by heavy-handed U.S.-led tactics, especially the use of air power against villages when the Americans believe Taliban or Al-Qaeda members are present. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of innocent civilians have died in such strikes, prompting angry family members and friends to join the insurgency. Yet Canada’s response to the escalating dangers has been to assign more rather than less soldiers and equipment to the counter-insurgency mission. Before it was voted out of office, Paul Martin’s government almost doubled the size of the “battle group” being deployed to Kandahar, from 1,250 to 2,300 soldiers.
Still, the Martin government continued to sell the deployment to Canadians as primarily a reconstruction exercise, as the following excerpt from a speech delivered by Defence Minister Bill Graham in October 2005 makes clear:
[T]he Government of Canada’s “3-D Approach,” which integrates defence, diplomacy and development assistance in our international operations, is tailor made to a policy emphasis on failed and failing states. This holistic and integrative approach gives Canada comparative strength in achieving objectives on the ground, whether that is security and stabilization, humanitarian relief, institution building or economic development.
And the troubled country of Afghanistan, where the Canadian Forces has been deployed consistently since 2002 in varying numbers and missions, is a quintessential example of where we can effectively bring these assets to bear.
In March 2006, just five weeks after he became prime minister, Stephen Harper flew to Kandahar. In a photo op that could have been scripted by Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s chief political adviser, he told our troops that Canadians were subject to the same terrorist threat as Americans. He implied that anyone who questioned the militaristic approach would be emboldening the terrorists and putting Canadian lives at risk. The prime minister sounded remarkably like Bush when he said, “Canadians don’t cut and run at the first sign of trouble.”
Yes, indeed. But surely we’re beyond the “first sign of trouble” now?
As I write, at least forty-four Canadian soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan, along with one diplomat. There have likely been additional losses among our special forces, who operate behind a veil of secrecy that extends to the reporting of casualties. Then there are the hundreds of seriously wounded Canadian soldiers, with lost limbs, blindness, brain damage or other forms of severe psychological harm. Hundreds more deaths and injuries are likely in the months and years ahead.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Canadians might have tolerated such losses. The Bush administration had not yet shifted its attention from Afghanistan to Iraq, nor squandered sympathy by bombing villages and mistreating prisoners. The limitations of the counter-insurgency approach had not yet been driven home, notwithstanding the abundance of historical precedents, ranging from the American Revolution to Vietnam and the previous British and Soviet occupations of Afghanistan.
But let us be honest: whatever our political inclination, we all have a tipping point at which we’d call for Canada’s troops to be brought home. Nobody is willing to argue that the counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan would be worth the lives of a thousand Canadian soldiers. On that basis, it is essential that we engage in a hard-nosed assessment of where our national tipping point should be. I will begin by considering the arguments in favour of the mission.
First, it is argued that the mission is necessary to protect Canadians from the threat posed by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. This is a serious argument, but it can be exaggerated. The Taliban do not pose a threat to the existence of Canada. They are not about to invade. Nor are they developing weapons of mass destruction or missiles capable of reaching North America. The Al-Qaeda elements sheltering behind the Taliban do not pose an existential threat to Canada either. They certainly provide moral and perhaps technical support to aspiring terrorists elsewhere. But if the threat had been truly serious, Washington would not have shifted its focus to removing Saddam Hussein from power in Baghdad. Nor would Pakistan’s unelected president, General Pervez Musharraf, be allowed to conclude deals with pro-Taliban militants along the border of Afghanistan, while denying NATO forces access to that region.
Clearly, we do have a national interest in containing Al-Qaeda. Yet even if that interest were worth more Canadian soldiers’ lives, it is not clear that the counter-insurgency mission is making progress towards that goal. After five years of efforts by American, British and Canadian troops, southern Afghanistan has become significantly more dangerous.
Second, it is argued that the counter-insurgency mission is needed to restrict the production of opium. Illegal narcotics are certainly a concern. But despite the presence of Canadian troops, opium production has increased dramatically. In September 2006, the Senlis Council, an international policy think-tank with offices in Kabul, London, Paris and Brussels, reported that:
[D]espite all counter-narcotics and alternative development funds, the opium crisis in Afghanistan is worse than ever, and entrenched in almost all facets of Afghan society. Five years of flawed counter-narcotics priorities have brought no positive change in Afghanistan. They have only served to undermine government legitimacy, stability, security and development, whilst farmers have lost confidence in the current Karzai administration. Ultimately, this loss of confidence has ultimately aided insurgents. Five years ago, the total area of cultivated hectares of poppy was less than half of the current total.
Third, it is argued that the counter-insurgency mission is needed to protect the Afghan people. But, again, are we actually achieving this goal? In September 2006, I met Malalai Joya, a diminutive but fiercely courageous woman who, at 27 years old, was the youngest member of the Afghan National Assembly. Joya drew my attention to the appalling conditions in which most Afghans live. Five years after the U.S.-led intervention began, they have an average life expectancy of less than forty-five years (compared with eighty years in Canada), and 1,600 mothers out of 100,000 die during childbirth (compared with 6 out of 100,000 in Canada). Joya also identified the presence of many former warlords in the National Assembly, most of them accused of heinous crimes. She called the election that brought them to power “a sham” and decried the corruption that was siphoning off billions of dollars of much-needed foreign aid. She concluded: “I think that no nation can donate liberation to another nation. Liberation should be achieved in a country by the people themselves.”
If protecting the Afghan people is our goal, we need to do a better job of ensuring that Canada’s overseas development assistance reaches those who need it most. In October 2006, Amir Attaran explained in the Toronto Star that almost all of the money provided by the Canadian International Development Agency to Afghanistan “is channelled through international middlemen, such as the World Bank or the UN Development Program,” who “commingle CIDA’s money with that of other countries.” When they do this, “CIDA refuses to divulge any monitoring, evaluation or audit reports without the agreement of those other countries” even though “nothing in the Access to Information Act obliges CIDA to consult so widely or to withhold project results.”
Attaran concluded:
A possible reason for CIDA’s secrecy is that the prognosis for Afghanistan’s development is lousy.
Nearly five years after the Taliban’s ouster, even Kabul, the capital city, goes without full-time electricity. This year’s Afghan heroin trade will net a street value of more than $50 billion U.S. Compare that to Afghanistan’s current development aid from all countries: only $1.8 billion U.S.
If Afghans follow the money then Afghanistan is not likely to develop as Canada wants.
It is also time to talk with the Taliban. In August 2006, New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton called for the withdrawal of Canadian troops from the counter-insurgency mission “as soon as possible—working with our international partners to ensure a safe and smooth transition—but with a view to having it complete by February 2007.” At the same
