Just What are We Fighting For?

Those who endorse 'the mission' in Afghanistan are quick to tell us who we're fighting against. We're there, supposedly, to defeat the Taliban or at least hold them at bay until we just get tired of the whole business in three or four or nine or more years.

Okay, that's what we're fighting against. Now, what are we fighting for? We're told that we're fighting for freedom and democracy in Afghanistan. That sounds pretty good but what does it mean?

Add one measure of 'freedom' and blend with two measures of 'democracy' and you have secular, liberal democracy. That's what we're fighting for, to establish a secular, liberal democracy in Afghanistan. That's what the Afghan people want, isn't it? Well, not really.

In Islamic countries, fledgling democracies tend to head straight into theocracies. These are societies that are wedded to Islam and strict Islamic law. That's not the stuff of secular, free thinkers, the sort who like to dwell on the rights of the individual against the state, for example. That's not to say they won't eventually get around to our style of democracy. It might happen at some point, just not any time soon.

Our politicians and generals really like to heap praise on Hamid Karzai and his government. They never want to mention just how corrupt and terminally compromised Karzai has already allowed his government to become. Here's the way the International Herald Tribune sees him:

"Karzai cannot deliver security and redevelopment without sustained

and effective international help. But he should be doing

a lot more to curb the corruption of his political allies

and appointees.

"Their ostentatious greed has widened the gap,

and sharpened political antagonisms, between

the favored few and the desperately poor majority

in one of the world's least developed countries. Such

venality isa gift to austere Taliban recruiters.

"So is the notorious corruption of the police and judges, which makes

it impossible for people to win redress of simple grievances.

Frustration with the courts is again driving people to look to the

swift and brutal punishments that have always been a Taliban

speciality. Karzai did himself no favors by appointing a warlord

and organized-crime figure as Kabul's chief of police earlier this year."

That's what we are fighting for, a government the Afghan people are shunning with contempt. If this is the prize, just how much Canadian blood is it worth?

Ah, but they tell us, the problems are only in the south, the Pashtun provinces. The rest of the country is peaceful and happy. What they don't tell you is that it's not Hamid Karzai who rules those regions but the warlords/drug lords and it's only peaceful there until we try to stop their trade in opium.

But then we get back to the Global War Without End on Terror. There's a bit of sleight of hand here. Those pushing this argument deliberately blur the distinctions between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Five years after they were sent packing, there's little evidence that the Taliban were actively involved in terrorism. If there was you would have heard plenty about it from those promoting this war. The Taliban let bin Laden's people set up training camps there but that was about it. They were certainly religious zealots but that's not really terrorism of the sort that's coming to your airport any time soon. They waged a brutal civil war against a similarly brutal opponent, the Northern Alliance (today's warlord/druglords).

Now the Afghan people are turning to the Taliban, not away from them, and that makes the people our unwanted enemy. Once they win over a sizeable percentage of the populace, it's all over. At that point all we can do is keep killing and keep dying until we leave.