[DIV class=headline]PM leaves much unsaid in praising Afghan role
[DIV class=pubdate]Sep. 12, 2006. 12:52 AM
[DIV class=byline][A href="http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Render&c=Page&cid=971358637177&ce=Columnist&colid=969907626796"]THOMAS WALKOM[/A][/DIV]
[DIV class=articlebody][!-- icx_story_begin --]Faced with growing public unease about Canada's role in the Afghan civil war, Prime Minister Stephen Harper drew on the symbolism of 9/11 yesterday evening to explain and justify his government's decision to keep troops fighting and dying in Kandahar.
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[DIV class=articlebody]In the end, the 10-minute address did not answer the real arguments posed by the war's critics. We still do not know how long the Canadian government and its NATO allies plan to keep fighting in Afghanistan, what they will view as success or even — in very practical terms — what they are trying to accomplish.
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[DIV class=articlebody]We do not know why Canada's government has chosen to put its troops into the midst of the heaviest fighting while countries such as France and Germany, all of whom are also apparently meeting their NATO obligations, are stationed in safer parts of Afghanistan.
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[DIV class=articlebody]We do not know how battling the Taliban in Afghanistan harms Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization, which apparently is safe in Pakistan. Nor do we know what attacks on Afghan villages have to do with stopping the homegrown terrorists who bombed Madrid's train system and London's subway.
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[DIV class=articlebody]These are all questions of content that the Prime Minister's speech did not attempt to answer.
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[DIV class=articlebody]But as a piece of theatre, Harper's televised address lacked for nothing. With him in front of the cameras were four people who had lost relatives in the 2001 terror attacks on New York. In the audience were four family members of Canadian soldiers now serving in Afghanistan.
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[DIV class=articlebody]In effect, their presence was designed to visually underline the Prime Minister's message: A clear line runs from the twin towers of 9/11 to the fighting in southern Afghanistan today; to question the Afghan mission is to dishonour those so brutally killed five years ago.
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[DIV class=articlebody]"The menace of terror must be confronted," Harper said. "Real people, Canadian men and women with families and children are courageously putting themselves forward to make that part of the world (Afghanistan) a safer place."
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[DIV class=articlebody]The theme of his 10-minute soliloquy was the now-familiar storyline:
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[DIV class=articlebody]By giving sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and others linked to the 9/11 bombings, the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan had declared war on the civilized world. The resultant United Nations-sanctioned invasion was not only just, but justified. Through its military actions today, Canada is securing its own safety and fulfilling its moral obligations to the international community.
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[DIV class=articlebody]"We are a country that has always accepted its responsibilities in the world," Harper said. "The horrors of the world will not go away if we turn a blind eye."
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[DIV class=articlebody]All of this may be true. Nations do have responsibilities. But it glosses over the fundamental question: Is what we are doing in Afghanistan today useful?
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[DIV class=articlebody]Harper says it is. Yesterday he spoke of children going to school in Afghanistan, and of women gaining new rights.
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[DIV class=articlebody]But many closer to the action say the strategy is not working. The Times of London reports that a former British officer just returned from Afghanistan says NATO's heavy-handed efforts in the south are succeeding only in turning the population against the West.
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[DIV class=articlebody]According to one press report from Afghanistan, Canadian troops are burning crops and destroying homes in the south as part of their effort to liberate the population.
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[DIV class=articlebody]Meanwhile, Canada's nominal ally, Pakistan, has made what is in effect a separate peace with Taliban insurgents, giving them free reign to launch attacks against NATO forces from sanctuaries inside that country.
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[DIV class=articlebody]As for the progress in Afghanistan that Harper speaks of, Canadian journalist and Afghanistan veteran Kathy Gannon notes that much of it is illusory. Schools may have been built but they stand empty; corruption within the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai is rampant. Women in many parts of the country are as badly off today as they were under the Taliban.
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[DIV class=articlebody]Harper did not talk about any of this last night. Nor did he want to. What he wanted to do was take the pervasive imagery of a five-year-old tragedy and tie it, however imperfectly, to what his government is doing in Afghanistan today.
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[DIV class=articlebody]"The Taliban is on the run," he said. That too, isn't exactly true.
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