Sajjan safe, but Afghanistan is not

Embattled country’s future uncertain as ever

OTTAWA • Lost in the furor over defence minister Harjit Sajjan’s claims to have been the “architect” of a decadeold battle in Afghanistan are fears that country is again on the edge of failure.

Liberal MPs used their superior numbers in the House of Commons on Tuesday to vote down a largely symbolic non-confidence motion brought against the embattled defence minister.

The Conservatives sponsored the motion after Sajjan exaggerated his role in Operation Medusa, a key battle involving Canadian Forces in Afghanistan in 2006.

While the minister apologized, the Tories accused him of misleading Canadians on other issues, such as the urgent need for Super Hornet aircraft and cuts to tax benefits for soldiers deployed to Kuwait.

The NDP voted with the Conservatives, but 168 Liberal MPs joined Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in supporting Sajjan.

Green party leader Elizabeth May and Independent MP Hunter Tootoo also supported Sajjan, resulting in a final vote of 171-122.

Yet for all the debate that led up to Tuesday’s vote, one thing noticeably missing was any mention of the situation in Afghanistan now.

The country’s future remains as uncertain as ever, as the threat posed by the Taliban — and now the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — continues to grow.

Trudeau was warned shortly after taking office in November 2015 that the progress made in bringing peace to Afghanistan was in danger of being rolled back.

That was despite the U.S.led coalition having spent billions on security and reconstruction and having had more than 3,000 military personnel killed, including 158 Canadian soldiers.

“Insecurity has increased significantly,” reads a secret briefing note prepared for Trudeau and obtained by The Canadian Press.

Afghan security forces were “sustaining unprecedented casualties and significant territorial losses,” the briefing note added, as the Taliban “expanded its footprint” across the country.

The situation has grown worse, with U.S. generals warning they need thousands of additional troops to break what has become a stalemate with the Taliban.

The insurgents launched a brazen attack on an Afghan military base last month that killed more than 140 Afghan soldiers, while analysts say almost half the country is contested or under Taliban control.

ISIL has also made inroads, while the number of civilian casualties reached a record high last year, as the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reported 3,498 civilians killed and 7,920 injured.

Afghan security forces have also incurred “shockingly high” losses, with 807 soldiers and police officers killed in the first six weeks of 2017.

U.S. President Donald Trump is reportedly contemplating whether to send 3,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, while the British have said to have been asked to contribute as well.

There are about 13,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, 8,400 of them U.S.

Yet even with more soldiers and billions in promised funding, including $465 million from Canada through 2020, experts say there is a real danger of failure.

“It comes back to the old hard stuff that troops can’t fix: governance,” said Carleton University political science professor Stephen Saideman, who wrote a book on Canada’s experience in Afghanistan.