Canada treads new path in Afghanistan

April Fools Day saw sparks flying inside the lecture room of the 15th Field Artillery Regimental Hall, and it wasn’t because of some kind of bad joke between old army buddies.
The special guest speaker at the regular Wednesday luncheon was the recently returned Commander of Task Force Kandahar, Brigadier General Denis Thompson, and the topic was The Struggle for Kandahar: Canadian Soldiers Making a Difference in Afghanistan.
Throughout the 90-minute talk, it was apparent that some in the small crowd of military officers, reservists, government officials and others were simply not buying the official story – that Canada is achieving its military objectives in Afghanistan and helping to rebuild a stable state in one of the most war-oppressed regions of the world.
But the general who worked his way through Cyprus, Germany and Bosnia before his Middle East deployment was adamant. Any comparison of the Afghanistan mission to historical Canadian military operations was “completely irrelevant,” he said.
“We’re nation building,” he said unapologetically. “We’re trying to make Afghanistan look like it did in 1970, before the Communists arrived.”
Canada and its NATO-led International Security Assistance Force partners are fighting to support the elected Afghan government, to help the spread of human rights, and to rebuild the Afghan national police and other security forces so they can stand on their own, Thompson said.
“We are not engaged in suppressing the Afghanistan population,” he answered sternly to the vehemently stated claim that Canada has only a “pitiful” number of troops in the country and that up to 200,000 soldiers will be needed to “wipe out” the Taliban.
Homegrown political criticisms notwithstanding, Thompson said the Canadian military operation has the support of both the United Nations and the duly elected Afghan government, and with recent political changes around the globe, countries such as India, Russia and Iran have also recently joined the discussions to bring political stability to Afghanistan.
In fact, Thompson said part of the ongoing confusion at home over the mission lies in the fact that Canada is not in battle against the Afghan people, but instead, against a small contingent of religious extremists who are benefiting from an influx by angry young men many of whom have been caught up in the civil unrest in their homelands, most notably neighbouring Pakistan.
And with six years of practical on-the-ground experience in Afghanistan, Thompson said Canada is learning new and successful tactics that are not found in traditional military manuals, books or official doctrines.
Probably the most important aspect of the evolving mission is training the Afghan national police to take over security operations for the country, Thompson said. Canada has already training about 1,000 officers around Kandahar City, but the entire province needs about 4,000 local police before the region can be considered independently secure, he said.
But there is still a long way to go. Currently, there are a mere six security personnel for every 1,000 people in the general population, and ISAF is trying to bring that number up to 20 per 1,000. Recent American deployments will help improve those numbers, but the real solution will only come when the Afghan police are ready to take on that role themselves. “There is no end date, there is an end state, and the international community understands that,” Thompson said.
Another big problem is the entrenched narcotics industry, with Afghanistan having 90 per cent of the world’s poppy fields, largely centred in Helmand province. Although the price of opium has fallen 50 per cent over the past year, Afghan farmers are still reluctant to switch to alternative crops, such as the 750 tonnes of wheat donated by Canada, because of the loss of profits that can be made from the illegal trade. “Afghanistan needs an Elliot Nash,” Thompson said in reference to the famed Untouchables police squads that brought peace to Chicago in the 1930s.
One pending change that Thompson predicts will have a long-range positive impact on reducing the insurgency is an agreement with Pakistan to install biometric scanning at the porous main border crossing with Afghanistan, where no customs office currently exists and few passersby are refused entry unless they are carrying weapons or narcotics.
Military innovations are also helping. One recent change that has boosted Canadian moral and helped reduce the number of potential injuries was the arrival of the first helicopters to transfer Canadian troops to the field, and allow Thompson to log more than 16,500 kilometres during his nine-month deployment in Kandahar province. The ISAF is also making good use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the north of the country.
Surprisingly, Thompson said Afghanistan has a growing number of helicopters and Hercules-style transport planes of its own, and will have a bigger air force than Canada by 2012. When asked if that meant the Afghan troops were better equipped than our own, he clarified by saying it was a matter of quantity, not quality.
But there are setbacks. When asked if the recent proposal of the Afghan parliament to impose Sharia law and limit the rights and freedoms of Afghan women, would have any impact on the troops, Thompson noted that Ottawa was quick to go on record as being “vehemently opposed” to the loss of human rights. But he also noted that there is little the Canadian military can do with something that is fundamentally a political dilemma.
Another setback was the change in Taliban strategy to a campaign of harassment of against the populace, political assassinations, such as the killing of the first female police officer in the country, and the growing use of Improvised Explosive Devices. Thompson does not believe that strategy will help the Taliban gain the support of the Afghan population.
Thompson also downplayed criticisms Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is rampant among the returning soldiers. “The truth is, in war, everyone sees horrific things,” he said. “But you can equate PSTD with obesity. If you’re five pounds overweight, you can do it yourself, but if you’re 100 pounds overweight, you’re going to probably need some medical help.
“We’ve done a lot to educate our officers and NCOs to recognize the signs, and when they see it, they get the soldiers the help they need.”
Thompson surprised many with his closing statement on the three primary enemies of the Afghan people – illiteracy, corruption and the Taliban. “Illiteracy, to my mind, is the most important,” he said.