Our Deafening Silence on Afghanistan

Have Canadian soldiers been dying in vain in disproportionate numbers in Afghanistan?

It's
a reasonable question, given that NATO is panicking over the rise of
the Taliban and also over the deteriorating relationship with Pakistan,
the West's main post-9/11 partner in the war on terrorism.

Yet
the leaders of our national political parties are, for the most part,
silent on the subject in the election campaign. Contrast this with the
developments elsewhere:

• As Afghans seethe over increasing
  civilian deaths from U.S. air and ground attacks, David McKiernan, the
  American general who commands NATO troops, announces new rules of
  engagement.
• As Pakistanis seethe over American
  cross-border attacks that have killed civilians there as well, NATO
  distances itself from the U.S.

  And Admiral Mike Mullen, chair of
  the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, says he is "looking at a new, more
  comprehensive strategy" to tackle cross-border insurgent traffic.

• As
  Washington and London come to grips with the reality of a
  seven-year-old war going nowhere, George W. Bush and Gordon Brown
  commiserate on "the need to develop a new strategy."

Does Canada have a view on any of this? Does it care that the killing of civilians has a disastrous impact on our own mission?

Does
it agree that the way to uproot Taliban/Al Qaeda sanctuaries is to
unilaterally and illegally violate the sovereignty of Pakistan, inflame
public opinion there, embarrass the fledging democratic government and
enrage the chief of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the most
powerful man in Pakistan, on whom we are more or less dependant to take
on the militants?

There's much speculation in Pakistan -
especially in the Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi press - that Bush is out to
destabilize Pakistan; perhaps dismember it by fanning latent separatist
sentiments among Pushtuns who live on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan
border; or scapegoat Pakistan for his Afghan failure, thus helping John
McCain.

Amid all this, Stephen Harper is busy scoring brownie
points. With 60 per cent of Canadians harbouring grave doubts about the
Afghan mission, he says the deployment will indeed end in 2011. But
that's 29 months away. In the meantime, must our soldiers be exposed to
even greater danger?

Shouldn't Ottawa be trying for a political way out of the quagmire?

"In
2002, we were being welcomed almost as liberators by the Afghans. Now
we are being seen as a necessary evil," says Francesc Vendrell, the
European Union's outgoing envoy to Afghanistan.

Can the Taliban be defeated militarily? "No."

What's the way out? I asked Prof. Janice Stein of the University of Toronto, author of The Unexpected War, Canada in Kandahar.

"It
is imperative that our government, along with others, engage in a
serious diplomatic strategy. Afghanistan is not really about
Afghanistan. It's about Pakistan, which means it's about India."

She
is referring to Pakistan's existentialist fears - in the south from
India over the disputed border territory of Kashmir, and in the north
from the Pushtuns as well as an anti-Pakistani government in Kabul.

"That's why Pakistan invested in the Taliban," not so much to run Afghanistan as to defuse Pushtun separatism.

Equally,
it must be understood that the primary problem in Afghanistan is
Afghanistan's, not Pakistan's. What's happening with Pakistani
sanctuaries is exactly what happened during the 1980-89 Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan. It suited us then. It does not suit us now.

The porous border cannot be closed. If it could be, Afghan and NATO troops would have done it long ago from the Afghan side.

No
long-lasting solution is possible without a political detente among
Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. That, in turn, would permit economic
development in Afghanistan as well as the tribal areas of Pakistan,
thereby reducing militancy and letting democracy take root.

Canada should be counselling Washington against counterproductive warfare and working to arrange a regional peace conference.