in support of a civilian mission post-2011. How are domestic politics likely to influence the shape of Canada's involvement? And what influence should they have?
2) The Canadian government has committed itself to a set of tasks for the benefit of the Afghan people. At the same time, the fighting has killed 131 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat. The war has cost between $11-12 billion. What responsibilities and obligations have we incurred? To the Afghan people? To NATO and the UN? To Canadians?
3) The Government has been unclear as to whether a contingent of Canadian forces will remain to protect delivery of assistance, or whether the ensuing void post-withdrawal will be covered by our U.S. and NATO allies. Moreover, does the withdrawal of a “mere” 2800 Canadians, compared with the U.S. 80,000, really mean a “gap”? What would assistance look like without military support? Can we “do” development without the military? What are the implications of a withdrawal for NATO and U.S. relations?
4) What are the options for our involvement? What are the costs and benefits of different options? What are the standards of evaluation? What is desirable? What is doable? How do we avoid what Gen. Hillier recently called “pie in the sky” ideas about Afghanistan? How do we avoid such ideas and ensure success in whatever it is that we commit ourselves to post-2011.
It is a tall order, we know, but we hope that this web forum, based on last week’s roundtable meeting, will be, at the very least, the start of a much needed discussion on these important issues.
Withdraw the Troops
by Graeme Smith
Emmy-winning foreign correspondent, The Globe and Mail.
- First Posted: Nov 12 2009 17:42 PM
- Updated: 7 months ago
VIDEO: The military mission has failed, and adding more soldiers won't help. It's time to consider other options.
I'm not really qualified to answer questions about Canadian relations with NATO, or the United States, or the domestic politics of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. But I have spent more time in southern Afghanistan, I think, than any of the other contributors to this page, so maybe I can add something to the discussion of Canada's efforts in the south.
We should start by recognizing Canada's dwindling importance in Kandahar. The arrival of a Canadian battle group was a big deal in early 2006, because it doubled the strength of international forces in the south. Now we're a smaller player. Even with the creeping growth in the number of deployed Canadians – hundreds of extra troops that Ottawa has never acknowledged – Canada has little more than 3 per cent of the international troops in the country. Commanders once proudly declared they were chasing insurgents across 60,000 square kilometres of territory, but now Canadians are relegated to guarding Kandahar City and its approaches. From a practical standpoint, we're replaceable.
Symbolically, a Canadian withdrawal would signal to our allies that more soldiers aren't helpful at this point. That's a useful message. As the United States considers another troop surge, it's worth remembering that the number of foreign troops in southern Afghanistan has already increased dramatically. Every year I spent in the country, from 2005 to 2009, saw major troops surges – and terrible surges of violence. With every fighting season, more women and children were killed. I saw their faces, I smelled the death. What did we buy with so much blood? Nothing worth the price, sadly. We tried to make it safer for UN and aid agencies to help the people, but instead it became more dangerous. We tried to set up a democratic government – but it's not democratic, and it doesn't govern much of the country. The mission has failed, so far.
We need to acknowledge this failure if we're going to think clearly about what's next. I have profound respect for optimists like Chris Alexander, who will tell you about the many victories since 2001 – roads, health clinics, polio vaccinations – and he's right, these are important. But how many roads are built in rural Afghanistan these days without paying bribes to local insurgents? How many villagers in Kandahar would get polio vaccinations without permission from the Taliban? Making the country better doesn't necessarily require fighting the insurgents – in many cases, it requires working with them.
Our soldiers have bravely followed orders in Kandahar. But they're being swept aside by a tidal wave of U.S. forces, and this surge is likely doomed to bring the same results as previous surges. Canada should withdraw its battle group, and push its allies toward peace talks.
Comments
Re:Marks
“ Thank you, Graeme, for one of the most intelligent articles I've read on this issue!
Shelley Stephenson