Senators Nail Problem, Flub Solution

But they say that this optimism is hard to square with reality. In fact, they say, Canada's military presence in the southern province of Kandahar has not made the lives of Afghan citizens any better. It has made them worse. "Life is clearly more perilous because we are there," the report concludes. As for what Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay calls Afghanistan's advances in women's rights, democracy and education, the senators are dismissive. Afghanistan, they conclude, is a medieval society that "does not want to be rebuilt in Canada's image." To suggest that our efforts will somehow miraculously create a modern, liberal state is to engage in the grossest kind of illusion. The real Afghanistan, they write, is backward, illiberal and hostile to foreign invaders. Ordinary Afghans may have found the former Taliban regime excessive in the way it enforced its brutal moral rules. But at least it had moral rules. "The word moral is probably the last word that comes to an ordinary Afghan's mind when describing the new (Karzai) government," the senators write. They quote one former Canadian ambassador as saying that it would take five generations to make a difference in Afghanistan. They cite Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, commander of Canadian land forces, as saying the Afghan military mission alone would take 20 years. "Are Canadians willing to commit themselves to decades of involvement in Afghanistan, which could cost hundreds of Canadians lives and billions of dollars, with no guarantee of ending up with anything like the kind of society that makes sense to us?" they ask. "If we aren't willing to hang in for the long haul, what will have been the point of five years of Canadian lives and Canadian money disappearing?" To ask these questions is to answer them. Most Canadians will not agree to a war that takes decades to prosecute yet produces no results. And if, as the senators conclude, this is the prognosis, then the last five years of Canadian involvement – and Canadian deaths – have been pointless. Given this bleak but frank assessment, it would have been logical for the senators to recommend that Canada end its military involvement in Afghanistan. But that is not quite what they do. http://www.thestar.com/News/article/181030

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