The Problem in Afghanistan

I think that many Conservative Canadians are gravely misinterpreting the "left" in this country. Most people on "the left" that I know actually support our military and honor our veterans. I think the communications breakdown lies in the left's approach. I think most members of the Liberal Party, the NDP and the Greens would be generally supportive of measures to better equip and train our military and to better provide for our soldiers families and our veterans. The thing is we'd rather they were at home most of the time. We believe in peacekeeping, in development assistance and disaster relief but we're not too keen on war and war is where we're currently at.

Personally I think we do need to help Afghanistan. Afghanistan has existed in an almost perpetual state of war not just for the last 25 years but for the last few hundred years. The problem is that we can only help Afghanistan, we cannot force it to change. I too was and am appalled at the way the Taliban treated women and dissidents, but I am a westerner, not a Pashtun. The Pashtuns, according to Wikipedia:

"Pashtuns played a vital role during the Great Game as they were caught between the imperialist designs of the British and Russian empires. For over 250 years, they reigned as the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan. They gained world-wide attention after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and with the rise and fall of the Taliban, since they were the main ethnic contingent in the movement. Pashtuns are also an important community in Pakistan, where they are prominently represented in the military and are the second-largest ethnic group."

So there we are. The Pashtuns represent 40% of Afghanistan and a sizable part of Pakistan (you may remember alot of talk about the Taliban and Pakistan??). The Taliban was not created as an Osama Bin Laden fan club, regardless of what George Bush tells you. They were, and are, a Pashtun nationalist movement that enjoys great popularity within Pashtun society and there is no easy path to peace without negotiating with the Taliban. I'm not suggesting that power be handed back to them, but perhaps a federalist system where they controlled areas that were largely supportive of them and there was the freedom for people to move from one area to another so that people who did not subscribe to Taliban philosophy could leave freely. So far, according to today's report Canada has spent 8 billion dollars on the Afghanistan mission and lost 98 soldiers in Afghanistan.

So, support the troops? Of course I do. But to me supporting the troops involves giving them a realistic end game, achievable goals and not exposing them to more danger than necessary. We can help to rebuild Afghanistan but neither we, nor the Americans, nor Nato can change people's beliefs, loyalties or traditions at gun point. Those things change only with time and education.