I'm starting to greatly resent the implication being made by some diplomats, politicians and Canadian conservatives that Canada has a greater and long-term obligation to engage in hunting down the Taliban in Afghanistan's Kandahar region past February 2009.
To date, we've lost 76 Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan since the mission started, 68 of those since our mission became hunting and fighting the Taliban in the most dangerous region of that country in 2006. Before February 2009, we'll likely see another 30 or so deaths of Canadian soldiers.
I think our contribution to this particular aspect of the mission has been exceptional. It's time for other NATO countries, which also supported the Afghanistan war in 2001, to step up to the plate and take on their fair share of the efforts to beat the Taliban.
We lost 25 people in 9/11. We've lost 76 in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban.
***********UDPATE************
As indicated in one of the comments, as of this afternoon (January 15, 2008) that number of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan has sadly risen to 77.
7 comments:
"Afghanistan's security is Canada's responsibility? And what of the rest of the world? "
So much irony in that statement.
Replace "Afghanistan's security" with "The environment" and you have the conservative's argument as to why we should not sign onto Kyoto unless every country does.
Yet not only does this argument not wash with many on the left, it seems that supporters of Kyoto are more than fine with Canada signing the agreement, even if other countries do not do their part.
Why the discrepancy?
As much as each soldier's death saddens and pains me, to put it in perspective, more people were murdered in the GTA last year. At least our slain soldiers were fighting for something they believed in...democracy, freedoms, human rights...
1) If we all agree that Afghanistan needs help, and no one else is willing to help them, does that mean we should abandon them? Can we just say “sorry, we’ve done our share” and leave? Should we really set deadlines for our commitments to armed conflicts? Isn’t that a bit odd?
2) The environmental analogy is obviously faulty. If Afghanistan, one or two countries making a concerted effort could theoretically solve the problem. With respect to carbon emissions, even if Canada reduced its emissions to zero, if all the largest polluters don’t cut back, climate change will still occur.
Who said combatting climate change is only Canada's responsibility? Compare Canada's efforts on climate change (we can have some impact, but in the end only account for single digits in terms of greenhouse gases), versus the herculean efforts in hunting down the Taliban in Kandahar region. Compare our deaths to those of Germany, Italy, other countries which supported the Afghan invasion in 2001. We've done more than our fair share.
I'm not saying we should leave Afghanistan, we can provide security, police training, development, etc. elsewhere in the country for a long time.
Conservatives argue we should do nothing on climate change until all countries agree to targets. I am not saying we should do nothing in Afghanistan. There is no discrepancy, at least on my part.
Sadly, news today that we've lost another soldier making it now 77.
We have certainly done more than our ‘fair share’ in Afghanistan! But this isn’t a game where we score points and then pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. Either Afghanistan becomes a safe and free country, or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, we’ve failed. It’s that simple. Canada has done more than it’s fair share in a lot of historical instances, but never did we stop halfway through a conflict and say “sorry folks, we’re outta here”. The very notion seems bizarre. You say that we should stay and provide ‘security’. With what? Mall security guards? What good is security if there’s nothing to secure? Why is it acceptable to put our men and women in harm’s way for the purposes of “development”, but not for ridding the country of the Taliban?
As for climate change, I repeat a simple fact: even if we reduce our emissions to zero, if the other countries in the world do nothing, it will have no impact on climate change. None. World emissions will still rise massively. Besides, it’s not about Canada not doing anything. We should and can cut emissions. But we don’t need to sign an international treaty to do it!
Okay, alw, you've lost me. Hunting down the Taliban in Kandahar province isn't the only thing Canadian troops can do in Afghanistan. Canada was stationed in Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan for the first four years of this conflict, policing and providing security elsewhere. You're speaking in simplistic generalities which was the point of this post in the first place. We have other options besides simply taking the brunt of the violence in Kandahar. We will have done that for 3 years by next February, with likely 100 soldiers killed by then. Surely fighting the Taliban isn't just Canada's responsibility. If Afghanistan doesn't become a free and safe country, it's Canada's fault?
Do you think we'll ever be able to rid the country of the Taliban? At best, we'll be able to arm and prepare Afghanistan police and army to properly fight and control the Taliban in NATO's place and provide relative stability. But we'll never beat the Taliban completely. I never said we ought to pull out completely.
What is Stephen Harper doing to make sure other NATO countries can take over in Kandahar at a date in the future? Probably nothing. Part of me suspects some Conservatives secretly like playing a combat role with no end in sight...doesn't matter who the enemy is as long as they get to shoot at them...
Hunting down the Taliban in Kandahar province isn't the only thing Canadian troops can do in Afghanistan.
Of course it isn’t. But someone needs to do it. And if no one else is willing to take over, should we just leave the Afghani people holding the bag?
What’s truly simplistic is this: the Liberal Party is attempting to exploit the sentiment among some Canadians that we can somehow play “nice” roles in Afghanistan, limited to building orphanages and the like, without engaging in any of that awful “fighting” business. After all, we’re Canadians. Don’t want to get our hands dirty or anything. It is this constituency of naive pacifists that Dion is trying to suck up to. So why not just come out and say it: we’re changing our position because there’s votes to be had. The Liberal position has everything to do with domestic messaging, and zero to do with realities on the ground in Afghanistan.
You make it sound as if we should just give up when the going gets tough. Is this really a responsible way for a country to act? We made a commitment to Afghanistan. We didn’t say “okay, we’ll help for this long, but if it’s not fixed by then, sorry, we’re outta here”. How morally reprehensible and cowardly is that!? So if we want to try and get someone else to take it over, by all means, someone else can have a turn. But until that happens, no one should even be talking about Canada leaving.
Our job isn’t necessarily to defeat the Taliban. It is, as you say, to equip the people of Afghanistan to be able to contain or defeat them. But we can’t train people if they are constantly under seige, just as we can’t build schools if the moment we leave they get blown to pieces again.
What is Stephen Harper doing to make sure other NATO countries can take over in Kandahar at a date in the future? Probably nothing. Part of me suspects some Conservatives secretly like playing a combat role with no end in sight...doesn't matter who the enemy is as long as they get to shoot at them..
Actually, Harper and the Tories have repeatedly requested assistance from NATO, to mostly no avail. What else is he supposed to “do”? And I suspect your “suspicion” about what Conservatives “secretly like” is more rooted in some simplistic cartoonish stereotype about how conservatives think and what they believe, than any basis in reality.
Matt, I would have hoped that, being as you are a member of a community that has unfortunately been on the recieving end of gross negative stereotyping, that you of all people wouldn’t engage in the same behaviour with respect to “Conservatives”. But I guess it’s wrong for social conservatives to make hurtful and inappropriate comments about someone’s sexual orientation, but okay to basically assert that any Tory who supports the Afghanistan mission is really just fulfilling a bloodlust to kill people.
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