A Must Read on Our Success in Afghanistan

This is a rant - a well written and erudite rant posted on Army.ca. It has been reprinted here with permission of the author.

Please read it and pass the link to your friends, whether you support it or not. We will get the other side of the story heard...


"I've had enough. Consider this my rant against ignorance; my protest against agendas, half-truths, and lies. For almost two years I have been closely following the news from and about Afghanistan and it has been demoralizing to say the least. I spent a year in Kabul with the Strategic Advisory Team and watched the media only report the deaths our Forces suffered rather than the successes we (not just the SAT) achieved. I have watched "experts", editorialists, politicians, protesters, activists and pundits mangle facts, misread situations and push agendas. Most of what I have read and seen has been flawed to one degree or another. As a result many Canadians I have spoken to are wholly unaware of what we are doing there and why we are doing it. The debate has been so muddied by poor reporting and incomplete information that most people are stunned when they hear of our successes.

At the same time I have heard only reactive, ineffective whimpers from our establishment. Our government and DND in particular has done a poor job of getting the message out. Granted things are improving but you only have to look at the News Room on the DND website to see that the majority of news releases concerning Afghanistan concern the deaths and injuries we have suffered in Kandahar. In other words we are playing into the media's "if it bleeds, it leads" approach to coverage.

Here is my attempt to right some wrongs and dispel some of the misinformation out there:

1) "We cannot win in Afghanistan because insurgencies are impossible to win" I swear that if I hear one more "expert" or politician with no military experience say this I will reach through the TV and choke someone. I have spent the last three years of my life reading everything I can find on insurgencies as part of my work towards a Masters and I can tell you this - insurgencies can and have been defeated many times in the past. There are ways to defeat an insurgency and I can tell you from my study of this topic and my year of experience working at the strategic level in Afghanistan that we are doing far more right than we are wrong. Furthermore, the insurgency we face is hardly one of the most daunting ever faced. The Taliban are unlikely to ever get past Mao's first stage of insurgency and, more importantly, they lack support from much of the population. To reference Mao again, the Taliban are "fish" swimming in a very small "sea" as their support is mainly limited to one Pashtun tribe in an ethnically diverse country. NATO can defeat the Taliban and with every passing year, Kabul extends its influence and the lives of Afghans improve. This insurgency will be defeated by stability, prosperity and justice and we can see that all are improving gradually.

2) "No one has ever won in Afghanistan so we will never win" Not only does this statement display a gross ignorance of Afghan history, it also represents a laughable logical fallacy. It's akin to saying: "the Ottawa Senators didn't win the Cup last year, therefore no one will ever be
able to win the Cup!" Comparing the conscript Soviet Army to ISAF defies comprehension - every conceivable aspect of the Soviet experience differs fundamentally from our experience there. Goals, tactics, training, equipment, popular support, international legitimacy are all vastly different, to name but a few.

3) Attention editors/politicians/protesters: Afghanistan is not Iraq!
Rather than displaying your incredible ignorance of geography, history and international relations, how about you nail down this one fundamental difference? You can disagree with what's happening in Iraq while agreeing with our mission in Afghanistan and vice versa. But, you cannot use your opposition to Iraq as a basis for your opposition to Afghanistan - that's a non sequitur.
Here's a little game you can play: read articles by columnists, in on-line forums or even in the "comments" section following on-line G&M articles and you'll see something very telling. Most people opposed to our mission in Afghanistan make reference to Iraq or George W. Bush at least once when explaining why they are opposed to Afghanistan. I don't get it. Are we really
that mad with conspiracy theories that we think that our mission in Afghanistan is in some significant way related to US policy towards Iraq? A more likely explanation is that the crushing ignorance that drowns the debate on Afghanistan is the cause. People are too lazy and too poorly informed to understand the differences between Iraq and Afghanistan and those with agendas encourage this ignorance to reinforce their own arguments.

4) "All that's happening in Afghanistan is combat" Ruxted has countered this one in detail but no one seems to want to listen. What really riles me is that DND (or Foreign Affairs, or CIDA) is not just inundating the media with facts and stories about how this is simply not true. 83% of Afghans have access to medical care now where fewer than 9% did before 2001. GDP per capita has doubled and Afghanistan has the fastest growing economy in Asia. Etc., etc. These facts are all out there and available to editors and politicians and yet no one reports these facts. Why? Are they so intent on vilifying Harper that they can't report the facts? I just don't get
it.

So what?

Please, all of you who know these facts and more - talk to people.
Tell friends, family, strangers. Write letters to the editor if you can or write your MP to tell them you think these points need to be discussed. Ruxted and similar organizations are doing a great job but we all need to back them up and do our part. Consider it a grassroots effort to counter the one-sided stories in the media."