Mission impossible
War cannot be won in Afghanistan. It is time to talk about retreat
By Colin Kenny, Citizen Special
September 11, 2009
It is becoming clear that Canada cannot accomplish what it hoped to in Afghanistan. Instead of chasing Taliban, writes Colin Kenny, Canadian troops should focus on training Afghans and the country must begin talking about retreat.
I have long been wary of our military mission to Afghanistan, and along with my colleagues on the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, have in two reports expressed doubts about its sustainability after three visits to the field.
Like most observers who respect the courage and accomplishments of our troops in Afghanistan, however, I have stopped short of saying outright that I didn't think that the mission could succeed.
The rationale behind Canada's military foray into Afghanistan under the Martin Liberals and then the Harper Conservatives was simple: Canadian troops would help contain the Taliban until the Government of Afghanistan could mature to the point that it would stabilize this nation after endless decades of war.
Unfortunately, the initial assumption of Canadian political and military leaders that the Taliban was a spent force proved to be a pipe dream. That being the case, it was obvious that Canada and its NATO allies did not have time and space on their side. Our troops were fighting a highly-motivated, resilient opponent on its own turf in a place in which military intruders had never sniffed success.
The British invaded in the 19th century and failed badly; the Soviets mounted a massive invasion in the 20th century and got pounded. It is worth noting that the British failure in Afghanistan was one component of the death of the British Empire; the Soviet failure in Afghanistan was a huge component in the death of the Soviet Empire.
The western world's one hope in Afghanistan in the 21st century was that the ruthless Taliban government -- ousted in 2001 by the Americans and their warlord allies -- had not been popular with many Afghans. So if most Afghans were to quickly fall in love with democracy, as well as the democratically-elected government of Hamid Karzai, and a reasonable level of stability could be maintained while this love affair took root ... Canada at least had a chance of helping to create a less threatening, less terrible Afghanistan.
The payoff for a winning roll of the dice would be enormous: the weakening of radical Islam; improved chances of achieving stability in nuclear-armed Pakistan; at least some disruption of the international drug trade; a staunching of the perception that the authority of the western world is on the wane; and lastly, improved lives for millions of Afghans, most notably women.
The punishment for failure was just as obvious: the spectre of so many lives extinguished in a losing cause; a huge drain on western treasuries at a time when national deficits are reaching alarming levels; increased potential for anarchy in Pakistan; the strengthening of the radicalism that is threatening world stability and hammering at western values; continued erosion of respect for western leadership; civil war or a return to brutal Taliban rule for Afghans.
Much depended on the success of the Karzai government to win the hearts and minds of the people and to build its military strength. That hasn't happened.
As members of our Senate committee observed after visiting Afghanistan in December 2006: "Ours is an enormously difficult task. Meanwhile, the task of the enemy ... is relatively easy. They don't have to win major battles. They only need to keep attracting disaffected people to their cause, use those people to disrupt reform, and persist for as many years as it takes for Canada and its allies to lose heart."
And there are good reasons to lose heart. If we had lost 130 Canadians in Afghanistan ... in addition to funnelling more than $10 billion of taxpayers' money into the mission ... in addition to exhausting the strength of the Canadian Forces to contribute in other places ... in addition to skewing Canada's foreign aid budget to favour a country we have no traditional interest in ... if all these bad things had happened but there were significant signs of progress in Afghanistan, then maybe our huge investment there would make sense.
But that isn't the case. Just a few years ago maps showing areas of Taliban control or unrestricted movement focused largely on a few southern provinces. Now those maps show growing Taliban strength in nearly every part of the country, even though the United States and NATO now have more than 100,000 troops on the ground.
Troop numbers don't seem to matter. Collateral damage inflicted by NATO troops through the overuse of air assaults whenever ground troops got into trouble have embittered many Afghans, some of whom clearly prefer oppression under the native Taliban to war waged by outsiders. Taliban recruiting continues apace.
Some say Canada should be focusing on aid rather than military assistance. But aid projects can't succeed without protection. Canada has long had plans to build or rehabilitate 50 Afghan schools, but has only succeeded with five.
Meanwhile, corruption remains rife within the government of Afghanistan. Some government officials are known to have amassed drug-related fortunes of hundreds of millions of dollars. The UN is investigating allegations of widespread fraud in last month's national election.
President Karzai pretended to be a liberal alternative to the Taliban, but allowed a bill to pass through parliament that officially legalized rape within marriages, and forbade women to step outside the home unaccompanied by a male family member. The bill was eventually watered down, but only after intense western criticism.
Support among the British and American public for the war is on the wane and public protests are beginning to mount. A CBS poll released last week indicated that 41 per cent of Americans want U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, compared to 33 per cent last April. Wars cannot succeed.
In Canada, there is a strange hush in the land. Many Canadians identify strongly with families who have lost loved ones in the cause, and one senses that most of them don't want to confront the fact that these lives may have been wasted.
Perhaps that is why Prime Minister Stephen Harper avoids the subject of Afghanistan like Superman avoids kryptonite -- he wants the quiet to continue. While President Obama argues publicly for his "necessary war," and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown makes speeches defending Britain's presence in Afghanistan, Harper avoids talking to Canadians about what he is hoping to accomplish there and what would constitute success.
I believe that continued Canadian engagement in Afghanistan should be minimized, much of the aid money earmarked for Afghanistan should instead be spent in countries where we are wanted and where the effectiveness of aid projects can be monitored, and until the 2011 deadline that Parliament has mandated for pulling our military out of Afghanistan, our troops should be used for training Afghans, not chasing the Taliban.
I say that because what we hoped to accomplish in Afghanistan has proved to be impossible. We are hurtling toward a Vietnam ending.
Our troops have performed magnificently under conditions much more odious than any of us would have predicted. They persevered as a tiny band against huge odds, and the lack of success of far greater numbers of U.S. troops demonstrates what an impossible mission they were faced with.
But we are not achieving anything close to our objectives in Afghanistan, and there is no sign that we will. Why would we continue to risk lives under the pretense that there is good news around the corner?
If Prime Minister Harper has good news, he should share it. Otherwise, he should do the right thing, and start moving toward a word that no soldier likes to hear, but that is sometimes the only intelligent thing to do. That word is retreat.
Colin Kenny is chair of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence.
Kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca
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