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War and peace(keeping):
A short history of Canada’s Afghan odyssey (March, 2006)
by David Rudd
Something extraordinary is happening on the nation’s airwaves and on the op-ed pages of major newspapers. Canadians are having what looks to be their first serious foreign policy debate in years. “Serious” debate is one that is protracted, that compels Canadians to decide what they truly stand for, that calls upon their (admittedly incomplete) knowledge of their own history and that of a faraway land, and, which does not (yet) involve intemperate language or taking the name of George W. Bush in vain.
The debate of course is over the nature and scope of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. Having inherited the file from the Liberals, the Conservatives under Stephen Harper find themselves in bit of a pickle. Confident of the righteousness of the cause but unwilling to argue the matter in the House of Commons, the Tories are left to parry each thrust from opposition politicians, opinion-makers and ordinary citizens who, nostalgic for the golden age of peacekeeping and seeing troops in combat as corrosive to the nation’s soul, demand a wholesale re-assessment of the decision to trade the safety of Kabul for the perils of Kandahar.
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General Rick Hiller, until recently acting as the government’s point-man on the issue, stated that our presence in Afghanistan may last for a decade or more. If that is true, few Canadians seem to realize that we are almost halfway there already. Indeed, one gets the sense that we have just woken up to find ourselves at war (or something like it) in Afghanistan. This is far from the case. |
Following the 9/11 attacks, parliament vigorously debated the best response to international terrorism. But a motion that any military action should be taken only after a vote in the House was defeated, and in November of 2001 the Chrétien government outlined Canada’s military contribution to the US-led “war on terror”. Citing Article 51 of the United Nations Charter (which gives states the right to individual and collective self-defence) Defence Minister Art Eggleton said that Canadian naval vessels would sail to the Arabian Sea to hunt for Al-Qaeda operatives deserting the Taliban regime, which was already collapsing under the weight of American pressure. Sending the navy to fight what was essentially a land war was evidently considered to be a little bit nonsensical, so a battalion of ground troops and some special forces were also dispatched.
The mission was not one of keeping the peace, but rather to mop up residual Taliban forces so that they could not return to power, play host to Osama Bin Laden, and re-open Al-Qaeda training camps. Canadians, still in shock by what they had witnessed a few months earlier, went along.
The battalion conducted counter-insurgency operations independently and with US forces, but no significant action occurred. Meanwhile Canada’s super-secret Joint Task Force 2 (JTF-2) commandos scoured the hillsides for the adversary, putting some in the bag and themselves on the covers of major newspapers. Instead of hailing them for their courage the government went into damage control mode, deflecting questions on whether the suspects would end up at the US military detention complex at Guantanamo.
Within six months, and after suffering four deaths at the hands of an over-eager US fighter pilot, the infantry battalion came home. The navy (and JTF-2, so it is believed) stayed on. Asked why the ground troops were leaving instead of staying to help shape Afghanistan’s future, Ottawa replied that after a decade of constant overseas operations, the army did not have the stamina to remain in theatre. Besides, had Canada not demonstrated its mettle? Had it not shown itself willing to shed blood and have its own shed in return? Had its contribution not been substantially larger than those of allied nations?
Indeed it had. But behind every verbal commitment to allied solidarity and international peace and security there were shrewd political calculations. So it was no surprise that only a few short months after the first chapter in our Afghan odyssey ended, the government conveniently forgot that Canada’s army was exhausted and instructed it to cough up 2,000 troops for a second go-round. The reasons given had much to do with Canada’s tradition of doing good, but insiders correctly discerned Prime Minister Chrétien’s true motivation: to pre-empt an American request for assistance in bringing Saddam Hussein to heel. In February of 2003 Defence Minister John McCallum went so far as to state that his US counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld, “[was] fully cognizant of the fact that this mission limits the deployment of Canadian land forces to other parts of the world for well over a year.”
Canada’s second foray into Afghanistan would be a peace support operation. The troops, while robustly equipped, would not search for insurgents, but rather create and defend a zone of security in and around Kabul so that diplomats and aid organizations (at least those who had not been chased from the country) could get on with the business of re-building.
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Never failing to underestimate the richness of Canada’s military heritage, major media outlets reported that Canada was returning to its “traditional” peacekeeping roots. The previous deployment was largely forgotten or treated as an aberration; something un-Canadian to be swept under the carpet. |
Ottawa was adamant that the troops be under NATO rather than US command. But it tipped its hat to Washington’s anti-guerrilla campaign, acknowledging that the peacekeeping and counter-insurgency missions were part of the same overall effort, and that the effort was worthwhile. In a speech before the United Nations in September of 2003, Chrétien proclaimed that “[t]he most fundamental duty of a state is to protect its people. When a government cannot or will not do so, the responsibility to protect them becomes temporarily a collective international responsibility.”
But responsibility came with a cost. In January of 2004 a suicide bomber threw himself at a Canadian jeep, killing Cpl. Jamie Murphy. Apparently Canada’s benign intentions were not universally accepted, nor did they guarantee protection against harm. The “peacekeepers” were infidels first and foremost in the eyes of those who for whom altruism was a truly foreign concept. But as the army mourned the loss of one of its own, few questioned Canada’s intentions or goals. As long as it was peacekeeping (or something resembling it), the public gave the mission a free pass and MPs did not clamour too loudly for greater parliamentary oversight.
By the spring of 2005 the Martin government and its newly-elected counterpart in Kabul could feel stability taking hold in and around the Afghan capital. But rather than sit on its laurels, Canada agreed to help export stability to where it was absent. A provincial reconstruction team comprising soldiers, diplomats, and development staff would be deployed to the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. They would be followed by an infantry battalion and a headquarters staff, the theory being that reconstruction could not take place unless the insurgents were kept at bay. A “take note” debate was scheduled for November, but with a federal election looming few MPs or media outlets seemed all that interested.
The new mission would be no cakewalk, but that was not the point. Said Defence Minister Bill Graham: “The part of Afghanistan we are going to is among the most unstable and dangerous in the country. Indeed, that is why we have been asked to go there and that is why we are going there.” To date there is general, if uneasy, acceptance of this premise, although misgivings about the feasibility of the mission linger. It is unclear whether these doubts are genuine and pragmatic, or simply the respectable face of the public’s antipathy toward any operation involving American forces.
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So here we find ourselves, at the invitation of the host government, serving Afghans, the United Nations and NATO, and wrestling with our doubts and anxieties as our troops wade into a complex political and social environment. Debate on means and ends will (and should) take place once parliament reconvenes in April, and if nothing else it will serve the cause of public education. What is taking place in Afghanistan is neither war-fighting in its classical sense nor peacekeeping in its traditional sense. It is a bit of both, with healthy dose humanitarianism thrown in for good measure. It is a new kind of operation for a new century, and it will test Canadian resolve like few missions have before. |
David Rudd is the President and Executive Director of the CISS.
Copyright CISS 2006
