- Reaction score
- 5,551
- Points
- 1,260
Here is an interesting article by Senator Colin Kenny, chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence, from today's Ottawa Citizen. My emphasis added.
http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=769bdb68-c4eb-4c1e-9c08-69acf3c2e177
http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=769bdb68-c4eb-4c1e-9c08-69acf3c2e177
The lack of leadership
Canada's politicians have failed in their duty to tell Canadians and the military why we're in Afghanistan
Colin Kenny
Citizen Special
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Canada is sending 2,000 troops to Kandahar, one of the most volatile regions of Afghanistan, replete with warlords, drug runners, terrorists and fellow travellers. But our troops should not be going there without 32 million other Canadians firmly behind them.
These warriors desperately need the support of their government and of the citizens of the country whose interests they are advancing. That's what war is all about: advancing the interests of the people of your nation. That's us.
If these soldiers -- most of them very young -- and their families are going to get the support they deserve, someone is going to have to explain to Canadians exactly why we are in Kandahar, how long we expect to be there, what we believe we can accomplish there, and at what cost.
This is the responsibility of the Canadian government. If the government is not clear and forthright about its rationale for putting young Canadians in harm's way in Kandahar, and if its analysis of what can be accomplished there is not correct, the troops will not get the national support that any bunch of scared kids need, no matter how tough they are.
Canadians are wary of war. Most of them didn't want to go anywhere near Iraq, and they have been proven right. But when it comes to Afghanistan, most of us seem more sleepy than curious about what is likely to happen there.
It's a little late to wake up when the first body bags start coming home.
The government shouldn't wait until then. If it believes it has the right motives for being in Afghanistan and a sound analysis of what it wants to -- and can -- accomplish there, it should be putting its position forward and the whole cabinet should be working as a team to call on Canadians to support it.
We should have had a national debate about the validity of our mission in Afghanistan. So far, the government has pretty well left it to military commanders and military analysts to moot what the government might have in mind.
Maj.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, one of Canada's top generals, was quoted on Monday as calling Canada's mission in Afghanistan a 20-year venture. And he said the commitment was necessary: "There are things worth fighting for. There are things worth dying for. There are things worth killing for."
Indeed, there are such things. There is no doubt that Canada should play its part in attempting to suppress terrorism in particular, and global instability in general. We have to be part of the team fighting to do this; we can't leave it up to our friends and allies. But is Afghanistan the right place for us to be contributing? And, if it is, what kind of contribution is most likely to be both useful and possible? What can we Canadians hope to accomplish there? What will it cost us?
Chris Alexander, Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan, told me it would take five generations to turn Afghanistan into a civil society within a workable state. Really? Are Canadians up for a long-term commitment to a society that drove both the British and Soviets into full retreat?
We're up against a bag of snakes. The thugs who have been exploiting Afghans for centuries know their territory well, know how to retreat into obscure, mountainous places when things heat up, have a terrified population as a support group, are motivated by greed or zealotry or both, and have endless patience. Much more patience than western societies have for waging wars that may turn out to be endless, or unwinnable.
How can we "win" in Afghanistan, in terms that any Canadian would describe as any kind of genuine victory, worth the cost?
I see two options. The first is to hit and run. We, along with our allies, send troops and bombing missions in from time to time to break up training camps and try to keep the terrorist threat off balance. There isn't a lot of risk -- within the military's definition of risk -- to this approach, but the gains are also likely to be minimal. There would be little disruption to the drug trade that helps finance the terrorists and no winning of hearts and minds of the people we are trying to sell on the merits of western-style democracy.
Or we can get ass-deep into nation-building. The Americans are notorious for storming in, winning bloody battles, and then failing to put forth the resources to sustain the peace. Canada's new defence policy commits our country to "Triple-D": defence, diplomacy and development. It recognizes that failed states require more than military assistance to resuscitate them.
How do you define success with such a policy? Ambassador Alexander in Kabul defined it as putting an elected president in place (which has been done), putting an elected assembly in place (coming this year), and approximately tripling the average annual income of Afghans to $1,000 a year to supplant the country's dependence on poppies.
His last criterion may be a pipe dream -- I expect those poppies to be growing long after I'm gone. But even if it weren't a pipe dream, these accomplishments fall short of what constitutes success.
That success -- if it is possible -- will take what amounts to Triple-D "Plus." To help create a sustainable, civilized society, somebody is going to have to plow resources into Afghanistan to help with health care, the judiciary, alternative agriculture, energy, irrigation, and so on. What is required is massive, and there would be no guarantee of the kind of success that the Marshall Plan in Europe enjoyed after the Second World War. There, we were dealing with industrialized, literate populations with democratic histories. In Afghanistan, we are not.
Could it ever, within the bounds of reasonable developmental investment, be made to work? Are Canadians up for such a mammoth effort in such a far-off land, even if there were some prospect of making it work? If we're not fully committed to defence, diplomacy and development in Afghanistan, does deploying our young men and women into such dangerous territory really make sense?
These are all legitimate questions, and I am looking to my government for answers.
Polls shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq showed that a large majority of Americans thought that particular war made good sense. Two years later, the majority believe otherwise. They have their reasons.
Washington built the case for its deployment on fallacious arguments. Canada should make its case for being in Afghanistan with integrity, telling us why, telling us how, and telling us what the cost is likely to be.
The federal government must tell us that we are not just in there replacing American troops so those American troops can be shifted to Iraq.
Being up front about why you're at war is called political leadership. It's what our soldiers and their families deserve, and it's what 32 million Canadians must have if they are to believe that this dangerous mission is being fought on their behalf and if they are going to cast aside their reservations about throwing their support behind it.
Honesty, clarity and wisdom will win the day.
Senator Colin Kenny is chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence.
E-mail: kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca
© The Ottawa Citizen 2005
