Canadian Troops in Afghanistan
Afghanistan, that dread landscape, that unendingly drear misery visited upon its people, the affliction of a type of ultra-conservative Islam that violates codes of human conduct while demanding complete and total devotion to Allah through the precepts laid down in the Koran and interpreted by fanatics.The West was outraged when Russia invaded Afghanistan in its own power search to seek out and destroy militant Muslim insurgents threatening its own (then) borders. Russia fled, bleeding from innumerable wounds, the least of which was its sense of self-esteem as a great military power. How, after all, does a military invasion successfully fight an idea, one prosecuted by shadowy figures moving by stealth around an alien landscape which they know well enough to use to their advantage, to the complete demoralization of an invading enemy.
Even Canadian women became familiar with the name "Taliban", reading about the misery of Afghani women having to live a constant underground life of fear and repression, with women and girl children unable to venture out in public, even to attempt to earn a living. Boys were inducted into madrassas which taught them the Taliban-version of Islam, which taught them to hate the West, to obey the Mullahs whose word was law, and to prey on helpless women. Men found in public without completely addressing the strict code of appearance for orthodox Muslims were publicly whipped. Women found out and about inadequately accompanied by a male family member and/or without a burka were publicly whipped.
A small Canadian magazine published for women, printing women's issues, began a series looking at the women of Afghanistan. The editor of the magazine, "Homemakers", Sally Armstrong, visited Afghanistan, brought back stories of her horrified experiences among the women living there, their courage in the face of a seemingly intractable situation, a life of servitude and deprivation. Ms. Armstrong is still going back to visit Afghanistan now that the Taliban have been ousted, now that women may be seen in public without total body and head coverings, now that girl children may attend school, now that Afghanistan seems to be on the road to recovery. But is it?
Under the Taliban, there was to be no music, no dance, no games, no joy. Widows had no means to earn a living and faced starvation, and so too did their children. Under the Taliban their Mullahs were able to rule in a manner they saw befitting their station in life, and they were not subject to the same "laws" that other Afghanis were subject to. Multiple wives or female companions, hidden away from prying eyes were the just due of Mullahs, and the living torture of their women. Health care was non-existent, a total throw-back to medieval times.
The Taliban had companions-in-common called al-Qaeda whom they gave shelter and encouragement to. Which brings us back again to the current situation, with the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States after the disaster of September 11, 2001, once it became obvious what the source of the attacks were, where the planners were, where their protectors were. Under the auspices of NATO-led forces, among them Canada, an ongoing war is being waged. Canada's presence at first was small and geared toward assisting in re-building infrastructure. Canada has, since her initial participation, increased her presence in Afghanistan and has moved to Kandahar Province where the Taliban have regrouped and our forces there are now in combat mode.
Where once the invasion and its purpose to expunge the Taliban and their al-Qaeda colleagues from the country met with initial success, despite the frustration involved in the fact that Osama bin Laden and his key officers have never been apprehended, things look considerably different now. The government of Afghanistan desperately wants Western-based armies to continue their work in Afghanistan, assisting government forces to combat the influence and the newly-increasing presence of the Taliban. Western countries have invested heavily in Afghanistan; not only their troops but also work geared to normalizing life there with the building of health clinics, public schools and other civic institutions to encourage the population to begin living normally.
But the Taliban has seen a resurgence in its fortunes, it continues to fight back, determined to once again take over the country and re-establish its tight rule of fundamental Islam, once again enslaving women and imposing upon the entire population the same restrictive styles of life and worship that they had instituted earlier. They have destroyed schools and clinics, they have murdered teachers who had the temerity to teach girl children. Western-based aid workers have been murdered by the Taliban. The Afghani population is tired of the conflict, wishing to see an end to their eternal insecurity.
And Canadian soldiers, along with their British, American and other allied counterparts continue to die in the ongoing conflict. To make matters even more troubling, Afghanistan is considering, as a concession to its more orthodox-inclined clerics re-instituting many of the repressive measures that the Taliban had introduced, while still expecting foreign troops to assist it in its fight against the Taliban. Then there are those who claim that by lending ourselves to the war in Afghanistan Canada, along with other Western-value countries are alienating world-wide Islam and bringing upon themselves the wrath of Islamists determined to avenge the perceived aggression against Islam.
What a conundrum this presents: does our obligation begin and end with the need to assist a beleaguered people against a tyrannical religious dictatorship - as opposed to pulling back and withdrawing because of internal fears of retribution being visited upon our own populations?
The first premise is the right one, although we don't practise it universally. It was brought about as a result of the West being drawn into the situation by a violent act of unprecedented proportions designed to demonstrate to the West that militant Islamofascists are on the march.
The second one, despite reservations (the least of which is the appeasement of the Afghan government to the demands of its own ultra-conservative clerics to restore a certain measure of draconian religious law), would do none of us any credit, ourselves capitulating to threats of civilization-denying blackmail.
posted by Pieface @ Monday, August 14, 2006
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