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By Mario Roy
La Presse
December 22, 2001, six years ago today, Hamid Karzaï was placed at the head of the interim Afghan government several days after the defeat of the Taliban. Since then, we have seen a guerilla movement gradually move in, particularly in the South where Canadians are fighting. This year, we'll count 6,000 deaths, a record.
So, on December 22, 2007, where are we, exactly, with all that?
Seen from here, the landscape is the one formed by our 73 troops killed in combat, the Canadian population's hostility (70 percent in Québec) to this intervention, and doubt about its success that sometimes approaches certainty of its failure. For there is no longer anyone today who predicts "victory" in the short term. That is to say, the establishment of a stable government, a functional democracy, an economy that is actually working, and domestic security assured by a correct police force and legal system.
This doubt about success - or certainty of failure - has slithered up to the highest levels of the administrations involved.
The day before yesterday, President George W. Bush himself said that what he feared above all was that "people will get tired of Afghanistan and think about withdrawing" - he was, obviously, thinking about the armed forces of some 35 countries that are present there.
This doubt also translates into the repeated refusal of NATO members, especially the European ones, to engage in combat zones. "French involvement is already very significant," protests French Defense Minister Hervé Morin in this vein, refusing to commit troops in the South. "We are concentrated in the North and that's what we expect to continue to do," adds German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The Degree of Zero Enthusiasm Has Been Reached
In consequence, a process of mission revision is underway. That's the case for the United States, both at the Pentagon and at the State Department. NATO countries will meet in Bucharest in April in order to define a new strategy. Here, the Harper government has given John Manley a mandate to study the situation; his report is expected next month.
We know Prime Minister Stephen Harper's desire to extend the Canadian mission up to 2011, the issue eventually having to be submitted to Parliament.
It would be wise not to make any decision before knowing the intentions of the other NATO members in general and of Washington in particular. Crudely put: we need to know first of all whether the international community still has any real interest in Afghanistan.
Since, to be frank, that was never very obvious.
From the beginning, the United States bolted to Baghdad, neglecting Kabul. The security forces deployed in Afghanistan have been nearly 20 times less dense than those sent to Bosnia (one versus 19 per 1,000 inhabitants). The sums allocated to nation building were eight times less in the case of Afghanistan than in that of Bosnia ($57 versus $679 per inhabitant). There has never been a coherent strategy for "conquering hearts and minds." The crucial problem of the Pakistani border has been neglected, as has that of opium poppy cultivation.
Given all the foregoing, and if nothing changes radically, I must repeat: Canada has done more than its share in Afghanistan. And there would be no reason to continue to sacrifice lives for a cause no one any longer believed in.
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