Pubdate: Fri, 29 Sep 2006
Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 The Windsor Star
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/windsor/windsorstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501
Author: Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver Sun
Note: Barbara Yaffe is a Vancouver Sun columnist.

POPPIES BEHIND AFGHAN WAR

Canada has now flown 36 soldiers and one diplomat out of Afghanistan 
in caskets.

There doubtless will be more bodies to be transported home in weeks 
and months to come, a notion that may carry heavy political 
ramifications for the Harper government as an election inevitably approaches.

Conservatives, as a result of the mid-May vote they engineered in the 
Commons, bear full responsibility for extending the Canadian mission 
in Kandahar for an additional two years, to 2009.

Most Canadians haven't access to the necessary information for a 
thorough analysis of the strategic imperatives behind the Afghan mission.

The nightly news offers differing messages about what is being achieved.

Sometimes it sounds as though there are successes -- such as young 
girls getting to go to school. Other times it sounds as though we're 
fighting a senseless, losing battle -- as when it was learned a while 
back that an Afghan who'd converted to Christianity faced a death 
sentence (a penalty not carried out, thanks to international pressure.

We've been advised Canada will shortly be boosting its troop strength 
from 2,200 to 2,500, mostly in Kandahar province.

And, at the United Nations last Thursday, Prime Minister Harper -- 
who received Afghan President Hamid Karzai late last week in Ottawa 
- -- reaffirmed Canada's commitment: "The success of the UN-supported 
mission in Afghanistan, in providing both security and development, 
is vital to the Afghan people."

Foreign Affairs' website notes that Canada intends to maintain its 
Canadian International Development Agency funding at $100 million for 
the current fiscal year. Our contribution from 2001 to 2009 will 
total $650 million to $1 billion, depending on which report coming 
out of Ottawa you read.

"With help from Canada and other donors, Afghanistan is making 
significant progress," the website claims.

Is It Progress?

Is that true?

Not if you believe warnings emanating from the Senlis Council, a 
respected international policy think-tank with offices in Kabul, 
London, Paris and Brussels.

The council, with field researchers on the ground in the cities of 
Kandahar, Lashkar Gah and Herat, asserts that Canada is making a 
major error in following the American-British approach toward 
reconstruction in Afghanistan.

The council is urging Canada and its European allies to turn their 
backs on a failing U.S. approach encompassed by that nation's 
so-called Operation Enduring Freedom, an approach that is all about 
"aggressive and inflammatory" counterterrorism.

The rebuilding of Afghanistan has to start with poverty eradication, 
Senlis argues. And that requires an entirely different approach to 
Afghanistan's pervasive poppy production.

While roads and bridges are indeed getting rebuilt, people in the 
south of the country lack such basics as food and water.

Poverty relief must be the priority and, currently, poppy production 
is the only means of economic survival for many. Switching to 
alternative crops takes time and cash.

Reports the Senlis Council: "Many Afghan farmers have turned to the 
Taliban, who are offering protection to farmers from forced poppy 
eradication. In this way, support for the Taliban has increased. The 
Taliban now have de facto control of the southern half of Afghanistan."

The council further argues that Turkey offers a model for 
transitioning poppy production -- now feeding an opium black market 
- -- into a viable, legal and licensed industry in Afghanistan that 
would produce morphine-type painkillers for an international market 
currently short of such products.

Certainly this would be difficult to achieve in today's Afghanistan, 
where the governance and legal infrastructure remain so rudimentary.

But should Canada's efforts be reconsidered, to ensure this country 
isn't inadvertently augmenting support for the Taliban, to ensure 
Canadian troops aren't presenting themselves as warriors rather than 
peacekeepers focusing on genuine reconstruction?

New Insights

Is the Senlis Council right? Is Canada becoming too associated in 
Afghan minds with the U.S. counterterrorism effort, which features 
aggressive pursuit of Taliban wackos and the inevitable collateral 
civilian damage that goes along with it?

The least that ought to occur as a result of this new insight offered 
by Senlis is for the Harperites to start a frank dialogue with 
Canadians about our Afghan commitment -- so the public can make an 
informed opinion on what it is we're aiming to accomplish over there.

That surely is the minimum called for in any democracy.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman