it’s sad to think that most of the soldiers going in to fight in these foreign countries don’t know much about the history and culture of the place… (this is an assumption on my part, moreso referencing the war in iraq re: farenheit 911 and who was recruited to join the army).

“This country is not kind to invaders” - patrick, you pinpointed one of my favourite lines in the movie/book!

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Parables help.

“Mom, Dad, isn’t anyone gonna help those people trapped on their houses?”
“Not now Stanley, the important thing right now is figuring out whose to blame for all this.”

Though let’s face it - self deception is required for nations if rich white men are to get richer.

Like I said, I am just working my way through this thought, and I bring it up here just because of the comments, and it actually has very little to do with the post in question, but I think I am in need of either critique or thoughts to help me develop the idea more in my own head. I could be totally wrong, it was just something I thought about.

There’s a great line in the film/novel The Kite Runner when the exiled father is speaking to his friend about the recent Soviet invasion:

‘This country is not kind to invaders.”

It’s interesting that we see as ourselves as liberators but when referring to Pashtun in the NE of Afghan or the Persians in the NW they are referred to as Foreign elements or fighters. Even though those ethnicities have existed there for centuries.

As for knowledge of Afghanistan prior to the operation I will take it a step further. I’d say most knew absolutely nothing. If more than 30% of Canadians could’ve found it on a map I would swallow my own face in shock.

More to the point - Canada didn’t know much about it’s military then, or it’s capabilities or then-current commitments. Many Canadians actually believed because the mission was sanctioned by the UN or NATO that the CF would enter as a peacekeeping force.

Even more to the point - Canadians, and as far as I can tell, our MND - still don’t know much about Afghan or our nation’s military capabilities.

Have a nice cup of coffee, thanks for the great comment.

Now, were I to wade in on the topic of Canada’s shortcomings, I would say that as a nation we have several. First, I would say we have, to date, failed to take a new approach to resolving the situation in Afghanistan. It is clear the the strategy currently employed is a band-aid solution. We capture ground, only to have that same ground made accessible to opposition forces after we’ve moved on. We capture/kill high value targets with little effect to the opposition (at least, thats how it seems from the warmth and safety of my home in Canada). Obviously, the strategy we’ve been employing is not bringing about the desired results. This is not to say that the troops are at fault for this, but rather the policy makers who are locked into an outdated method of waging war against an opponent that carries no national flag, wears no uniform and makes use of civilian infrastructure to strike out with devastating results.

Part of this failure, I think, is another type of failure. When we signed on, I think few people took into consideration the history of Afghanistan. Sure, most of us would have known about the country from its conflict with the Soviets, or more likely from the 1985 issue of National Geographic with its iconic cover of a young Afghan woman with stunning eyes (the quote on the cover being ‘Along Afghanistan’s War-torn Frontier’). However I have serious doubts that our knowledge of the country and its people extended much beyond that. Had we paid attention to the fact that the Soviets were not the only invading army to have become bogged down in Afghanistan, we could have taken lessons from the past to apply to the present and future.

I think another shortcoming of ours (as in the Western World) is to paint ourselves as the great liberators of the Afghan people. Yes, the people were oppressed by the Taliban and conditions were horrible. However, no one asked us there to oversee a transition from tyranny to democracy. We up and decided to do that ourselves shortly following the tragic events of Sept. 11th, 2001 by invading the country with our allies. Since the Taliban had sheltered Osama Bin Laden they just had to go, and in their place we established a democratic government. Now whether you believe the current government in Afghanistan to be legitimate or a puppet of US/Western foreign policy, you cannot argue that the invading forces simply removed one government and installed another, one favourable to their methodology, which was supposedly for the people of that country. So it really shouldn’t come as much surprise when the people view us as an invading force because we are exactly that.

These are just the more obvious shortcomings I see. There are more, to be sure, but before I turn this into a dissertation I need a cup of coffee to ensure I’m making sense. No matter the actual shortcomings though I think that in order for there to be success in Afghanistan, what we need to start doing is focusing on our shortcomings in earnest. Once we identify them we can start addressing them, and accurately re-evaluate our position and how to respond to the demands we face in Afghanistan. Maybe when we start facing the reality of the situation there, we might start seeing some real progress.