Canada’s ‘epic failure’
BY FAILING AFGHAN ALLIES, OUR COUNTRY HAS FALLEN FAR SHORT OF BEING THE FORCE FOR GOOD THAT WE HAVE LONG CLAIMED
As the people of Afghanistan face a catastrophe unfolding in real time, one has to wonder what desperation would lead a person to throw their child into the arms of a soldier on the other side of razor wire, to cling to the undercarriage of an aircraft hurtling down a runway, or to wade chest deep through raw sewage to present papers to an indifferent official. The answer, of course, is the nightmare return of the Taliban’s terrorist rule. Their barbaric practices and vicious reprisals have led to the sheer panic witnessed by onlookers worldwide.
Shariah law will be mercilessly imposed; stonings, summary executions and every form of human rights violations will follow. This will be the jarring fate of women in particular who had the audacity to become judges, teachers, politicians and public servants. The dreams of many young women of an education and the freedom to pursue a career will disappear into the night sky as quickly as the planes leaving Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul last week.
Those souls gathered at the airport and hiding nearby, and millions more around the country now brace for the reprisals that await in the form of torture and targeted assassinations. Dashed hopes have given way to bitter feelings of betrayal and anger in Kabul and throughout the country.
For those elsewhere in the world, empathy and regret give way to apprehension as to what comes next.
For the first time, I feel our country has fallen far short of its moral obligations to be the force for good that we have long claimed as part of our national character.
Thousands remain stranded, including Canadians. While much was promised — 20,000 to be welcomed to Canada as a campaign pledge — only 3,700 made it out with Canada’s help. This was an epic failure on our part. Many knew this was coming. The intelligence was clear, and yet when the day of reckoning arrived, the reaction here was as chaotic as the scenes in Kabul. For countless Afghans the arbitrary number of refugees to be welcomed raised false hopes. Then the blazing beacon of our country was abruptly extinguished. What happened to the responsibility to protect? This was a responsibility to prevent.
I recall in 2006 visiting Canadian-built schools in Kabul and later Kandahar as foreign minister. Prior to our arrival, Canadian personnel had de-mined the playing grounds and entry points and swept the area for threats. While soldiers stood on the perimeter, watching for Taliban intent on splashing vials of acid in the faces of girls or scooping them up as child brides, one could only marvel at the courage of the teachers and students.
The school was a sanctuary where young girls brimming with pride and excitement demonstrated for us what they had learned that day, waving their hands and shouting out answers to show their commitment to education. Among the dozen girls of various ages, one girl — Anastasia — stood out to me. With stunning effervescent green eyes and a face resembling that of my own daughter, she told me through an interpreter how she went back to her village each evening, and taught by candlelight all she had learned that day, to those children, including her sisters, who were still unable to attend school. She said she wanted to become a teacher. When I asked her if she would like to visit Canada one day, she was shy and her eyes fell to the floor. She then looked up and said, “Yes,” but not until her family and friends were safe so that they might come, too. I thanked her and congratulated her and said I hoped to see her again. I left with hope in my heart and tears in my eyes — feeling a sense of pride for what Canada was doing for these children and for their families, their country.
Success in this mission should be measured in the lives saved. Sadly, the staggering numbers who remain and the refugee crisis will lead to harsh realities. The suffering and deaths to come will shock the collective conscience of the West, as will the fear that Afghanistan can once again become a safe haven for terrorist forces able to reach our shores with their evil.
We seem destined to forget the lessons of history from this “graveyard of empires,” a country never conquered throughout the centuries of its painful past. Surrounded mostly by unhelpful neighbours, there is a ferocity in the unforgiving wildness of Afghanistan’s vast countryside that hides an enormous richness of resources and culture. The people, like the land itself, are resilient, rough and complex. There is a wary wisdom and hardness in their eyes. Many have come to conquer them, some to liberate, but all have left them behind to a cruel fate.
Canada contributed mightily to the effort to change the tragic trajectory of Afghanistan. After the attacks against North America on 9/11, we were part of the initial wave of military who responded and sought to bring to justice Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the masterminds of the brazen plot. Narrowly missing their capture we began what would be a two-decade mission to secure, stabilize and create a better future for Afghans. The military performed magnificently in turning back the insurgency and clearing towns and countryside of maniacal killers who preyed on the innocent.
Our CAF, against the most difficult of circumstances, did our nation proud but at great cost to themselves and their loved ones. One hundred and fifty-nine lives were given, thousands more physically and psychologically wounded. This was not a wasted sacrifice alongside 60 other countries. A Unbacked, NATO-LED, out-ofarea full-combat mission justified the fight but the flag-draped coffins of our fallen repatriated to Canada shocked our wary citizens, tested our resolve and quickened departure.
While our soldiers, diplomats and aid workers toiled alongside allies and grateful Afghans, roads, bridges and irrigation systems were built, dams repaired, wells dug and agriculture returned, as poppy for heroin, which afflicted our citizens, was replaced by barley, beets and Canadian wheat. Some of the best pomegranate, grapes and fruit in the world flourished and was exported again. Nascent public service departments expanded, and significantly, massive training efforts had begun. Woman sat as judges and in their parliament, and millions of kids — including girls — went to school and were inoculated against the ravages of polio and other diseases.
We were in Afghanistan for 20 years, and for a time there was some semblance of security and stability, a return for the economy, democracy, education and medical treatment. Infant mortality fell, spirits soared and a sense of independence and dignity took root. Afghans received a taste of a better life and most elusive, hope for the future. We bought time for a peace that never came. Tragically its fragile existence was always contingent on the absence of apocalyptic terrorists and their imposition of medieval rule.
It would all seem to have collapsed to rubble now, reminiscent of the two statues of Bamiyan Buddha carved into a mountainside 1,500 years ago and destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.
The Taliban’s return and ever-present corruption and resistance to any true rule of law mark the filling of the void left by the pullout, a catastrophic end to the mission.
Our ambition and patience, not to mention money and political will, simply ran out. The often-quoted phrase was, “the Westerners had the watches, the Taliban had the time.” In the end, they waited us out, then returned with a vengeance. That it happened in the midst of a global pandemic that has preoccupied Western governments is perhaps yet another cruel twist of fate, as Afghanistan’s citizens are among the lowest vaccinated population in the world. Ironies abound in that seemingly cursed corner of the world.
I reflected this week upon the brilliance of our Canadian Armed Forces responders in the 2006 evacuation of over 15,000 people from Lebanon when the conflict with Israel erupted. Or the 2010 rally to respond within hours to the earthquake in Haiti. For our professional responders there was never a hesitation or thought of abandoning Afghanistan. In the words of Acting Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre, “the CAF wanted to stay longer.” They are certainly not to blame.
In my view Canada and the West are not meeting their international obligations. Canada let down those we promised to stand behind, while the U.K., the U.S., Germany, and recently Ukraine, continued to evacuate their people and Afghans. Heroic efforts continue as an international coalition of motivated individuals, journalists and veterans try to secure land bridges to safe neighbouring countries, broker support, build networks and raise funds, all in an effort to rescue more Afghan people. This is all that is left.
My thoughts of Anastasia continue; she deserved better. I found myself scanning the frenzied scenes on television for a glimpse of her beautiful face. Just as before, I have also felt tears well up, this time tears of anguish, shame and guilt for a colossal letdown of those left behind and for what might have been.