{"id":832,"date":"2021-08-19T10:42:01","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T14:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/potlatchga.com\/?p=832"},"modified":"2021-08-19T10:42:01","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T14:42:01","slug":"more-on-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/potlatchga.com\/?p=832","title":{"rendered":"More on Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is a Canadian view of the current crisis in Afghanistan. The author, David Pugliese is a journalist who covers military affairs.<\/p>\n

A DOOMED MISSION
\nMany predicted Afghanistan failure
\nOttawa Citizen<\/em>18 Aug 2021DAVID PUGLIESE dpugliese<\/p>\n

Last week, Global Affairs Canada officials met with Canadian military officers in Ottawa to discuss the worsening situation in Afghanistan. The diplomats reassured those around the table that the fighting was far from over and there was still time for Afghan forces to beat back the Taliban.<\/p>\n

A few days later, the Taliban entered Kabul, ending 20 years of war with their victory.<\/p>\n

Retired Canadian generals who commanded troops during the Afghan conflict expressed surprise. Canadian veterans who lost friends during the Afghan mission were dismayed. No one could have foreseen this development, retired military officers claimed.<\/p>\n

Not quite true.<\/p>\n

Just because Canadian Forces leadership and Canada’s diplomats never saw a Taliban victory coming, there were plenty in Afghanistan who did. It’s just that Canadian leaders never listened to them, instead preferring the more upbeat version from the Afghans supported by western money and troops.<\/p>\n

Afghan Turkmen leader Akbar Bey warned in 2008 that the West couldn’t change Afghanistan and predicted the war ultimately would be lost and the Taliban would be victorious. \u201cIf American and NATO soldiers leave Afghanistan at four o’clock, at six o’clock (the Afghan government) will collapse,\u201d he told Canadian journalist Scott Taylor for a documentary on Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

That same year Pocha Khan Zadran, a warlord who served as a member of Afghan’s parliament, predicted the U.S.-led NATO mission would fail. Foreign forces knew little about the country and its tribal politics. \u201cThe U.S. is as a blind man walking on a roof. Sooner or later he will fall off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Colin Kenny, then a Liberal senator, warned in 2009 that the Afghan mission was futile. \u201cWe are hurtling toward a Vietnam ending,\u201d Kenny said.<\/p>\n

Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance rebuked Kenny for his \u201cuninformed\u201d opinion.<\/p>\n

The mission to Afghanistan was Canada’s largest military deployment since the Second World War. It came at an estimated cost of around $20 billion, claimed the lives of 158 Canadian military personnel and resulted in more than 2,000 injured. One diplomat, one journalist and five other Canadian civilians were also killed.<\/p>\n

The U.S., which financed the bulk of the Afghan mission, spent around US$1 trillion. Of that, almost $100 billion was spent on the Afghan security forces, the 308,000-strong police and military that collapsed within weeks against a Taliban force estimated to be just over 60,000.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the war, the Canadian public, as well as citizens in other NATO nations, were subjected to one of the most intense government propaganda campaigns since the Second World War.<\/p>\n

The message pushed the claim that Afghanistan was a success story. The Afghan security forces were well-trained and motivated. The Taliban was a spent force.<\/p>\n

In 2004, NATO’s top military commander, U.S. Gen. James Jones, said the Taliban \u201cwere running out of energy\u201d and their numbers had dwindled to below 1,000.<\/p>\n

Col. Steve Bowes, who headed the first Canadian military provincial reconstruction team in 2005, predicted the insurgents would be defeated within two years.<\/p>\n

Two years after that, retired Gen. Paul Manson, once Canada’s top military officer, wrote that the Taliban were in trouble.<\/p>\n

Then Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier went further, suggesting the insurgents were on the verge of defeat.<\/p>\n

The Afghanistan mission had the support of key Canadians, ranging from Don Cherry to Rick Mercer. Embedded journalists produced thousands of positive articles. Editorials supported the war effort.<\/p>\n

A few MPs such as NDP leader Jack Layton and the party’s defence critic, Dawn Black, as well as left-leaning analysts such as Steve Staples, raised questions about the mission. They were called traitors.<\/p>\n

Yet at the Pentagon, senior U.S. military leadership knew for years the Afghan war was already lost. In 2019, The Washington Post reported on what has been called the Afghanistan Papers, documents that revealed high-ranking officials knew the war couldn’t be won, but lied to the public.<\/p>\n

And what of the massive amounts of money Canada, the U.S. and other western nations spent on Afghanistan? Tens of billions of dollars of international reconstruction and security aid flowed into the most corrupt nation in the world with little accountability. The result was widespread theft of funds, with the main beneficiaries being Afghanistan’s powerful as well as high-priced foreign consultants and building contractors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe average (Afghan) person has seen little or nothing of all this money,\u201d Ramazan Bashardost, a member of Afghanistan’s Parliament and an anti corruption crusader, told the Citizen<\/em> seven years ago<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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A DOOMED MISSION Many predicted Afghanistan failure Ottawa Citizen18 Aug 2021DAVID PUGLIESE dpugliese Last week, Global Affairs Canada officials met with Canadian military officers in Ottawa to discuss the worsening situation in Afghanistan….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-robert-fischer"],"yoast_head":"\nMore on Afghanistan - Potlatch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/potlatchga.com\/?p=832\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"More on Afghanistan - Potlatch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here is a Canadian view of the current crisis in Afghanistan. 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