canada afghanistan mission

The Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee is about to unveil its vision for Canada's role in Afghanistan post-2011. It's time to put aside this irrelevant debate about detainees and get to the real conversation about how to meet Canada's strategic objectives. An excerpt from the Montreal Gazette:

The document takes no issue with the plan to withdraw Canada's battle group from Afghanistan at the end of 2011.

But what many have missed, Glavin said, is that Canada's development and aid package in Afghanistan is also due to expire at the end of 2011.

Yet Parliament is "paralyzed. Nobody knows what to do," Glavin said. Instead, MPs are engaging in an "elaborate work-avoidance activity" focused on the treatment of Afghan detainees more than three years ago.

"We need to have a new conversation in this country about a new mission," Glavin said. "We have to think about 2011 as the beginning of something, not the end of it."

Canada's mission in Afghanistan is the biggest thing the country has done militarily since the Korean War, he said.

"Are we going to turn that legacy into the greatest shame and embarrassment?

"We need to sharply refocus our objectives in Afghanistan. What are we there for? Why did all those soldiers die? How are we going to finish the job?"

To find out, the committee — made up of human-rights activists, Afghan-Canadians, academics, writers and journalists — consulted more than 100 organizations and individuals in Canada and Afghanistan.

"Everyone we talk to says, 'democracy,' " said Glavin. "Anything that gets in the way of that, we have to go through it like a wolf in a flock of sheep."

Canadian Forces have gained invaluable experience and up-close understanding of how to conduct operations in the utterly challenging security environment in Afghanistan. Our PRTs provide real benefits to the civilian population, along with the boots on the ground that have provided protection for these efforts. But will all that hard-earned experience be lost with a Canadian pullout post-2011? It doesn't need to happen.

In the Ottawa Citizen, Roland Paris lays out a basis for Canada's continued involvement alongside our ISAF and Afghan allies:

In yesterday's throne speech the federal government reiterated its plan to end Canada's military mission in Afghanistan next year. No one can fault Canadians for wanting to conclude this long, costly deployment. But by leaving behind a small contingent of troops to help train the Afghan Army, Canada could make a modest but vital contribution to the ongoing NATO operation.

Building Afghan security forces is central to NATO's disengagement strategy. The alliance hopes that the current "surge" of U.S. troops will reverse the insurgency's momentum and buy time to increase the size and capability of Afghan forces, thus making it possible to hand off the lead responsibility for security to Afghan army and police units, province by province, district by district.

Whether this plan will succeed or fail remains to be seen, but in a universe of bad options, it offers the best prospects for gradually ending NATO's massive Afghan mission in a responsible manner. (An irresponsible strategy, by contrast, would be to withdraw all NATO forces precipitously. Doing so would be a recipe for renewed civil war whose destructiveness would likely dwarf the guerrilla conflict now underway.)...

  Conditions have changed since March 2008. NATO urgently needs trainers now. The Canadian forces that are scheduled to leave Kandahar next year cannot simply be "replaced" by Afghan forces, as the March 2008 motion anticipated. The time has come for our party leaders to consider a new motion -- one that recognizes that Canada can still make important military contributions to the international mission, even after we withdraw the bulk of our forces from Afghanistan.

The OMLT's mission is a risky job: mentors must travel with their Afghan units, even into combat. But it is also an important task -- one that can be performed by a relatively small Canadian contingent.

Canada should make a concerted effort to block any attempt by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to strike a backroom peace deal with the Taliban, says Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan's main opposition leader.

"The sacrifices you have made here, and all your taxpayers' money. What for? You will have to ask that," Mr. Abdullah said in an interview.

He said Canada would not be trespassing on Afghanistan's sovereignty if it moves to block a "reconciliation" deal that circumvents Afghanistan's parliamentary system. More importantly, he said, Canada is burdened by a duty to its own citizens to see that it does not happen.

"You have more than a right to stay firm in that," Mr. Abdullah said. "Not just for the sake of any Afghan persons or an Afghan movement, but for the sake of the sacrifices you have made here. You are not in the business of betraying your own people. In that sense, it is an obligation."

The former Afghan foreign minister, who was Mr. Karzai's front-running challenger in last year's fraud-plagued presidential election, credited the Canadian-led Electoral Complaints Commission with heading off a fatal rupture in Afghanistan's young democracy last November.

A recount ordered by the commission forced Mr. Karzai to a runoff vote, but Mr. Abdullah declined the rematch, citing entrenched corruption in Afghanistan's elections system.

Mr. Abdullah said that despite the calamitous result, the intervention of the complaints commission and its Canadian chairman, Grant Kippen, saved the day. But he said that Canada cannot give up now, with a complete political collapse looming after Mr. Karzai's attempts to strike a power-sharing bargain with the Taliban.

"Had it not been for the commission's efforts, we would have had no hope," said Mr. Abdullah, who is in the early stages of building a broad-based political party with a focus on political accountability, transparency and fully free elections.

"There was a complaints commission that we could trust. They gave us hope. Without it, this country would have been in turmoil, and I'm not just talking about the Taliban. I'm talking about the whole political scene. It would have been in turmoil."

Unless Mr. Karzai is held democratically accountable as he proceeds with his Taliban reconciliation schemes, a far worse scenario looms.

While Mr. Karzai has been offering peace deals to the Taliban ever since he was first elected in 2004, he has ramped up his entreaties since his close-call re-election last November. The Taliban leadership has repeatedly rebuffed his appeals, but Mr. Karzai has lately won some Western backing for an internationally funded package of buyouts to Taliban fighters.

That plan has been overshadowed, however, by Mr. Karzai's oblique suggestions of outright power-sharing with the Taliban by granting its leaders top government posts and control of government ministries. At an international conference of more than 60 donor countries in London last month, Mr. Karzai further surprised delegates with an announcement that he intends to invite the Taliban to a traditional "jirga," or grand assembly, later this year.

  While this enthusiasm for deal-making has won some support in the war-weary countries that make up the NATOled ISAF coalition, Mr. Karzai's recent moves have set off loud alarms in Afghanistan.

"With whom are we going to negotiate? Who are the decision-makers?" Sabrina Saqib, an outspoken young Afghan MP, said in a separate interview. "The Taliban ... say that they want the foreign forces gone. Is this negotiable? Canada has come to bring us democracy. If you leave, I don't know how many days I will have."

She said an "exit strategy" sell-out to the Taliban would reverse all the gains that Canada and the other 42 members of the International Security Force have made in Afghanistan, Ms. Saqib said.

Canada's Lawrence Cannon was one of the few foreign ministers to express skepticism about Mr. Karzai's reconciliation scheme in London last month. Nevertheless, while Ottawa's long-standing policy of backing "Afghan-led reconciliation efforts" is appreciated by the Afghan people, the policy could be easily subverted, Mr. Abdullah warned. The policy could make Canada complicit in a power-sharing deal that reverses Afghanistan's slow and painful strides toward democracy.

"I know how bureaucracy sometimes works," Mr. Abdullah said. "You go along with something if it suits."

He said Afghanistan's friends around the world should hold Mr. Karzai accountable to democratic principles and not let him get away with turning back the clock. "The government is shifting the whole focus to how we should bring the Taliban back. This is very dangerous.

"If the Taliban will finally break the resolve of the North American public to stay in Afghanistan, they will be back," he continued. "They don't want to be part of the political process. They want to destroy it and replace it with their own.

"All this talk about reconciliation is very tempting for the international community, but this is a charade. Who is talking about fighting corruption? Everybody is talking about reconciliation, and it doesn't have a foundation, it doesn't have a basis. If you pay bribes to people through the same corrupt system, then all you're left with is corruption."

The National Post is running a series of commentaries on the idea, gaining traction in some circles, of negotiating with the Taliban and getting international troops out of the country (just before the Taliban tear up any peace deals and conquer the country all over again, presumably). Here is a roundup of these excellent op-eds:

Matt Gurney: Beware a 21st-century Vietnam
Those eager to find a negotiated end to the war in Afghanistan must recall that invading, occupying and rebuilding a foreign country after a major terrorist attack reflects the middle ground of retaliatory options. If a diplomatic debacle in the pursuit of peace at any cost allows Afghanistan to go down in history as a failure, a war best not fought, the consequences to future generations might be worse the next time a rogue nation effectively declares war against the West, as the Taliban/al-Qaeda criminal consortium did in 2001.

Afghanistan's challenges going forward are magnified to the extent that corruption saps efficiency of development and morale of the population. Canadians are working hard to help Afghan custom agents learn best practices. Bribing officials won't come to an end overnight, but hopefully with the right kind of mentoring, in tandem with overall improvements in other aspects of business, Afghans see better fairness and transparency. An excerpt from a report in the Gazette:

Two uniformed Canadian customs officers have been in Kabul since the beginning of the year to mentor Afghan customs officers on revenue collection and drug enforcement and, crucially, to not take bribes.

More Canadian agents are likely to be coming in the near future.

The presence of the Canadians in the capital is part of a multi-pronged $2.2-million Afghan initiative by the Canada Border Services Agency.

Their aim is to professionalize the Afghan customs service by making its officers and recruits less susceptible to pressure from their friends, tribal elders and others who import or export contraband, such as opium, or try to avoid paying duty on legitimate trade.

The international mission in Afghanistan faces a tough year ahead as more troops come to this land to counter the insurgency and provide security for development. But as Ann Marlowe points out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, some elements of our strategy are lacking:

Fifth, and worst, Gen. McChrystal seems to be doing his best to hearten the insurgency and dismay Afghan progressives. Our commanding general told the Financial Times last week that the point of the surge was to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, rather than clearing and holding insurgent-ridden areas of Afghanistan.

Gen. McChrystal gets it wrong on other issues. He envisions Pakistan—a country that provides sanctuary to the Taliban—as a facilitator of talks, though most Afghans believe Pakistan is trying to destabilize their country. He imagines the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia—both the source of dubious charities that fund the insurgency—as venues for the talks. And he remarks that insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is "most likely to cut a deal," noting that he is a "former prime minister."

Hekmatyar is better known as a psychopath who began his political career by throwing acid in the faces of female students when he attended Kabul University in the 1970s. He's on our list of international terrorists and should be captured or killed—not negotiated with.

No surrender to the thugs. No negotiations with psychopaths. A future for Afghanistan will not be built by cutting deals with monsters.