As much as one can't spend his way out of trouble, there's no magic wand to fix any problem overnight. CBC reports Gen. Rick Hillier giving a longer timescale for building up an efficient Afghan army to protect the security of the most rebellious provinces and guaranteeing efficient government control over the whole territory.
This does not surprise me, although it will disappoint any optimists who still saw a successful end to the Afghanistan mission in the short term. The country has been torn by conflict for decades, and the transition from being a country at war to being a country at peace is usually difficult. Even in economic and social terms conflict is a powerful destroyer. A war society is likely to be founded on an individual's survival and present safety, with a more short-term focus. Long-term investment and faith in the future tend to be relegated to lower positions on the priority list. That's at least how I see it.
One of the duties of the mission (explicit or implied) was to begin helping people regain confidence in lasting absence of conflict and danger. Many of us, I suppose, would testify that for one to regain our lost trust is quite a difficult process. Imagine how hard it could be for an abstract notion such as "lack of conflict".
The loyalty structure of Afghan society, imho, doesn't help either. From my knowledge tribal and ethnic loyalties tend to be prioritized, possibly followed by local and individual ones. Rebuilding a functioning, present and trusted State in what decades of conflict and volatility turned into quite a civic wasteland will require decades, and training up an army is just the beginning.
Despite all difficulties, we have a duty towards the Afghans. We took up the call to come in and help them. Whatever defects some, and only some of them may display we cannot abandon them before being sure their country can run itself one way or another. Otherwise they'll once again be left alone in the face of greater dangerous power games.
The combat mission must end if this is the will of the Government and Parliament. However, I think Canada should not disengage from Afghanistan. Setting up a big military training centre in a safer area, beefing it up with training personnel and getting down to improving the throughput would be an excellent step in the right direction.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/10/25/hillier-afghan-mission.html?ref=rss
2 comments:
Continuing our discussion re: Russian families, let us consider Afghanistan. Here are the highest birth rate countries in the world as per CIA factbook 2007 figures and estimates:
1 Niger 50.16
2 Mali 49.61
3 Uganda 48.12
4 Afghanistan 46.21
5 Sierra Leone 45.41
6 Burkina Faso 45.28
7 Somalia 44.6
8 Angola 44.51
9 Liberia 43.75
10 Congo, Democratic Republic of the 42.96
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=af&v=25
Afghanistan being differentiated from the above by geography, if not levels of war and religion to a lesser degree.
One bad news story we do not see coming out of Afghanistan is largescale willfull abandonment of children by males (going off to fight was could be considered nearly the same by proxy, granted). Stories of the closeknit nature of Afghan families and tribes abound.
We can further agree that Afghanistan has little to no functioning social safety net and that women still have a low level of freedoms despite recent legal reforms and the defeat of the Taliban.
So in Afghanistan I propose a combination of social mores preceding Islam, Islam itself, a lack of social safety net, and lack of statist workplace legislation combine to mitigate the father/child abandonment seen in Russia and elsewhere. A bit off topic but essential to understanding Afghanistan. Thoughts?
I would cast my vote for Islamic mores. With the attitudes towards male-female relationships in the various Islamic cultures there's no room for fooling around, for both genders.
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