We’ve Lost Our Bragging Rights

About a year ago Canada’s military leadership heralded a great victory in Panjwai District. We had met the Taliban and thoroughly defeated them. Those who hadn’t run away died where they stood. Sweet victory. We not only showed the Taliban but we also showed everyone else in NATO how it was done, that the insurgents could be crushed.

Well we got a few months out of that at least. Local Afghans returned to their homes. We got on with reconstruction and winning the hearts and minds.

And then the Taliban decided they’d like to return. They announced their arrival with IEDs, improvised explosive devices, a form of booby trap that took three Canadian lives in June and six more earlier this week.

Grame Smith of the Globe & Mail says our fortunes in Panjwai have taken a turn for the worse:

“…parts of the district are falling back into Taliban hands, locals say, after security duties were handed to a ragtag police force that quickly found itself overwhelmed by a lack of supplies and reduced to banditry for survival.

“The 05 Police Standby Battalion, a reserve unit, became notorious for corruption and desertions soon after it deployed to Panjwai this spring. The police unit also marked a new low point in the recent history of policing in the region when a police commander revived an old feud with an official from the National Directorate for Security, the Afghan intelligence agency.

“The personal dispute spiralled into open warfare between the two law-enforcement agencies around the villages of Mushan and Talokan in recent weeks, according to police who survived the battles, and village elders from the district.

“Ismatullah, a young police commander, said his 05 Battalion unit was assigned in April to take over security in Mushan, about 50 kilometres southwest of Kandahar city. By his own admission, Ismatullah says his men quickly resorted to thievery to supply themselves with things in short supply: money, food, bullets and fuel.

“Ismatullah says his unit contained 40 officers when they arrived in Mushan, but he now commands only a handful of men after 14 died, five were injured, and others ran away.

“Another police commander from the 05 Battalion, a middle-aged former mujahedeen fighter named Obidullah, said his unit in Zangabad has suffered similar losses. He commanded 50 police earlier this year, he said, but deaths and desertions have left him with 20 men.

“The recent battles in Mushan started without any Taliban involvement, Obidullah said: The conflict was only between tribal relatives of two factions who held grudges dating back to the 1980s. But the infighting weakened the government forces and insurgents were able to seize the western edge of the district, he said.

“Lieutenant-Colonel Rob Walker, Canada’s battle group commander, said in a recent interview that he knows the 05 Battalion has struggled. The district has grown more restive since early June, he said, but it’s hard to tell why the police have suffered so many casualties.

“‘They started getting hit,’ he said. ‘Was it because they were extorting people? Was it because they’re soft targets for the Taliban?'”

 

Reading Between the Lines

Thomas Walkom, writing in today’s Toronto Star, castigates the Senate defence committee for issuing a report that fails to say what it screams when read between the lines: that Canada’s “mission” to Afghanistan isn’t going to succeed.

The problem isn’t with the Canadian soldiers over there. They’ve proven themselves courageous and dedicated. It’s that there aren’t nearly enough of them over there, especially not enough over there from other NATO members.

It’s that Afghanistan is a medieval society that has no interest in transforming itself into a Western-style democracy.

It’s that the government of Hamid Karzai, the one we’re propping up, the one our soldiers are fighting and dying for, “routinely shakes down its own citizens. Its army and police are, in the words of committee chair Colin Kenny, ‘corrupt and corrupter.'”

The report asks whether Canadians are, “…willing to commit themselves to decades of involvement in Afghanistan, which could cost hundreds of Canadians lives and billions of dollars, with no guarantee of ending up with anything like the kind of society that makes sense to us? If we aren’t willing to hang in for the long haul, what will have been the point of five years of Canadian lives and Canadian money disappearing?”

“To ask these questions is to answer them. Most Canadians will not agree to a war that takes decades to prosecute yet produces no results. And if, as the senators conclude, this is the prognosis, then the last five years of Canadian involvement – and Canadian deaths – have been pointless.”

So where does this leave us? In my view, we have done our post 9/11 bit for the United States. The reason we’re still in Afghanistan is because the US stupidly drained off its fighting force to wage a war of whim in Iraq. Every day our soldiers go into battle, they’re paying for George Bush’s duplicity.

We have done our job as babysitters in Kandahar while the Americans went out for their night on the town in Baghdad. Time for them to come home and take care of their own kids just like any responsible parents. This babysitter, Canada, needs to go home too.

 

Partners in Torture?

One of the most controversial aspects of Canada’s participation in the Global War Without End on Terror has been the fate of those captured by our forces.

It appears that once we get them in the bag, we give them a quick medical check and then hand them over either to US or Afghan authorities. Eventually the detainees names are reported to the International Red Cross but that’s it. Unlike the Dutch contingent, Canada does nothing to follow up on these prisoners to ensure they’re properly treated or, to be more direct, not tortured.

The Afghan security forces are known not only for their corruption but also their brutality. Without foreign oversight they pretty much have a free hand in dealing with their captives.

The question becomes whether Canada is complicit in torture by delivering suspected insurgents into the hands of those we have reason to believe will mistreat them? Under our law, a person is deemed to intend the logical consequences of his acts. Turning a blind eye isn’t good enough.

It’s time General Hillier got off his duff and started explaining Canada’s position on the torture question.