bout de papier, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2008), pp. 21–24
FIFTEEN DAYS: STORIES OF
BRAVERY, FRIENDSHIP, LIFE AND
DEATH FROM INSIDE THE NEW
CANADIAN ARMY, by Christie
Blatchford, Doubleday Canada, 2007,
370 pp., $34.95.
WAR AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD:
THE STRUGGLE FOR AFGHANISTAN,
KASHMIR, AND TIBET, by Eric S.
Margolis, Key Porter Books, 1999 revised
and updated 2007, 330 pp., $24.95.
OUTSIDE THE WIRE: THE WAR IN
AFGHANISTAN IN THE WORDS OF
ITS PARTICIPANTS, edited by Kevin
Patterson and Jane Warren, Random House
Canada, 2007, 294 pp., $32.00.
CANADA IN AFGHANISTAN: THE
WAR SO FAR, by Peter Pigott, Dundurn
Press, 2007, 224 pp., $35.00.
UNEXPECTED WAR: CANADA IN
KANDAHAR, by Janice Gross Stein and
Eugene Lang, Viking Canada, 2007,
332 pp., $35.00.
REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT
PANEL ON CANADA’S FUTURE ROLE
IN AFGHANISTAN, 90 pp., January 2008.
www.independent-panel-independant.ca/
reportViewer-eng.asp?selMenu=1
Harper’s Magazine in its monthly index of numbers, recently reported that there had been some 835 books published in the United States about the war in Iraq and some 32 of that number were books for children. I have searched the various indices and could only find five books that deal exclusively (or in the case of the Margolis book substantially) with Canada’s war in Afghanistan. Fortunately none are meant for children.
While quantity is no measure of substance there are many aspects of Canada’s role in Afghanistan that are not covered by these five books; we can only hope that there are books in the writing that will add to the Canadians’ understanding of how we are where we are today and what we are about. One major lacuna is that there are no books written by military personnel (except for briet accounts home of battles in Outside the Wire), either from those with Afghan mud on their boots, or by those who could add some measure of insight on Canadian insurgency tactics and why such an inordinate number of NCO soldiers have died. To expect that foreign service and CIDA development personnel might be preparing their own books would be an unexpected blessing.
Nevertheless, these five books, all published in 2007, do constitute a valuable shelf of work for Canadians on things Afghanistan. I am not aware of another set circumstance where there has been such a timely and valuable contribution for Canadians in providing information and understanding to one of our most troublesome public policy issues. There is a minimum of overlap between the books and each in its unique perspective contributes to our understanding of what Afghanistan was and is today.
Eric Margolis is the only non-Canadian, but his frequent appearances in the Canadian media over the years have been such that his views are familiar to many. He has been a peripatetic traveller in central and south Asia for the past three decades (after serving in the American Army in bout de papier Vol.
Vietnam) and is on first-name basis with many of the key players in the politics of the countries in the region. His “top of the world” metaphor is an appropriate one given the geography of the region and his overview.
Few can match his experience and knowledge and this 1999 book, updated in 2007, is a useful starting point for those seeking some measure of understanding of the broader contexts in which the Afghanistan conundrum must be viewed. India and Pakistan; India, Pakistan and China; India and Russia; and the bit parts played by Nepal, Tibet, Sikkim, Bhutan, Burma and the “stan” countries are all appropriately covered. The description of his trek with the Pakistani army to the battlefield on the Siachen Glacier is worth the price of the book. It illustrates in chilling, bone-jarring language the nature of the battlefields in this part of the world and the unfinished business they represent. While Margolis can be seen as a constant forecaster of large political disasters, and he is not shy in this book, it is by no means inappropriate to suggest that the seeds of several larger conflicts are present in this part of the world. Four (with an aspiring fifth) out of the nine acknowledged nuclear weapons states have common borders in the region and the best that can be said so far is that they have all been sane and sensible in the role that these weapons play.
The background information on Afghanistan and the personal relationships arising from his numerous visits since the late 1970s give this book a value that cannot be found elsewhere. Importantly, he makes little distinction between those who were mujahedin for one war and Taliban for another, as he sees them on an Afghan continuum rather than through the changing eyes of westerners. The fascination of these medieval warriors with modern weapons, to the restless and rootless in the Middle East and elsewhere, is equally documented.
His relationship with the Pakistani military is documented and despite his often laudatory tones, he provides ample background on why this military has played such an enormous role in everything that has happened in south Asia since the British rolled up their tents 60 years ago. Given recent events in Pakistan, his comment that “The military was the only Pakistani institution that managed to avoid being fouled in the national swamp of corruption and chicanery, or that succeeded in holding popular respect in a country steeped in poisonous cynicism” may seem over the top. At the same time when viewed a few years into the future he may be more correct than we are prepared to acknowledge today. However, for anyone looking for some degree of balance on the India- Pakistan disputes this is not the place to look. He has an animus towards India and Indians that in many respects undermines the value of his central thesis on the importance of this region.
Peter Pigott, a former employee of Foreign Affairs, is an author who has given life to Canada’s aviation story (with side trips to Hong Kong). His book Canada in Afghanistan is a significant departure. It is two books in one, with the first a fast-paced 60-page summary of Afghan history ranging from the Sumerians to Karzai. As an entry point for readers it is one of the best that I have seen and for those who believe that all history is prologue it is the sort of introduction to a complex area that is seldom available. It is the second part of the book that brings things up to date with the first entry of Canadian troops to Afghanistan in late 2001 and the subsequent efforts to forge a policy and military deployments that made sense in that changing environment. It is a sympathetic account and makes few judgments on the results.
However, in the last chapter of the book, Pigott documents the sorry effort to provide the troops with equipment appropriate to the task and the seeming ease with which the Taliban has parried the western thrust with appropriate cheap counter tactics and weapons. Quoting Churchill’s experience in the same area over 100 years ago, the author suggests that supply will never meet the demand or more correctly the need. While readers may disagree with his pejorative-laden descriptions of the enemy in Afghanistan, he does detail their greatest strength. Quoting Gwynne Dyer about how the Afghans have dealt with foreign conquerors, he writes, “Eventually they will cut their losses and go home.”
The author details the sad litany of armed personnel carriers (APCs) in Afghanistan. Ranging from the Iltis (“battlefield taxi”), to BV-206 AMV, the G-Wagon (“an SUV with armour panels”), the LAV III (“unreliable in rough country”), the Coyote, and the Nyala (“vulnerable to IEDs”), the one piece of equipment that has been the source of more Canadian casualties than any other in Afghanistan. Recent reports and deaths suggest that matters have not improved.
The story of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) is equally troublesome. Rushed into fulfilling the need for “over-the-hill” tactical intelligence, the decision was made to purchase the Sperwer UAV, which had been designed for the European theatre. In Afghanistan, the Sperwer was a total disaster. The author quotes a military officer, “By the first week of December, we were just about to be fully operational. About this time we also had our first crash.” Five crashes later (there were only six vehicles) it was determined that Afghan “wind shears and turbulence” were too much for the equipment. However, the Canadian content, snowmobile engines from Bombardier, worked well. And we are still looking for helicopters.
Two of the books, Fifteen Days and Outside the Wire tell the stories of mainly Canadians military personnel, often in their own words. In Christie Blatchford’s Fifteen Days there is the jaundiced eye of an experienced and self-depreciating journalist who has seen much and knows much about the human condition. (Her story of loose bowels while under fire is a classic.) I was not prepared to like the book, as Blatchford in her daily writings in Canada has a tendency towards the “sob” or Mary Sunshine. But here she rises well above such a tendency and gives the reader a tight, ground-level account of what it means to be a soldier in Afghanistan. This is combined with accounts of grieving and fearful relatives in Canada.
Outside the Wire on the other hand is a compilation of journal entries and accounts of a range of persons who have worked in Afghanistan since 2002. Soldiers, medics, doctors, psychiatrists and aid workers are all jumbled together and the quality of the writing, while weak at times, is compensated by its diversity and uniqueness. The story “Mascara” by Marja Dumancic, a CBC journalist, particularly stands out. She was assigned to northern Afghanistan to help female journalists develop an all-woman radio station. CBC Canadian ethics and one Afghan reporter clashed when it turned out she wanted to interview her sister who was running for elections. In good Canadian fashion
The staff had a meeting, and although it was tense at times, we all had our say. Finally we agreed that another reporter would do the whole interview again … But I still went to Tajikistan. These ladies needed makeup.
Many of the same people appear in both books; the value of this is in the different slant that Ms. Blatchford provides on a set of circumstances, compared to that given in their own words in Outside the Wire. Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Hope provides a first-hand account of Task Force Orion in Helmand province, which he commanded. The Canadian Task Force was located to the west of Kandahar province, despite the fact that it is mainly the responsibility of the British military. Following an engagement in and around Heyderabad, in support of an American platoon, Hope was ordered to take his Task Force to Nawa and Garmser to the south as both of those towns had just fallen to the Taliban. Upon receiving these orders and asked if he had any questions, the Colonel laconically replied, “Where are Nawa and Garmser?”.
The directions were found and Colonel Hope and the Task Force went off to do battle. Both towns were captured (or at least the centre of Garmser) and a few days later both were handed over to British and Afghan forces.
Christie Blatchford devotes a chapter to this battle and her account matches that of Colonel Hope up to the end. However, her account of the end is more troublesome. She reports that the British military decided they would not defend the two towns and would follow the Canadians out. Major Kirk Gallinger, one of the Canadian commanders, is quoted as follows:
They [British] were such a light force. I can understand their CO not wanting to get his soldiers decisively engaged. Nobody else in Afghanistan had that wherewithal and had that ability, that operational tactical ability to manoeuvre, like we did. And quite honestly, no one else was willing to take those types of risks to be able to support the Afghan government like we were.
The Unexpected War takes us back to the beginning. Janice Stein and Eugene Lang have provided a unique and, in Ottawa terms, as much of an insider book on Afghanistan as we are likely to see for some time. It is a depressing book even for one who has chased more Ottawa sheep than is healthy. As someone once remarked, those who like sausages should not view their making; the making of Canadian Afghan policy from 2001 onwards is no prettier and the motto for the exercise should be from the frequently quoted Dr. Ken Calder, assistant deputy minister of policy for DND, who in 2003 said, “We don’t know anything about this country.” But as the book and recent events demonstrate, Canada’s Afghan policy has little if anything to do with Afghanistan.
Stein and Lang provide in clear and sharp language a policy element by policy element portrait of the road on which we are walking. The initiating event was the decision in October 2001 to join the Americans in their dash to get rid of the Taliban and the subsequent rush of self-congratulatory euphoria when everyone was taken in by how easy it all seemed. But the worms of poor planning soon appeared in late December when the Globe and Mail published a picture showing Canadian soldiers with prisoners and the Minister of Defence did not know what was going on. A blip perhaps, but the issue of prisoners continues to dog Canadian policy to this day.
In the aftermath of the defeat of the Taliban in late 2001 and their decision to go south to lick their wounds and regroup in the comfort of Pakistan, Canadian policy followed its traditional approach. Again Stein and Lang methodically detail the careful measuring of each decision against military capacity, meeting American expectations (which were surprisingly low) and, importantly, making decisions that carried finite time constraints. This approach took Canada to Kabul; continued naval involvement in the Persian Gulf, even with nominal Canadian command of ships associated with the Iraq war; and a yearlong deployment to then relatively peaceful Kandahar. This approach of a “little-bit-for everyone, everywhere” while messy to outsiders (especially with respect to Iraq) worked well and would have continued to work well except that there was a new Prime Minister and shortly thereafter a new Chief of Defence Staff.
The new Martin government came into office in late 2003. The new defence minister, David Pratt, who only lasted eight months, in comments to the authors is quoted as saying that, “Afghanistan wasn’t a priority during my tenure. I was focusing on procurement, defence policy, NORAD and BMD and the Proliferation Security Initiative.” This, while there were 2,000 Canadian troops in Kabul and General Rick Hillier was in command of the ISAF. As with all Canadian elections foreign and defence policy rarely rose to any level of concern among the electorate and 2004 was no different. During the election and after, Martin and the Liberals made noises about how Canada should “contribute meaningfully to peace and nation-building around the world. Afghanistan, again, was not in Martin’s sights; Haiti, the Middle East and Darfur were.”
Shortly after, there began one of the strangest periods of Canadian policy formation that the country has ever seen. “Conflict prevention was going to be critical to our foreign policy going forward,” the Prime Minister is quoted as saying and the word went out for an International Policy Statement (IPS). It was to be a “defining feature of the Martin government, one of the prime minister’s top priorities, an attempt to redefine and transform Canada’s role in the world.” Foreign Affairs was given the coordination pen and International Trade, National Defence and the Canadian International Development Agency were expected to drop their traditional vertical views on the world and move to a “horizontal” approach in order to give the Prime Minister his “transformational” policy. Of course the issue bogged and the Prime Minister’s Office took control of the process but “it soon became apparent that neither the PCO nor the PMO had the expertise or institutional horsepower to give shape to a document that was the product of endless compromises.” In desperation the PMO decided that Jennifer Welsh, a Canadian Oxford don, was their saviour for the policy statement, and over the howls of the traditionally-minded she was given the “pen.” Not surprisingly this did not work much better as what the Prime Minister naively wanted consisted of pushing an imaginary rock up an imaginary hill and describing it in sufficient detail to provide focus for those charged with its implementation.
Over at National Defence, General Rick Hillier had returned from Kabul and was the new Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). Hillier understood more than most that what the Prime Minister wanted was a differentiating concept that would separate his government from that of his predecessor and, at the same time, make sense of a changing and troublesome international environment. Illustrating how deficient the policy process had been, Hillier simply combined the concepts “of failed and failing states” and the “emergence of global terrorism,” added the American concept of the “Three-Block War” and suddenly there was something that the Prime Minister could accept — proving once again that old wine in new bottles still sells. “The Defence Review saved the IPS. Hillier’s contribution was the outstanding contribution to that effort,” the authors quote the former Prime Minister as saying
Hillier in addition to being a “soldier, a field commander, and an operator,” was also a Pied Piper. He could lead and charm the dollars out of the tightest tightwad at Treasury Board. The first test of the new policy was of course Afghanistan since Darfur and Haiti were not seen as being amenable to significant Canadian intervention. Before long Hillier was promoting a six-element package for Afghanistan — a PRT in Kandahar; a renewed deployment of JTF2 Special Forces in the same region; lead and command for nine months; the Kandahar region multinational headquarters; and, the icing on the cake for any foot soldier, the deployment for one year, beginning in February 2006, of a combat infantry task force of about 800-1,000 troops to “conduct stabilization and combat operations throughout Kandahar province.” The sixth element was the creation of a 15-member team, called a Strategic Advisory Team, that would work with important ministries and advise the Afghan government on public administration.
Surprisingly, there was little debate within the government on the bold plan. The Prime Minister convened a meeting with Defence Minister Bill Graham, Hillier and others to discuss the plan but apart from a desultory examination of the other priorities of the Prime Minister – Darfur, Haiti and the Middle East – it would appear from the authors’ comments the Hillier plan was considered a slam dunk. “Hillier gave the prime minister unequivocal assurances that the complete package that he recommended in Afghanistan would not inhibit the Canadian forces from contributing significantly to an international force for Darfur (or Haiti or the Middle East), beginning early 2007.” The Toronto Star subsequently reported, “Martin made it plain … that he didn’t want to be patronized … He didn’t want any ’Yes, Minister’ business. He looked Hillier squarely in the eye and demanded his commitment. He got it.”
Associated with the Afghan plan was Hillier’s far-reaching plan to transform the Canadian military and it was from that transformation he expected the flexibility to mount a second mission to another part of the world. Subsequently, the Finance Minister queried the total cost of the Afghan mission ($1.2 billion; now estimated to be in excess of $6 billion) and suggested that the multinational headquar ters component be eliminated. Not to be outdone Hillier decided that element could be funded out of DND’s existing funds and the full package was approved by Cabinet. Darfur was still of importance to the Prime Minister and he pressed for something to be done. Ever the wily soldier, Hillier met the demand by donating 110 clapped-out, aging Grizzly armoured personnel carriers to the African Union peacekeeping force. They were shipped via Senegal and it is not clear whether they made it to Darfur or were of any use.
In the summer of 2005 Bill Graham and the CDS spoke publicly about the plan and while Graham talked of a complex plan with a complex message, Hillier, on the other hand, started his love affair with the Canadian media and public with speeches that sounded like pep talks before a hockey game. The CDS got the headlines but it “buried the more sophisticated nuanced message that Graham was trying to communicate, a message that more accurately described the purposes the government had approved.”
A few months later there was a new government and a new Prime Minister and the first troublesome casualties from Kandahar. Surprisingly the Prime Minister decided to make the Liberal Afghan policy his own and before long through parliamentary sharp-practise obtained a two-year extension for the combat role in Kandahar. Today the Prime Minister is trying to engineer another two-year extension for the combat role in Kandahar that would take it to 2011.
The Manley Panel was the strategy the Prime Minister used to gain support for the second extension. The Panel report released in early 2008 is a document meant to beguile Canadians into believing that with time and patience the current Afghan strategy of the government and NATO will work. Unlike John McCain in the United States, who has honestly suggested that American policy in Iraq might take 100 years, here the reasoned tone is one that “no end date makes sense at this point.” The Panel details the importance of the mission to Canada and the world and then establishes a series of near-miracles for success to occur. At the same time the Panel then suggests that if the miracles do not occur than Canada would be justified in quitting the Afghan plains. This has provided the government with a wide road on which to operate and if it does not succeed in making the miracles happen, it can place the blame on others, especially some European members of NATO who have not risen to the occasion.
If nothing else war should teach and the issue for Canada and Canadians is whether or not we have learned anything over the past seven years. Certainly there is little appreciation that our leaders have learned much. We have had seven defence ministers, six foreign ministers, three Prime Ministers, a host of ministers and presidents at CIDA and an Independent Panel. In all of that time and with all of those eminent Canadians, not more than 50 percent of Canadians, and often much less, are convinced that either NATO or Canada can succeed in the changing and difficult environment of Afghanistan. Importantly, there are few signs that the Afghans themselves are prepared to even come close to meeting the reasonable expectations that its western friends have made. Perhaps it is time that the next vote in Parliament should be one of confidence on Afghanistan and the opposition for once should give Canadians an opportunity to make their voices heard on the matter. It is time that the manipulation by the infernal, internal Ottawa game players should come to an end.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2008), pp. 21–24. Read the rest of this issue →
