Times Colonist - Novemebr 16, 2010
Ottawa Citizen - November 15, 2010
By Colin Kenny
So Stephen Harper has changed his mind about his formerly resolute position that no Canadian troops would remain in Afghanistan after 2011.
The prime minister is finding out just how hard it is to make the “right” decision when it comes to foreign affairs. Sometimes there are just no right decisions.
Harper was dead right when he was holding firm on the 2011 exit deadline. At the urging of Rick Hillier, former Chief of the defence staff, Canada sent troops into the Taliban’s home turf of Kandahar because, by his own admission, Hillier thought the Taliban was a spent force.
It wasn’t. It is now obvious that one way or another, the Taliban are going to play a big role in Afghanistan’s future, whether they defeat the corrupt government of Hamid Karzai and his foreign allies militarily, or whether they made a political deal with Karzai to wedge their way back into power.
The United States has gone into Afghanistan in a big way – with more than 100,000 Americans on the ground – because President Barak Obama thought this was the right kind of war to fight, as opposed George Bush’s debacle in Iraq.
Mr. Obama, like Mr. Harper, is finding out that what seems like the right thing to do on the foreign affairs front can backfire quickly. This is turning into a very stupid and expensive war.
Mr. Obama has no quick exit strategy because he can’t afford to look weak before the American people at this tenuous moment in his presidency. He would like to get out of Afghanistan quickly, but he can’t. So he needs all the help he can get from allies like Canada, and he is not going to be amused if he doesn’t get it.
And he wants real help. He wants Canadian soldiers to stay and train Afghan soldiers not just in safe spots behind the wire, but in actual combat situations.
Mr. Harper, to this point, has not made it clear whether he is prepared to offer this kind of real help, or just-pretend help. What is the difference, you ask?
When I first went to Afghanistan in 2005 – at a time that Canadian troops were posted in the relative safety of the capital, Kabul, before our decision to shift our focus to Kandahar – our troops were training Afghan soldiers.
But what were doing fell short of real training, and the Afghans knew it. Why? Because we weren’t going into combat with the Afghan soldiers. We were showing them how to fight “inside the wire,” where conditions were safe.
Our soldiers told me how frustrated they were because the Afghan soldiers weren’t prepared to listen to guys who wanted to talk the talk without walking the walk. I remember one of our guys telling me “They have no respect for us, and they’re not listening to us. They’re treating us like wimps who aren’t prepared to share the risk with them. And they’re right.”
Here is a paragraph that has been on my website (colinkenny.ca) for more than three months now:
It is not possible to train these troops “behind the wire” in safe locations. Training cannot succeed unless trainers get into harm’s way by accompanying trainees on missions, helping them out when they get into difficulty, and, eventually, ensuring that they are ready to do the job on their own. Training Afghan soldiers – if it is done right – is more dangerous than going out on patrol with all-Canadian platoons.
Both the Conservative and Liberal parties have now decided that it would be to Canada’s advantage to stay on and train Afghan troops, perhaps until 2014. Neither has been clear whether they would provide such training outside the safe confines of “the wire” – the type of training that would more than likely add to the list of dead Canadian soldiers, which now stands at 156.
Is it the right decision for Canada to maintain a training presence in Afghanistan? There are no right decisions here. When we talk about making tough foreign affairs decisions, we are talking about defending and advancing the interests of all Canadians. Anyone who thinks that having a president in Washington convinced that you have betrayed him when he needed you the most is not coming to grips with Canada’s interests.
Would it be the right decision to do what the Americans are asking us to do – train in combat situations?
Do we sacrifice more young lives in a cause that has ceased to make sense to many Canadians?. Or do we let down our most important ally at a time when Canada’s doesn’t seem to have as many international friends as we used to think we had?
It has been reported that Stephen Harper gulped at the press conference in Korea before answering a question as to whether he had changed his position on remaining in Afghanistan after 2011.
I would have gulped too. There is no easy way out of this one. I have argued long and hard that we should get out in 2011. But if we are going to stay, we have to stay for real. And that is going to cost lives.
[Colin Kenny is former chair of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca]