Another Canadian Hostage

Why Canadians, why not Australians, or Germans? Isn't it always German and Australian youth who are portrayed as curious about the world around them, adventurous, always heaving off on bold new forks in the road? When was it that Canadians began experimenting with the joys and the travails of venturing in bold pursuit of new places in various geographies of the world?

The allure of placing oneself in dangerous situations appears to have become an irresistible attraction to young Canadians. As well as older ones.

The Taliban dispatched a woman convinced that they would never harm her for she had herself become Muslim, and defended their right to protect their country from the incursion of foreign troops. Beverly Giesbrecht, also known as Khadija Abdul Qahaar, kidnapped on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, also videoed and finally murdered.

A few years earlier it was three women in Afghanistan who advanced the cause of women and children and whom the Taliban pumped bullets at, despite that their white SUV bore the markings of the International Rescue Committee. One woman acknowledged as an authority on education for women and girls in zones of conflict, the other committed to assist disabled Afghan children.

And now a 26-year-old Canadian man taken hostage by Mujahideen in central Afghanistan. A video released by his captors show him being interviewed. He is trying to convince his captors that he is not, as they claim, an intelligence spy, but simply a tourist with an interest "in history and historic sites, old buildings, shrines...I am an auditor from Canada and I came as a tourist", he tells them.

What makes young people feel they are somehow immune from danger when they present themselves in what are clearly dangerous world hot-spots, like active war zones? Are they that naive, or do they harbour a secret death wish? One that the local psychopaths are only too eager to fulfill for them.

Doing Jihad

That was some street party. It made a lot of people very happy. Almost five hundred, in fact. Who were most dissatisfied with the lodgings they were placed in that kept them too tied up to attend to the kind of dedicated and comprehensive activities they far preferred to be involved with. Little did they know that a little conspiracy was afoot, courtesy of government auspices and their happy-club, to free them from the inconvenience of bars and release them back to the activities they love best.

"The most astonishing thing" ,trumpeted the Taliban was that their carefully planned and executed route to the outside world for the politically-motivated inhabitants of Sarpoza prison in Kandahar City went serenely undetected for the many hours it took to void the cells of their prisoners. Astonishing too that the prison break-out might not have concluded so successfully had its planners-and-executors not been in possession of keys to the prison cells.

"They were just sleeping. They are always intoxicated, smoking heroin, smoking hashish, or sleeping", one of the escapees said dismissively of the prison guards who had no inkling, not the merest suspicion over the course of the night that anything amiss was occurring. The soundless and hushed exercise where Taliban members went about the political wing of the prison to awaken and hustle prisoners down into the escape tunnel escaped their notice.

These are the very guards who received careful and detailed training by experienced Canadian correctional services agents, to teach them the fine points of prisoners' rights, and the lawful and effective manner in which their profession should be practised. Correctional Services Canada had a number of officials regularly travel to Afghanistan to monitor the process.

Canada invested several millions in physical upgrades to the building.

And additional funding to the overhauling of the insecure and previously incompetent professionalism of Sarpoza's staff guards. This was seen as a huge improvement over the situation that prevailed a few years earlier when an earlier prison break-out occurred. Like everything else in Afghanistan, considering the corruption of the government, the national police and the armed forces, outside sources cannot compensate for a cultural lack of commitment.

The Taliban, determined to recover what they consider rightfully theirs by conquest, have not been idle in the face of NATO's recent successes. They planned well, but could not possibly have conducted the operation as successfully as they did without inside help. And despite the declarations of the Afghan government spokesman after the fact, there were obviously those in high places who were complicit.

How is it possible that over a period of five months' excavation work, the resulting tons of soil carted off in trucks and even on donkeys went unnoticed? A tunnel 320 metres long - a full kilometer - that went under a major highway and the outer prison wall, directly into the prison itself would result in an awful lot of excavated soil to be disposed of. And considering that the tunnel was 2 meters wide by 2.5 tall, even more so.

The start of the tunnel was inside a metal-making shop that came in handy to produce metal bars to bulwark the tunnel under the highway. That's a lot of heavy labour for a team of 18 men; and no one noticed...? The tunnel was ventilated with fans, electrified for light, and nothing irregular was noted? The tumult of almost five hundred men being suddenly notified that freedom was at hand, just fellow me - not heard, not seen, not spoken of.

And the deputy intelligence chief in Kandahar, who obviously has the title, but no inkling of what intelligence might actually consist of in its gathering potential and vital importance, moans that "this will have a negative effect on Kandahar's security situation." Yes, it most definitely will, given that some one hundred and more of the escapees represented high-value Taliban chiefs.

Abdul Wahab Salihi, the deputy intelligence chief in Kandahar may claim to be upset about the misfortune that has befallen the prison, but the escapees clearly are elated: "I have been doing jihad for 10 years. I will fight again, I will fight again."

The Patient? Surviving

Updates on Afghanistan from NATO and from the U.S. military paint a glowing picture of societal and military success. The country is brimming with opportunities for its people. Children are finally being educated. Women are free to be themselves, to stroll outside their homes, to acquire jobs, free from persecution.

The country is being ably administered by a democratic government. NATO is training the national police and the military and conscripts are growing in numbers and doing very well.

Corruption is endemic, seen in every walk of life, a reflection of the situation is in the government itself. But this is traditional, and Afghanistan is on its way to recovering its pride and its dignity and will deal with such irrelevancies in due time.

Except that the political opposition in the country feels that the corrupt voting that confirmed Hamid Karzai firmly back as president with former war lords back in parliament represents a signal failure. Abdullah Abdullah knows what democracy should look like, and it should not be a corrupt organ of a corrupt government.

All is not exactly how it seems, evidently. Families in Afghanistan are in fact less well off economically than they were years ago; they are struggling to access elemental needs. 42% of the Afghan population live below the poverty line. The unemployment rate is near 40%, but indigent foreign workers are brought in by international organizations to work (for them) as food servers, guards and cleaners.

Billions in foreign aid were spent in the country yet accountability is somehow not there. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction found poor construction methods used on building sites due to corruption, or incomplete structures. For all the children who are being educated, far more will never see the interior of a classroom. Child mortality rates remain high.

Young girls of twelve are still arranged into marriages with old men. And those who manage to survive childbirth will soon take on the mantles of old women, worn down by bearing children, caring for them, burying them, and working tirelessly in the home. Their young male counterparts will continue to answer the appeal of the Taliban for there are no other jobs available.

Government infrastructure, authority and security does not extend beyond the large provincial cities. Threats and violence, intimidation and obedience to the Taliban are imposed without intervention. Fear ensures that villagers remain complicit with the Taliban for fear of vicious reprisals. Violence is rising and there seems no end in sight.

When NATO departs the scene the niggling question of how a country as poverty-stricken as Afghanistan will ever be enabled to pay for its own security needs will present itself as a problem. The cost to the U.S. government alone yearly for its security presence in Afghanistan stands at $113-billion. According to World Bank estimates Afghanistan's GDP is $12-billion.

The much-vaunted value of provincial reconstruction teams that makes NATO members feel so proud of themselves for establishing model villages has ensured that the teams have a feeling of accomplishment, but the impact on institution building reflecting Afghan government involvement is absolutely nil.

These are all some of the conclusions sadly reached by Nipa Banerjee, one-time head of Canada's Kabul aid program from 2003 to 2006, who frequently returns to Afghanistan, and writes in Policy Options magazine, while teaching international development at the University of Ottawa.

How Corrupt?

Is anyone naive enough to think that there was no government hand in the prison tunnel break-out in Kabul?

President Hamid Karzai is intent on eventually driving an existential, government-sharing bargain with the Taliban. He really does believe that he is capable of surviving any such agreement. It would represent an indication of his 'good-will' toward the Taliban were he to be known as having permitted political prisoners, Taliban, to negotiate their freedom.

That no one might have been alerted to the presence of the scheme, none of the details revealed and shared, the reconnaissance, the physical effort of burrowing under a major highway, with the escape of almost 500 prisoners, a time-consuming, all-night occurrence of amazing success. Initiated five months earlier, the lengthy passage was 360 meters in length.

No hint of activity ever noticed by prison guards, as construction of the tunnel was ongoing, even though it was dug beneath various police checkpoints. And right into a prison cell. With the knowledge, so the exultant Taliban claim, of only three inmates. The exfiltration of prisoners began at 11:00 p.m. and took all night.

The following morning, at 7:30 a.m. a member of the Kandahar Provincial Council, Haji Agha Lali Dastagiri, was fielding telephone calls about the prison break. When he sought further information, contacting high-placed government officials, they were completely unaware of what was occurring. They said.

“I would call this a shameful incident for the Afghan government,” says Ahmad Shah Khan Achakzai, a former member of parliament in Kandahar. “It is impossible for the Taliban to get 500 men out of prison without anyone’s help. I believe there are some people from the prison or the government who gave the Taliban support.… It’s now clear to everyone how corrupt the government is.”

The government of Canada spent $5-million a few years back, fortifying the prison. After another, earlier prison break-out of Taliban prisoners.

NATO plans to leave Afghanistan after having trained the national police and the Afghan military in the finer points of applying military expertise to defending the country against the Taliban, purportedly. Claiming that they will leave the situation of the country's security in good hands.

Into Thin Air

The controversy of yet another celebrated and popular book, Three Cups of Tea, representing as more fancy than fact is once again demonstrating that the art of writing owes much to the imagination. Imagination and the artful embroidery of events to suit the purpose of the writer. This is, after all, what writers do.

It isn't supposed to be what writers do, in the popular imagination. Which is somewhat to science what the detailing of real-life adventure and experience is supposed to be. In science, when someone hatches a theory and convinces himself that he has to prove it through constructing experiments designed to prove the theory, this is falsification of the very essence of science.

When someone writes a book recounting his experiences upon which he bases an argument for the world at large and generous donors in particular to become seriously involved in good works and charity, readers must depend upon the veracity of his account if he is to realize their support.

Greg Mortenson's book grew a huge readership and convinced people that they must respond in assistance of providing Afghan girls with educational opportunities. His description of his experiences in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, his abduction by Taliban in Waziristan earned him respect by the U.S. military elite.

An adventurer-climber, he began with his K-2 experience, and his gratitude to villagers in a remote Afghanistan village earning his determination to provide their children with a school and learning opportunities. His commitment spread to other tribal communities, and his idea of educating girls in fundamentalist Islamic villages caught the imagination of donors.

Except that there was an expose on television that seemed to cast real doubt on Mr. Mortenson's claims when a research team discovered that schools were closed or were being used for storage, or taken over by the village itself to teach their young. And none other than mountaineer Jon Krakauer of Everest fame, a formidable adversary if actual events be fouled also cast doubts on the original village incident.

So the issue now is whether the account in Three Cups of Tea is entirely fraudulent, written to serve a specific purpose; the achievement of fame and fortune, or whether, despite some critical details having been embellished and dates reversed, the uplifting charitable venture of financing schools for Afghan children should continue.

If wealthy donors are looking for places where their charitable dollars might do some good, the financing of schools for children in Afghanistan is as good as any. Even if some of them end up as storage sheds for animal feed.

Reforming The Taliban

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai loves all his people. His people also comprise the Taliban. They have no love for him.

But President Karzai is well aware that time is running down where he can depend on the international community to sacrifice its military on behalf of his government. Training of the national police and the Afghanistan military by foreign military associated with NATO and the UN ISAF mission is ongoing and it is hoped that Afghans will finally be able to cope on their own in controlling violent jihadists among them.

The Taliban believe otherwise. They have nothing but contempt for Karzai, his corrupt instruments of administration, and his police and his military. Covertly they have proven themselves quite capable of infiltrating both the military and the police. In uniform as trainees or as simple impostors they have continued their jihadist agenda of wreaking vengeance against foreign interlopers, with Afghans in uniform turning against their foreign trainers.

Three police chiefs have been assassinated thus far, in Kandahar, along with a governor of the province in Kunduz - and police stations are continually being assaulted, new recruits slaughtered. Some of these attacks are not successful, many more are; some are "martyrdom" attacks, and with some the attackers successfully escape to go on to other exploits as Talib faithful.

The Taliban show no mercy, quite capable of the task they have set themselves, attacking and murdering villagers whom they suspect of working with foreign forces, laying traps for foreign forces through the expert manufacture and placing of improvised explosive devices, and withdrawing over the border to sanctuary within the mountainous badlands of Pakistan to regroup and spend the winter before beginning spring assaults.

When they lose members there are always more, eager new recruits to take their place, to be trained and energized in the struggle of the mujahadeen against the foreign elements who have once again invaded their country. A Taliban by the name of Toor Jan was recently interviewed for the National Post by Brian Hutchinson, in Kandahar City.

This commander of the Taliban troops decided he would take advantage of President Karzai's appeal to the militantly violent 'scholars' that if they abandoned their war with Afghanistan they would be welcomed back to normal society, given good employment and protection, cars and housing. Jan was actively involved manufacturing and setting IEDs at a time that Canadian forces were installed in Kandahar. During the 7 years he fought there, 126 Canadian soldiers died.

"We seized opportunities. Sometimes we ambushed. We would sit in a trench, waiting for the foreigners to approach, and then attack. Then we would run away fast, so they had no chance to counterattack. Sometimes we succeeded, sometimes we failed. But the IEDs were fantastic. We would plant them in areas where we knew the foreign troops were coming, and when they came we would just blow them up. From Iran we received RPGs and machine guns."

He described also how he and his men had no compunction about beheading 26 Afghan civilians in a small village. Encouraging them through fear and lies to join them, or at least not to betray their activities to the foreign soldiers. "We told them the foreigners were destroying their houses, their fields, their orchards, and killing their children. That is why the people became angry against them. They became violent against them."

That made recruitment among the villagers far easier. "We had 60 groups of Taliban fighters in Panjwaii. Each group had five to ten Talibs, and they were spread around the district. When we lost someone more fighters would arrive to take their place." He was himself so successful at what he did, he was given the post of district commander.

Finally he decided that the ongoing slaughter on both sides accomplished nothing at all for Afghans and Afghanistan. "The benefits only go to neighbouring countries. The sufferers and the casualties are Afghans. So I decided to switch sides. I heard about this reconciliation process. The government claimed that anyone who comes forward will be saved and can live in Afghanistan in peace."

Although he took part in the interview, and he was candidly clear about what he had done, with no apologies, no hesitation about revealing the atrocities he was involved with, he clearly felt he had nothing to apologize for, even while speaking to a representative of a foreign country, many of whose soldiers he had personally gone out of his way to kill.

But he was clearly less than satisfied with the bargain he had made with the government of Afghanistan. He was under Taliban threat, and had no bodyguards. ISAF had arrested one of his men who had surrendered with him, and his brother remains imprisoned. These are the factions of a country that is expecting that reconciliation will finalize a peace.

Once Again, Into The Maelstrom

Escaping battle and improvised explosive devices in Kandahar, which has already killed 155 Canadian soldiers, a Canadian news reporter and a diplomat, the Canadian military is preparing to send into the relatively safer precincts of Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif a select group of Canadian soldiers to train Afghanistan soldiers in the finer points of Western-style battle techniques.

In the treacherous atmosphere of a country riven by tribal antipathies, sectarian violence and the Islamist political ideologies of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, regrouping and gaining strength even as the clock ticks down to NATO member-countries planning to send their troops back home, the plan is to ensure that the Afghan police and Afghanistan's military become capable of defending their own.

Language difficulties, endemic corruption, security breached by suicide bombers, illiteracy - all conspire to make the job very difficult indeed. But NATO requires military trainers around that large geography bordering on Pakistan - where in the lawless tribal mountainous areas both the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban have safe haven - be available to teach military techniques of prime value to Afghan recruits.

There, where the foreign military trainers are stationed in various provinces of Afghanistan, the areas are more secure, less likely to be hosting IEDs. Rather, there is the potential of infiltration among the recruits by Taliban and al-Qaeda, posing as military recruits, and mounting attacks on their trainers when situations permit.

Risks are reduced considerably in the new initiatives to train before departing. But no military personnel sent out to do their duty on behalf of NATO can be entirely assured that they are in safe territory in Afghanistan. Any time a crazed or blistering angry Christian decides to burn a Koran in emulation of Muslims trashing and burning churches, the local populace feels entitled to rampage and target Western Christians for abusing Islam.

That aside, it is the Afghan soldiers on their own recognizance, or those mujahadeen posing as Afghan soldiers, deciding to obey their Islamist-jihad conscience rather than their Muslim leaders' dictates, deciding to kill foreigners, including those humanitarians working out of United Nations posts, the Canadian military has got to be aware of.

In Condemnation of Flaming Korans

Nothing quite so incendiary as the faithful having their faith flung back in their faces. Which is how Muslims interpret the casual, philistine attitude of the West toward their incomparable religion. Of course most Muslims don't reach that conclusion on their own initiative. They feel stung, believing that Islam is being mocked, satirized, made little of. For Islam is the single most important aspect of their lives.

Good, faithful Muslims completely surrender to Islamic precepts, which absorb every facet of their lives, every minute of the day. Everything revolves around Islam, all social interaction, all cultural attachments, all political awareness; justice is what Islam decrees it to be and a life well lived cannot be realized without utter surrender to the reality that cleaving to Islam is first and foremost.

How then is it possible for Islam to be mocked by ignorant, insulting boors? And because that is so, it is clear that the world outside Islam is unworthy of respect. Yet it cannot be ignored because it is there and because from within that world emanates from irritating time to frustrating event, assaults against the pious belief of the faithful.

From the mosques Islamist clerics preach not tolerance but revenge. Go out, leave Friday prayers and collect yourselves in a raging group to make certain that the world outside knows that their insulting degrading of Islam is not to be tolerated. Make the kuffar fearful of the strength of your undying commitment to Islam, make certain that he knows he will suffer.

So, in Afghanistan, where foreign, non-Muslim countries have invested treasury, have suffered the loss of their soldiers' lives in the larger aim of protecting Afghanistan and its population from the predations of fanatical Islamists, the Afghan population listens to the words of their mullahs, and they stream out of the mosques and rage through the streets.

It is not merely the unschooled, the unlettered, the ignorant, for at Kabul University, on the fifth day of raging against the insult of the burning of a Koran by a fundamentalist preacher in Florida, in that Great Satanic United States of America, the protest continues. In a country like Afghanistan a marauding mob intent on mayhem and revenge-killing represents a protest.

Officials in Afghanistan have issued figures: 19 people have died, while one hundred have been wounded since the inception of the 'demonstrations'. Of those who died were seven foreign United Nations staff members, slaughtered in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, during the mob attack of the United Nations compound there.

All is not lost; U.S. president Barack Obama and General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, have condemned the burning of the Koran. Not, alas, the murder of innocent people who work in the country to alleviate the plight of the unfortunate; Christians engaged in humanitarian work on behalf of Muslims.

Until Islam Feels Fully Avenged

There's some stinging irony in the fact that both the United States and Afghanistan represent centres of extreme fundamentalist religious ideologies. Let it be said that there the similarities in the two countries, tenuous though they are, come to a slamming halt. The United States is, and always has been, a civilized country. Afghanistan never has been mistaken for one throughout its long history. The United States is a relatively "new" country, while Afghanistan represents one with a hoary old past.

And while the United States has never really been 'occupied', never had foreign troops stationed on its soil, Afghanistan has had that profound experience, repeatedly. The United States is a technologically modern country, with an independent judiciary, and a Republican-style Democracy where citizenship is taken seriously and justice, fairness are liberty are top-of-mind for all its citizens. Afghanistan represents a stone-age throwback, rife with political and social corruption, where the concept of citizenship is an unknown.

There are political rivalries in each of these countries, but in the United States those rivalries are settled at the ballot box, or if otherwise done, handled in a court of law. In Afghanistan the rivalries are ethnic and tribal and clan-based, and there is nothing gentle or civil in the manner in which disagreements are solved. Murder and assassinations settle outstandingly irksome problems with one's neighbours, and never, ever are purported insults to Islam, the Koran or the Prophet countenanced outside of casually-committed capital punishment.

Murder is not officially condoned, but there are times when it is overlooked because a far more serious crime has been encountered. That of profaning the Koran, for example. The public outcry that results from insulting Islam can be heard in Outer Space where Allah doubtless covers his ears in disgust, while witnessing his creatures imbued with free will running amok, determined to slaughter those who dare defy the strictures against profaning his name.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, whose longevity in his political post owes entirely to the presence of American and other NATO-member troops in his country as they do his battle against the viciously bloody ravages of the fanatical Taliban, calls upon the United States Congress to censure a fundamentalist American citizen/cleric for destroying a Koran. A little-noticed non-event until Mr. Karzai transformed it into a national outrage.

When fanatical clerics preached enmity from their mosques, all over the country, inciting the ever-volatile response from the faithful to go out and demonstrate their incendiary anger with the hateful foreign invaders whose like burns Korans, the results were predictable. Hatred, looting, pillage, beatings, slaughter, and wholesale destruction seem to come naturally to the Koranic faithful.

In the United States it is lawful for any citizen to publicly behave in a manner that will be seen by some as insulting. It is their right in a free society to express themselves to that degree. In the world of Islam there are no rights, much less those of free speech. In the Islamic world there is fear and anger and hatred. And that fear and anger and hatred is dispatched whenever the world of Islam feels insulted.

The threat of violent reprisal is usually sufficient to still foreign criticism. No one willingly awakens the restless slumber of that massive beast.

In Kandahar, following an earlier riot of hatred and anger unleashed against the foreign presence of humanitarian aid workers working for the United Nations in Mazar-i-Sharif, another furious crowd of offended Muslims attacked in Kandahar, slaughtering another eight people to avenge themselves against the act of a Florida pastor torching a Koran in memory of the 9-11 attacks.

Anger: Afghan protesters burn an effigy of U.S. President Barack Obama during a demonstration in Jalalabad

The United Nations representative for Afghanistan is forgiving. He does not 'blame' Afghans for reacting to the atrocious insult to Islam. He does blame an ignorant fundamentalist preacher for inciting Afghans to display their hurt feelings. Standards of acceptable behaviour are obviously held to a different yardstick; the burning of a Koran is more reprehensible than the slaughter of innocent people who wished no harm to Afghans.

We know this must be so, since even the President of the United States speaks in measured tones of profound regret that a Koran was destroyed, and seems to equate in a most generously egalitarian manner the comparison between that atrocity and the viciously rampaging mobs that hunted down humanitarian aid workers and their guards to demonstrate unequivocally that what one Westerner wreaks in offence to Islam will be paid for many times over by other Westerners until Islam feels fully avenged.

Mission Unaccomplished

Nor will it ever be. If the mission is to civilize a nation, to haul them out of the Dark Ages that their geography, their ethnic heritage and their religion has parked them in. Afghanistan is a country that the future passed by. Having looked deeply into the dark soul of the country's primitive determination to bypass social civility in favour of a degraded anti-humanism, the future simply went elsewhere.

The country's future, such as it is, and such as it will be, will remain mired in stark fundamentalist ignorance and brutal abuse along with tribal antipathies expressing themselves in anger and hatred and violence. The laws of the country permit a death sentence if an insult to Islam is perceived, or if an individual makes a personal decision to abandon Islam and adopt another religion.

Women are aware they have few rights and fewer privileges in that patriarchal society that demeans the very presence of women among men, holding them as personal possessions who dare not endanger themselves by resisting the will of men. Girls are destined to become old before their time, given in marriage to old men, carrying babies and sweeping the hearth.

And dare anyone, anywhere in the world deconsecrate what is sacred to Allah, by insulting the Prophet Mohammed, or defiling a Koran, they will be destined for death. If the offender cannot be reached physically to absorb his deserved mortal punishment, why then any substitute will do.

And so it is that yet again symbols of Western oppression and degradation of sacred Islam have been taught another lesson. That fervent Muslims who worship their divine maker and his beloved emissary are more than willing to slaughter the offenders to correct the insult to the honour of Islam.

In Afthanistan, in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, recognized by Western powers as a moderate place prepared to shoulder its self-protective responsibilities as well as its civic institutional responsibilities, a peaceful demonstration against the burning of a Koran by an ignorant U.S. preacher reflected the nature of passion-ravaged minds.

Where a passionately religion-inspired mob overran a United Nations compound under the protection of the Afghan army and Afghanistan's national police who were forewarned of trouble brewing, and managed to avenge themselves by killing seven international UN staffers. People sent there representing the compassion of the international community to tend to the needs of Afghans.

And the Afghans reciprocated as is their wont.

Afghanistan Belongs to Afghans

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has experienced yet another of his fed-up moments. He had previously ordered private security operators out of Afghanistan. That did create somewhat of a problem for the foreign entities present who relied on those operators, as well as the NGOs who also hired them for security and protection amidst the violence that continues to prevail in the country.

President Karzai does appreciate, he says now and again, the efforts extended on the part of NATO and international humanitarian groups on behalf of his country's stability and security. He would dearly love to see them depart, but is yet dependent on their presence for his own longevity.

Yet he is also prepared to speak with the Taliban, covertly and overtly, to bargain and make co-governing overtures to them. None of which have as yet been accepted.

Currently, foreign troops consider the most valuable aspect of their operations in the country to be represented by a newer initiative; the provincial reconstruction teams. Where, they feel, they have the opportunity to ensure that remote villages are kept safe from the Taliban, where they aid in building schools and medical clinics, and general civil infrastructure.

In short, the kinds of activities that any responsible, self-respecting government would normally undertake on its own initiative, ably representing the needs of the people they govern. But which the Government of Afghanistan has been abysmally incapable of doing, let alone providing any measure of security.

But now, he has decided that those activities should come to a halt. He bridles at having been by-passed, that his government stands idly by while other countries perform the vital tasks the population in 27 of the country's 34 provinces require to have faith in their future, absent the Taliban, still resolutely lingering.

"Afghanistan belongs to Afghans", he fulminated at a news conference in Kabul. "Afghans don't want government from abroad. Afghans don't want a European government. Afghans don't want an American government. Afghans don't want a Pakistan government. Afghans don't want an Iranian government."

Most assuredly. Wouldn't we all love to have Afghanistan rule itself and take responsibility for its own security. Wouldn't all the foreign elements now in place there anxiously await the relief that departure from that geography would endow them with. An Afghan government ready and capable of looking after its own.

Over to you now, President Karzai.

Investigation Concluded

It sounds like a noble mission. To use his elite academic position and knowledge of the law to fight for the rights of those whom he considers to be vulnerable, oppressed, lesser creatures of society by virtue of the fact that they have no one to speak on their behalf and become victims of policies both social and political.

His very position as a professor at the University of Ottawa and Canada Research Chair in law, population health and global development policy aids weight to his mission.

His academic credentials reflect his training as a biologist and a lawyer. He has invested himself in speaking up for health and human rights issues. And he has bought into the prevalent belief among some within Canada, including the NDP and the Liberals, that under the current NATO-led mission in Afghanistan, Canadian soldiers and their leaders are guilty of human rights abuses.

Dr. Attaran has been convinced that Afghan prisoners captured by the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan were abused when they were handed over to the Afghan national security forces. This situation may have occurred as well, according to available data, during the previous Liberal-led government, although the Armed Forces spokespeople deny any deliberate such occurrences, explaining that when there were suspicions the Afghan prisoners were withdrawn.

Now Dr. Attaran, acting as legal representative for a Canadian-Afghan, Ahmadshah Malgarai, who had been useful to the Canadian military when he was employed as an interpreter in Kandahar, rejects the findings of Canadian military police who conducted an investigation into any possible human rights violations by the Canadian Armed Forces. "You can't have the military investigate the military and get an answer that is credible", he stated flatly.

The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, having completed their investigation into claims brought by Ahmadshah Malgarai that Canadian soldiers had killed an unarmed Afghan teen-ager and then victimized an additional ten Afghan villagers to hide the killing of an innocent by planting a weapon on the corpse of the dead 17-year-old, have cleared the Canadian Forces.

"We found no evidence whatsoever of any of that or any wrongdoing by any Canadian Forces members", announced Lieutenant-Colonel Gilles Sansterre, commanding officer of the investigation service. It is that conclusive assurance clearing the Canadian Forces of claims laid against them by his client, that Dr. Attaran takes umbrage with.

"It really is completely irrelevant when the military investigates the military", he said dismissively. Dr. Attaran considers his client, Mr. Malgarai's testimony - who claims to have read documents revealing the complicity of the Canadian Army personnel in a cover-up of military violations in their treatment of prisoners under the Geneva Convention - to be completely credible as opposed.

The investigation did reveal that a 17-year-old Afghan had died during a Canadian-led operation, but they concluded that "no criminal or service offences were committed in relation to this incident. Based on interviews with those individuals directly involved, including Afghan witnesses, and a detailed examination of the evidence, the individual was determined to be an armed threat and a legitimate target."

Might it not be feasible that Mr. Malgarai had been pursuing his own questionable agenda in pushing what he claims to have been deliberate violence waged against innocent Afghans? Might Dr. Attaran's missionary zeal in pursuing those allegations of wrong-doing owe more to his commitment to defend the defenceless than a reflection of reality?

Canada, through its armed forces has committed to assisting a far-off country mired in poverty, ignorance and religious sectarian violence, costing the country dearly in lost lives and treasury. NATO is mired within Afghanistan reflecting a concern about fanatical Islamism's attacks on the West.

There are times when during war situations truly unfortunate situations develop and accountability is demanded. There is no accountability with respect to assurances of human rights observed on the part of the Taliban who murder at will, victimize women and children, refuse educational and occupational opportunities to the young, and afflict the world with opiates through poppy cultivation that funds their violent assaults internal and external.

Canadians would like to believe, and have reason to believe, that our armed forces have acquitted themselves honourably and courageously. We have no reason to believe otherwise.

Xtreme Islam

For some, it's just adolescent business as usual, even if the adolescents in question have reached adulthood. Never heard of arrested adolescence? That's when young people haven't been adequately civilized and guided toward usefully acceptable social activities, and the allure of the illicit, the adventurous, the moral and ethical challenges become too endearing to them in their state of perpetual addiction.

If you don't like your inherited social, cultural, heritage, religious status, have a good hard look around and exchange it for one that bristles with the promise of excitement. If these adolescents are not athletically inclined to respond to the allure of extreme sports, why then they fasten on the temptation of extreme tribal religions, and which now has greater qualifications currently than Islam?

So of course it stands to reason that disaffected, socially averse Canadian youth like their counterparts in Europe and Latin America and the United States will explore the byways of fanatical Islamism's jihadi militia contingents promising the opportunity to seek training in exotic locales, and what's even better, the chance to demonstrate acquired proficiencies in destruction and blood-letting.

So why be surprised that the RCMP is in the process of investigating claims of a dozen Canadians having a presence in al-Qaeda training camps in Pakistan. The orientation they have accustomed themselves to makes them fit for the prevailing atmosphere in the North West Frontier provinces where Pakistan's very own wild west is vividly alive and rolling out fresh new recruits for global jihad.

The source is impeccable, from Asia Times Online, whose bureau chief has a well-respected reputation for knowing of what he writes through trusted sources. It's the trip and the training of a lifetime for these young Canadian men, some of whom have not been born into the traditions of Islam. Which is no deterrent to joining the exciting fray.

Graduation from jihadi training camps guaranteed, and certification as genuine Islamist mujahadeen is priceless to the self-esteem of these Canadians. Think about it: it's like Timothy McVeigh meeting Anwar Awlaki, a contagion of priceless opportunity to demonstrate one's battle mettle.

Initiation in Afghanistan, confirmation in Pakistan; practise makes perfect in Canada.

"According to Taliban sources, the 12 will remain in the tribal belt until it is felt that they are sufficiently trained to successfully carry out terror activities in Canada. Shahid apparently is confident he can recruit more Canadians".... Syed Saleem Shahzad

Cool, growing trends in affirmative action.

Insurgent Threats

Canada is doing truly commendable work in Afghanistan. Through CIDA and the funding of other humanitarian agencies, along with volunteer work on the part of Canadians from various walks of public life, and the dispatching of Canadian Armed Forces personnel to the country, the commitment to aid and assist a backward nation is ongoing.

Above all, the future lies in the country's children. And the need to have those children well educated is fundamental to the future of the country. Which is precisely why the Taliban - the "scholars" - have no wish to have Afghan children educated, other than within the precincts and the confines of the very same madrassas and divine scriptures in a language foreign to Afghanistan, where they themselves received their education.

Ensuring that the message of surrender to the will of Allah through the will of the Taliban is paramount. Boys may attend school, girls may not, for the place of women and girls in a Sharia-led society has always been and will continue to be confined to the home. Penalties can be harsh by any standards; death, dismemberment, acid attacks.

Traditionally in fundamentalist Muslim societies such as Afghanistan - particularly in the provinces - the presence of women was confined to the home. In public that presence was muted and shrouded, and even then there was the requirement of being escorted by a male family member. The modesty of Muslim women was ensured by completely cloaking their femininity, ensuring that no stray male eyes could assault her status as a possession of a father or a husband.

The Canadian military, tasked with the construction of schools for Afghan children to attend in their mountain villages, are bemused, puzzled and angered that such schools remain unused. In villages where the residents fear the backlash of permitting their children to become educated. Where lurking in the dark of night are neighbours who support the Taliban and who may themselves be Taliban and who bear threats.

These same villages where the elders during an arranged shura will assure their interlocutors that there are no IEDs in the area, and if there were any, their presence and purpose would be a complete mystery to them. And sometimes the information that as long as the Taliban are present, there cannot possibly be any collaboration with foreign troops because the penalty is so dire; life itself.

Canadian and Afghan patrols arrive in remote villages to ask the impossible of the villagers. Allow us to employ you in building useful public structures. Allow us to assure you that your children will be safe if you permit them to attend school. There is great remorse among some villagers as they bemoan the fact that they cannot and may not, for the Canadian and the Afghan military and police will depart.

And the Taliban will then arrive under cover of night, to threaten and to exact their method of justice in the battle for the 'hearts and minds' of Afghans.

Progress in Afghanistan

The long-awaited White House review of the situation in Afghanistan claims that the Obama-initiated 30,000 troop surge made all the difference, battering the Taliban and shoving them back from whence they came. Well, they came from Afghanistan, from various Taliban-held provinces in the country, since that's where they live traditionally, and it is where they still hold fast.

One truth that did finally emerge, however, was the unvarnished albeit reluctant admission that "progress has not come fast enough", thanks to the lack of co-operation from the Government of Pakistan. That, the lack of Pakistani co-operation in the battle against the Taliban has been a constant throughout the years; nothing whatever has changed there. Before President Asif Ali Zardai, it was General Musharaff.

The U.S. chose in its great wisdom to believe all the lies that General Musharaff, Pakistan's ISI and its National Army fed to the Americans, assuring them that they were on side. When, clearly enough,and well enough known to U.S. intelligence, they were not. They were arming, training, securing and guiding the Afghan Taliban to ensure a continued destabilized Afghanistan, which better served their purpose.

That aside, the claim that "al-Qaeda's senior leadership in Pakistan is weaker and under more sustained pressure than at any other point since it fled Afghanistan in 2001", is of questionable value. For the fact is the tribal NorthWest Provinces represent a secure sanctuary for both the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban, along with al-Qaeda. And from its safe aeyrie there al-Qaeda's affiliates, branches and associates take direction and comfort.

Somehow the upbeat assessment of the White House doesn't quite match that of aid groups working within Afghanistan. The International Committee of the Red Cross anticipates increased battles in the year to come: "The proliferation of armed groups threatens the ability of humanitarian organizations to access those in need. Access for the ICRC has over the last 30 years never been as poor."

The U.S. State Department, oddly enough, appears to have reached a radically opposite conclusion to that of the White House, daring to state not too obliquely that they doubt the "war can be won". That in and of itself is another kind of declarative revelation; that war represents an impediment to peace.

Of course the kind of peace that will reign in Afghanistan once Western troops finally pull out is anyone's guess. Afghanistan is as it has always been: fundamentalist Islamist, harsh, aggressive, corrupt. In lock-step with its neighbour Pakistan, now battling its own Taliban, and which country which simply cannot wrench itself away from its irredentist hatred of India.

That's quite the neighbourhood, in fact is it not, with Iran on one side, the "Stans" on the other, and China not too far away, leaving India the sole democratic symbol of a state dedicated to hope for the future.

Patronage Supreme

"With his legitimacy in question and his hold on power more tenuous by the day, Karzai now spends much of his time juggling the competing interests of his family, regional commanders, wealthy powerbrokers and international stakeholders.
"This precarious balancing act in which corruption and patronage reign supreme has neutralized the president's potency and hindered government reform." International Crisis Group: "Afghanistan: Exit vs Engagement"

If there is anyone who is conflicted in every sense of the word; emotionally, morally, ideologically, ethically, it is Afghan president Hamid Karzai. He is an impotent nationalist in a country that is not a nation, a monumentally concerned leader incapable of taking the helm as a credible leader, a paranoid psyche who cannot identify which turn his agenda should be taking to benefit the country, instead conferring benefits to his family, supporters, companions, political peers.

There is nothing new in any of this. Years ago he petulantly informed NATO that he will be friendly with whom he chooses, and he chose to greet Iran as a good neighbour and future support when NATO departs. He cannot possibly be ignorant of the knowledge that official Iran tasks members of its elite Republican Guard to train the Taliban, to provide it with weapons, including IED materials.

Yet President Karzai embarks on state visits to NATO countries to implore them to remain in his country, to help him defeat the insurgent, resurgent Taliban, and in the process please render increased financial aid, preferably directly to his coffers. So that his vice-president can be tasked with carrying tens of millions into Dubai, so patronage and bribes can be doled out to his supporters and the parliamentary war lords already rich with the avails of the poppy fields.

While Iran plots to increase its influence in Afghanistan, and hands over cash-stuffed valises through diplomatic interaction, and President Karzai jovially entertains his honoured guest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on state visits where they mutually declare undying faith in one another's administrations, NATO soldiers and Afghan children die by IED roadside explosions.

The Taliban destroy schools and medical clinics that the international community funds and humanitarian groups build, and President Karzai toys with the notion of sharing governance with them.

The urban centres of Afghanistan enjoying a relaxed new standard of living, and President Karzai agrees to implement laws that fiercely Islamist Shia Afghan groups insist their women abide by, requiring the wearing of all-encompassing burqas, and that women submit to the reality of 'enjoying' conjugal rights with their husbands, no options other, under any circumstances.

Canada's ambassador in Kabul admits to fury at the level of unreconstructed corruption in the Karzai government, in the elections, in the nonsensical decision-making in the face of NATO sacrifices in human life and nations' treasuries invested in a dysfunctionally dismal administration, warning that Mr. Karzai "continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden, whether defence, governance or development."

Finally, with the illicit release of classified U.S. government diplomatic documents, the potential for an enraged Karzai to sunder his dependence on NATO - the funnelling of cash and incentives, the foreign-based humanitarian work, the addiction to luxurious villas and vehicles for his colleagues and family aside - concerns the U.S. as likely fallout. Where the U.S. had stifled its outrage and contempt for Karzai, it is now in the public realm.

The pretense of the NATO diplomats and governments that all is well, and that there is nothing concerning them other than the push into the near future to ensure Afghanistan is capable of standing on its own, is now in the tender balance of possible collapse. The question being, will Karzai swallow his rage and chagrin and focus instead on what he may still purloin to advantage his family, or decree that NATO decamp?

Liberals, Tories Team On Vote

There, for a brief moment, Michael Ignatieff has demonstrated that he is capable of making intelligent choices that reflect his obligation as a lawmaker and political leader in this country. Both he and his chief deputy, Bob Rae, despite the mixed opinion of Members of Parliament of their party have resolutely stood by the understanding of Canada's ongoing obligation as a member of NATO, to extend our official presence in Afghanistan - as unpleasant as that need may be.

The dreadful mess that Afghanistan represents, with its current government comprised in large part of corrupt war lords with brutal human-rights records sitting in parliament alongside a weakly ineffectual leader in Hamid Karzai, added to the insecurity of an insurrection determined to return to power as tyrannical fundamentalists preying on the population, and the people of Afghanistan themselves having no trust in their government ensures this is not the most hopeful of situations respecting eventual outcomes.

Conflicting reports and opinions that the Taliban have secured and continue to secure greater areas of the country's provinces, tangle with those that insist the war is winnable and that NATO troops are gaining the upper hand. The maladjusted society where tradition still insists that women remain subservient to men, where Sharia law imposes the death penalty on apostates, where more women are garbed in burqas than any other Muslim society, remains its reality.

Too many NATO lives have been sacrificed to the collective need to suppress and repress the malign forces that found refuge in Afghanistan, feeling sufficiently empowered to attack the Western targets that subsume their ideological fury. Too many Canadian soldiers gave their lives in the effort to eradicate the presence of the fundamentalist Taliban from a fearful society upon whom they had preyed for long enough.

Too many NATO countries preferred and continue to prefer to position themselves in the country in relatively safe areas where violent threats are unlikely to confront them. Too few of those nations took it upon themselves to demonstrate the moral fibre it takes to build a strategy to offset the deadly presence of the Taliban, and to execute it to the benefit of the people of the country who surely deserve far better.

So, that the Liberals sided with the Conservatives to defeat the motion that the Bloc Quebecois brought into Parliament to condemn the government for the manner in which it committed to Canada's mission extension - aided and abetted by the NDP, both of which parties insist that Canadian troops should be removed instanter - is a bonus for non-partisan recognition of what is right and just.

Canada should, and will remain an additional three years, for the purpose of monitoring, training and mentoring Afghan troops. To leave them finally, when their numbers are considered sufficient to accomplish the job at hand; defending their nation as professionally trained and capable troops.

As to whether the Afghan army and their national police will eventually successfully ply what they will have learned, we can only hope.

Reformation of Afghan Aid Mechanisms

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has long agitated for international funding to go directly to his government. It would, after all, make sense for international donors to directly fund government initiatives, giving it more credibility with the population once the government is seen to be fulfilling its role in adequately governing. As matters stand, international funding is funnelled primarily through international groups set up within the country to provide needed services, and the ISAF countries fund their own programs, permitting relatively modest amounts to go directly to the Afghan government.

At the recently-concluded Lisbon G20 meeting which Hamid Karzai was invited to attend, he made yet another sincere pitch for direct funding, recommending that at least 50% of pledged international funding go to his government. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had other ideas and did not shirk from directly addressing the topic. He made it quite clear that he and his government had no intention of directing funding to the Karzai government at this time. Due consideration would be given to the request when Mr. Karzai was able to prove that he has finally tackled his country's endemic corruption.

More to the point, the corruption that exists within his government, within his cabinet and his parliament, let alone the civil service and encompassing every aspect of government services. It is a conundrum, a never-ending, roundabout of frustration. The state of Afghanistan is in a tenuous position, the population has no firm reason to trust a government that cannot deliver basic necessities of which security is the first element. Without security the country is unable to advance toward fulfilling the other needs of the populace.

It would make good sense for the Karzai government to be given direct funding aid, if it could be relied upon to use the funding wisely and trustfully in a manner that does justice to the needs of the country. For far too long however, the machinery of state has played second fiddle to the kleptocracy that Mr. Karzai assembled around him from his brother, to tribal chieftains, and warlords, and those heavily engaged in drug profiteering which generally encompasses most of those in positions of power and influence in the country - including the Taliban.

Aid continues to be delivered through the well funded auspices of international aid groups who can be relied upon to do the job, while government figures simply have a tradition of pocketing whatever they can, and whatever is left over is dribbled into government programs. The government has been starkly ineffective at governing, at administering needed civil and development programs. It simply is not yet feasible that they be entrusted with developing a budget and implementing and controlling most projects. And while they are emasculated in this manner there is no reason for the population to respect them.

If there is a strategy that no one has yet thought of, neither the UN nor NATO nor the United States, no one appears any the wiser with respect to a workable approach. How to expunge the traditions of corruption in the country and infuse the lawmakers with an enthusiasm to work on behalf of the country and its people, without resorting to spiriting away funding for themselves? Yet until and unless the government is finally deemed capable of responsible apportioning of international aid funding, and dispersing it and controlling it successfully nothing is achieved to give them legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghan population.

There are no reliable, working Afghan government operations to give credibility to the government and assurances to the population. There is the Taliban always in the background, and sometimes in the foreground, depending on the provinces being viewed, repositories of a fanatically stringent ideology prepared to restore itself to power - and with the help of neighbouring Pakistan - as soon as the international community lets its guard down. Which it is anxious enough to do in a sense, eager to depart the troubled country to let it get on with its own future.

In the meantime, the tedious and cumbersome work of trying to persuade the Karzai government that it must determine its own fate by cleaning up its disreputable and nation-harmful corruption to earn the right to take full control of international funding must be a goal to advance before all the international groups finally decamp. Concerned international groups can demand accountability, and emphasize the need for the Afghan government to be responsible to itself and to the country but it is the government itself of Afghanistan that must commit itself to its future.

Afghanistan 2014 Independence

Whoops, we have another "firm" end-date for Canada's involvement in the ISAF-NATO mission in Afghanistan. The firm date has been moved forward to 2014. Well, did anyone really, truly believe it would make sense for Canada to withdraw its commitment by 2011? Particularly when this country was one of the very few NATO forces - Netherlands, United States, Great Britain aside - whose presence in that benighted country was one of real substance?

Although Prime Minister Harper, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and Defence Minister Peter MacKay endlessly repeated that 2011 spelled troop-withdrawal-date for Canadian forces employed in Kandahar, it seemed unlikely that this would transpire as pledged. It made no sense. But in the context of the opposition being hammered away in Parliament by the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois, understandable.

There are certain international obligations that every country undertakes to consolidate its position in the global community. Mutual assistance is right up there, particularly during times of grave duress. What initially propelled the United States to enter Afghanistan after the Taliban, a rogue human-rights-abusing regime who refused to surrender their al-Qaeda guests to U.S. demands, post 9-11, also compelled Canada and other U.S. allies to be involved.

This was an inescapable responsibility. Canada knows it can rely on its colleague-states, other democracies which value the world as a free place for people to thrive and live with reasonable assumptions of peace and prosperity, to come to its aid should it ever be threatened militarily. That knowledge comes with obligations that cannot be suspended or transited or refused.

"Trainers are the ticket to the transition and we do need to ensure that the training mission is fully resourced", one senior NATO official emphasized. Yes, Canada would have liked to be able to leave the theatre; we've been there long enough, paid a heavy toll in human life. Yes, immense pressure was exerted by NATO and the United States upon Canada to remain in another kind of presence; from active military to active mentoring.

And although most Canadians would prefer Afghanistan to melt back into history, it will take quite a while for that country to do that, at this juncture. Canadians are aware of that; 53% of respondents in the most recent Ipsos Reid poll indicated they support the revamped, extended mission. Although a similar number would like the issue to be debated in Parliament.

However, since both Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae have themselves indicated they felt no need to conduct a Parliamentary debate on the issue, and there is in fact, no legal, constitutional requirement to do so, because it is legally the purview of the Prime Minister, there need not be such a review of the issues involved and a debate with respect to feasibility and need.

And there it should rest.

Prolongation of International Responsibilities

It would have been unavoidable. In any event, had the Government of Canada not decided to acquiesce to the requests of its allies in NATO to continue an official, military and diplomatic presence in Afghanistan while the process of training and eventual foreign troop withdrawal takes place, it would have resulted in an abrogation of international responsibility. More than that, it would have represented a position not truly reflective of how Canada sees itself.

"It's the right timing. It is exactly what NATO is looking for. I had detected growing level of criticisms about Canada completely walking away from Afghanistan. This will dispel a lot of those concerns and show Canada has a long-term plan for the country. We need to convert some combat troops into trainers to ensure full transition will be realized by 2014... NATO has been quite vocal about nations digging a bit deeper. A country such as Canada, with a proven record in Afghanistan, has exactly the trainers we are looking for." Senior NATO alliance official

Canada has indeed given much of itself. It has sacrificed the lives of 152 Canadian soldiers, one Canadian reporter, one diplomat and two aid workers since the Canadian military deployed to Afghanistan in early 2002. Afghanistan has taken a large proportion of Canadian international aid funding. Canadian deaths have been hugely disproportionate in numbers to those experienced by other NATO member-countries. Despite Canada's appeals to other NATO member-countries to relieve it of some of the burden in Kandahar, none have stepped up to the plate.

"The entirety of 2006 was spent with the United States demanding more troops and equipment from NATO countries, and NATO stalling. In January 2007, at a meeting in Brussels, the United States asked for more troops from NATO countries, especially troops that could be used on the front against the Taliban. Once again, European nations refused to oblige. The Germans and the French, with the largest armies in Europe, were the worst offenders. Both had large troop contingents in safe areas in Afghanistan - the Germans in the north, and the French around Kabul.

"When NATO members met again, in Quebec in April, just as the Taliban summer offensive started, Robert Gates was even blunter about demanding more troops and helicopters. He reminded his European counterparts that at a time when the U.S. military was overstretched because of Iraq, it still had fifteen thousand troops as part of the ISAF-NATO force, plus another eleven thousand troops deployed as part of Operation Enduring Freedom hunting down terrorists. On the other hand, twenty-six NATO countries and eleven other allies were contributing a total of thirty-five thousand troops." Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos

When Britain experienced its bus and subway terror bombings it resolutely continued its presence and determination in Afghanistan. When Spain's jihad carnage occurred, the government fell and the new government decided to pull its troops out of harm's way. In 2007 internal domestic opposition to the war in Afghanistan saw the government of Romano Prodi in Italy fall, and then it was Japan's turn, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his LDP losing government. With the exception of the U.S., Britain, Holland and Canada, most other NATO countries had little interest in putting their troops in harm's way in Afghanistan.



It has long been acknowledged that Canada has distinguished itself in the quality of its forces in Afghanistan, the emphasis on building confidence among the Afghans in provincial reconstruction, defending the villagers and farmers from the Taliban, building schools and medical centres. Canada's commitment to its pledge to aid the country from returning to the stone age mentality that the Taliban had plunged it into after the dreadful civil war following the Soviet invasion was to its credit. Yet Stephane Dion in 2009 insisted that the Harper government honour a February 2009 withdrawal date, backed up by the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois, all demanding an even more immediate withdrawal.



In the end, Parliament reached an agreement that Canada would withdraw its troops from Kandahar by 2011. That withdrawal appeared to be written in stone, even when the Liberals turned themselves around and began to badger the Conservatives whom they had tried to bludgeon into withdrawing to begin with, to linger awhile yet longer.... Suddenly, it was the Liberals now with Michael Ignatieff, who began expressing the bravado of refusing to 'cut and run', that Mr. Harper had originally expressed.



The United States' representatives in government have expressed their admiration for Canada, as have American military who have worked with their Canadian counterparts. "To our Canadian allies, you've hit above your weight. You've got a great military. You've had a lot of casualties. You've got to make a decision about 2011. I hope you'll keep some of your trainers there", mused Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, in a very nice acknowledgement. Canada's huge success in its Provincial Reconstruction Team initiative has also been noted:

Panjwaii District of Kandahar Province aimed to further develop knowledge of the area and continue to develop relations with the locals." title="Canadian soldiers speak with a local villager during a patrol in the Panjwaii District of Kandahar Province aimed to further develop knowledge of the area and continue to develop relations with the locals."Photograph by: Corporal Shilo Adamson, Handout

The top U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan, Bill Harris, recently claimed "people will write dissertations" in the history of the war in Afghanistan led by NATO-ISAF, highlighting Canada's success as a "wildly successful ... irregular warfare unit." It wasn't always easy, the village loya jurgas didn't quite work out as they were meant to at first, with Canadian troop presence being accepted, and the troops meeting regularly with village elders; during one such incident a young Taliban recruit bashed the skull of Captain Trevor Greene in 2006. "We honestly could not have ... come up to the level of effectiveness we currently perform at (if it had been) with any other country than Canada", said Harris. "General Petraeus loves this PRT."

Retired army Capt. Trevor Greene, seen here with fiance? Debbie Lepore at their Nanaimo home, will unveil the Honour House logo. Photograph by: Photo courtesy Bill Keay/Vancouver Sun

So, it looks like Canada will agree to prolong its stay in Afghanistan, to provide Afghan security forces with hundreds of its trainers, in fields such as combat arms, intelligence and public affairs. Prime Minister Harper has suggested perhaps as many as one thousand Canadian troops may remain until 2014 when it is assumed that Afghanistan's military and its national police should be in sufficient strength and experience to be able to defend their country.



It can only be hoped, in the interval, that Hamid Karzai can be prevailed upon to defend his peoples' rights with a little more dedication to their humanity, and abstain from making any soul-destroying agreements for shared administration with a reconstructed Taliban.