| Ander Nieuws week 38 / nieuwe oorlog 2009 |
The Chronicle Herald
September 8, 2009
Scott Taylor
Arguably, one of the most bizarre statements made to date on the still undecided Afghan elections came from NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen.
According to Rasmussen, the voting process, which has yet to either proclaim a winner or to satisfy even the most rudimentary criteria of a democratic process, was a "success."
To clarify the yardstick by which he measured such success, Rasmussen noted that from a security perspective, things went swimmingly.
To be fair to the secretary general, it is true that only 26 secur-ity officers and civilians were killed in polling station-related violence.
The voter turnout was admittedly lower than expected, lower than previous elections and still possibly insufficient to make the vote official. So it is hard to deny the fact that the Taliban threats of retribution against voters did have some negative impact on participation.
One could argue that as the head of the military alliance tasked with providing security in Afghanistan, Rasmussen has little option but to publicly continue beating a long-dead horse. Similarly, former deputy prime minister John Manley has used the occasion of the Afghan elections to apply another layer of makeup to the rotting cadaver of Afghan democratic development.
After visiting Kabul as an official election observer, Manley rushed back to Canada to take to the airwaves and pen editorials urging Canadians not to give up on Afghanistan.
According to Manley, "Canadians have paid dearly in both lives and treasure over the past eight years for a good cause in a country far away, little known to us, where our direct interests are not all that clear."
This admission of ignorance would be admirable were it not for the fact that John Manley is one of the key navigators who plotted Canada's course onto the proverbial shipwreck-littered shores of landlocked Afghanistan in the first place.
It was back in 2003, when Canada agreed to support the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, that Finance Minister John Manley set Canada's budget limit of $250 million. At that point, it was predicted that within two years, the Afghan security forces would be up and running, presidential elections scheduled for 2004 would be concluded, and by summer of 2005, our troops could safely declare "mission accomplished" and head home.
At that stage, the Taliban were long since toppled, and it was expected that a simple show of force - in berets and open-topped, unarmoured Iltis Jeeps - would be enough to thwart lawlessness.
While military planners guardedly predicted a death toll that might climb as high as 10, this was not expected to come in the form of enemy action, but rather unexploded ordnance and uncollected landmines.
Fast-forward to the fall of 2007 and it was already quite clear that the rosy picture painted by Manley and the Liberal government had not materialized. The Conservatives had inherited the war just as our area of responsibility shifted from Kabul to Kandahar. The casualty count had multiplied and the budget ballooned into the billions.
Canadians began questioning the cost of the mission, and with a minority government, Prime Minister Stephen Harper could not ignore the issue. To determine what course we should take, Harper turned to none other than John Manley to head up an independent task force.
While that five-person panel had a paper-thin resume on central Asian affairs, they were certainly well experienced in matters of Canada-U.S. relations, and that after all, was the driving force behind Manley's task force.
In late January 2008, this bipartisan panel tabled their findings and recommendations. Not surprisingly, Manley advocated that Canada should "stay the course," but he added a couple of provisos that needed to be met before extending our mission beyond the pullout date of February 2009.
Manley said an additional 1,000 NATO troops were needed in Kandahar to tip the balance in favour of the international forces, that our army needed to obtain heavy-lift helicopters in order to reduce battlefield casualties from improvised explosive devices, and that we needed to concentrate on training and equipping the Afghan security forces.
Twenty months after the panel tabled its findings, Manley's prerequisites for success have all been met or exceeded, yet the war has only escalated. Instead of the 1,000 soldiers Manley requested, the Americans have pledged 20,000 reinforcements, with 3,000 Marines already being added to the garrison in Kandahar.
Canada did manage to acquire six used U.S. Chinook helicopters, which we've been flying in Afghanistan since February.
Nevertheless, our casualty count has steadily increased, and 2009 is already the bloodiest year of the conflict.
As for the Afghan security forces, they are now numbered at 175,000 police and soldiers, compared to an estimated 15,000 Taliban and insurgents. With a more than 10:1 numerical superiority, exactly when will the Afghans be considered self-sufficient?
In his most recent editorials, Manley once again stressed the urgency with which troops must train the Afghan forces, and he states: "No more time can be wasted."
Given that we are already four years beyond the original deadlines for success, that would appear to be one hell of an understatement.
I do admire the courage of Mr. Manley for the simple fact that he has been so consistently wrong in his predictions regarding Afghanistan and yet he continues to offer his advice publicly.
A lesser man would simply shrink away and distance himself from his failures.
Scott Taylor is an author and editor of Esprit de Corps magazine.
© 2009 The Halifax Herald Limited
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