PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Sun
DATE: 2007.05.14
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Editorial/Opinion
PAGE: 13
BYLINE: PETER WORTHINGTON

Opinion polls show that an increasing number of Canadians think we should pull our military out of Afghanistan if casualties rise.

That new isolationism appeals to many media commentators and politicians, eager to defeat the government, regardless of merit or logic.

Whether we, as a country, should have gone to Afghanistan in the first place, almost as a sop to the Americans for refusing to join the English-speaking alliance of the U.S., Britain and Australia in Iraq, is a valid but pointless argument.

It's rather like the argument about whether the UN should have taken Palestine away from Arabs to form the state of Israel. It was done, it's a fait accompli, and Israel ain't going anywhere and people who don't like it should learn to live with it. Israel is there to stay, and is the Middle East's only democracy with teeth.

Doing the job

Similarly with our troops in Afghanistan. They went there to do a job, are doing it, and doing it effectively. The argument that we shouldn't have gone is pointless.

More pointless, is trying to govern by opinion polls.

If that were the case, Canada would have stricter immigration laws with regards to illegal immigrants.

We'd deport phonies and frauds as soon as we caught them, and change our policy of giving sanctuary and benefits to every illegal who uses the magic word "refugee," and then takes up semi-permanent residence at public expense.

If opinion polls decided policy we'd have courts that showed more concern for the victims of crime than the perpetrators.

Those who think our troops should leave Afghanistan before the country is fully stabilized, relatively secure and with a chance of functioning without foreign intervention are saying to hell with the victims of oppression.

Ours and NATO soldiers are not in Afghanistan to oppress or dictate. That's what the Taliban did, and will do again if we leave before there's a functioning national army (for the first time in Afghanistan's history), with a decent chance to govern and protect itself.

The majority of Afghans want our army there.

Temporarily. Our guys are not running things, but protecting the people, The more effectively they curb the Taliban (and al Qaida's presence) the more confidence the people will have.

Canada's military role, and the army's return to being a fighting force as well as a peacekeeping one, has paid returns. Last summer's campaign against Taliban insurgency resulted in some 44 Canadian deaths and a lot of casualties. But our guys learned and won. The Taliban have since reverted to roadside bombs and sneak attacks on civilians - not direct confrontations.

Casualties are a hazard of war, and those who want our soldiers to quit if casualties occur, miss the point of soldiering. If we adopted that view with police work, criminals would flourish even more than they already do.

It's true that Canada and Britain and are doing more in the Kandahar region than other NATO allies (excluding, perhaps, the Dutch). That's more evidence that Europe has lost its courage and is totally fixated on itself.

No turning back

The world is a dangerous place, and there is no turning back the clock.

Afghanistan's government is fragile and often misguided -- especially when it hesitates to abolish things like death to those who indulge in apostasy and want to change their religion. But that's not our soldiers' concern.

Afghanistan, in a way, has been a boon in resurrecting our military to what it once was, and should be again. Ask the soldiers, ask the families who've endured casualties, and mostly they feel of pride in what their loved ones in uniform have done.

And are doing.