If one were wilfully blind, it may be possible to conclude that the timing of this release was just an unfortunate coincidence.
However, the federal budget is always a media feeding frenzy and the Harper Conservatives employ many gurus to orchestrate their public relations campaigns, so it wasn’t an accident that the lifeless cadaver of the Afghanistan fiasco was quietly dumped in the alley as the budget bandwagon made its way down Main Street.
The report paints a rosy picture of Canada’s efforts, achieving a mission "mostly accomplished" result. Given that this is a government report quantifying government achievements, such a positive spin is to be expected.
Yes, Canada did build 52 schools, trained 3,000 teachers, fixed a dam, dug hundreds of kilometres of canals and gave polio eradication the good old college try — but failed to succeed.
Despite these impressive-sounding statistics, it is impossible to hide the fact the international community’s failure to quell the violence in Afghanistan makes all of that progress temporary at best.
While Canada may have concluded its combat mission last summer, our NATO allies are currently experiencing the highest rate of casualties since the Taliban were toppled in November 2001.
The disturbing trend in escalating attacks is that they are not just coming from insurgents. In the past 18 months, there have been an increasing number of Afghan security forces turning their weapons against their NATO mentors and allies.
Just last week, two more British soldiers were gunned down at the entrance to their base at Lashkar Gah in Helmand province by a soldier wearing an Afghan army uniform. In 2012 alone, 16 NATO soldiers were killed by insurgent sympathisers within the ranks of the Afghan security forces, nearly one-third of all combat-related deaths.
This phenomenon has now spawned a new term in the military lexicon, that of "green-on-blue" attacks. The term "blue-on-blue" casualties has long been used to describe friendly fire incidents, wherein allied forces mistakenly target their own or allied troops.
In the case of Afghans turning their weapons against NATO troops, this is, of course, no accident, and there is nothing friendly about their intent.
With the current NATO exit strategy being to continue equipping and training additional Afghan security force, such acts of disloyalty to their trainers, which currently includes 950 Canadian soldiers, cannot be seen as an encouraging development.
Even more alarming was the recent discovery of nearly a dozen suicide vests inside the headquarters of the Afghan Ministry of Defence. It is believed that members of the security forces were preparing to use those devices to attack and kill the very same Afghan government employees they are entrusted to protect.
Furthermore, in the heady days following the ouster of the Taliban, we were assured that proof of our moral victory was in the fact that we had liberated Afghan women from the forced wearing of their all-concealing Burkhas. Unfortunately for those believing our soldiers were waging a war to liberate and empower Afghan women, it seems that little solid progress has been made.
A recently released report by Human Rights Watch revealed that hundreds of Afghan women are in prison for having fled their homes without their husband’s approval. In many cases, those women were running from a violent spouse only to be arrested and incarcerated to prevent them from engaging in prostitution or promiscuity.
In the foreword to the formal report on Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper wrote, "This provides an occasion for all Canadians to pause and reflect on what Canada has achieved."
For the sake of the 158 soldiers killed, 2,000-plus wounded and injured and a price tag to taxpayers of close to $20 billion, I hope they not only study what little we achieved, but also realize the tremendous cost.
Original Article
Source: the chronicle herald
Author: SCOTT TAYLOR
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