With the 117th Canadian now dead in Afghanistan it is past due time to ask, what are we doing there.
Most of us know that the Taliban government of Afghanistan gave aid and support to Al Queda and that this support was instrumental in allowing Osama bin Laden to plan and carry out the attacks against the United States on September 11.
The punishment for that support was an all-out assault on the Taliban, led by the United States, and the removal of the Taliban as the governing authority. Unfortunately no one thought to follow up on that victory by building hospitals, schools and the other civil projects that might have won over the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan.
That being said, the Taliban is no longer in power in Afghanistan. They have been replaced by a consortium of folks who appear to be uniformly corrupt and whose leadership of the nation would likely qualify it as a failed state were it not for the economic and military presence of Nato on the ground.
The current government of Afghanistan seems to share few of the values of those nations that prop it up and without them showing some movement towards those values we have fallen into the unfortunate circumstance of supporting the lesser of two evils.
The question that I ask myself is, why.
Afghanistan is currently in the midst of a civil war. The Taliban is attempting to overthrow by force a government that owes it's existence to the overthrow of the Taliban government by force. It appears from media reports that Al Queda, in Afghanistan, is pretty much irrelevant.
Why are we taking sides?
Today a group of women who were peacefully protesting the proposal to implement Sharia law in Afghanistan were stoned by militant counter protesters who think women should be under the absolute control of their fathers or husbands. Not all that long ago a woman in Afghanistan who was raped multiple times was charged with a number of crimes that resulted either from her allowing herself to be raped, or being so provocative that the men were forced to rape her or....well, who knows what she did wrong.
Canada should not wait until 2010 or 2011 to leave Afghanistan. We should just leave. Now.
We are not on the side of the good guys in this conflict. We are enabling despots and misogynists and in doing so we are participants in their crimes against their own people. It is time to let these folks sort out their own problems. If the winner of their ongoing dispute is willing to meet certain international standards of conduct we should support them as we are able. If they are not wiling to meet those standards, we should do everything possible to wall them off from the benefits of membership in the international community.
For now, right now, Canada should withdraw her troops from Afghanistan. The country is not worthy of our soldiers blood.
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