Richard Gwyn's False Choice

In a column yesterday, Richard Gwyn claimed that the real choice over the Afghan mission was over whether we become an "isolationist nation" or not. I'm tired of being presented with this mission in these sorts of terms. Opposing, or even questioning this mission has more to do with practical realities than it does with whether or not someone is an internationalist or not. It would be nice to help Afghanistan but I remain convinced that we simply cannot make a lasting, meaningful difference. When the last of Rick Hillier's fancy heavy lift transport aircraft take off from the Kandahar airstrip I have no good reason to believe that the country will not deteriorate again and almost immediately. Maybe I'm too cynical, but this is what I get from looking at the history both of Afghanistan and of decolonization.

Ten years? Just kidding!

Hillier now says that he completely agrees with Harper and that when he was saying that Afghanistan would take ten years, well, you, know, uhhhhhh, no, it won't. I don't know if this is Hillier's attempt at a trial balloon on a ten year mission or whether he's attempting to shift the centre on the issue.

One of the things a number of conservative in the US have admitted to doing is deliberately taking extreme positions on issues not because that's what they believe, but in order to shift the "centre" of the debate rightward. If Hillier says 2017 and the current mission is set to be done in 2009, all of sudden 2011 looks less like a questionable extension of a mission about which many remain skeptical and more like a nice compromise position.

Maybe I'm being too cynical, but it appears that thus far Hillier seems to be able to get what he wants and he's used the media to do so rather often. I don't think this is beyond him.

Canada's Own MacArthur has a fan club

I've made this MacArthur analogy about Hillier before. Apparently some people like him that way:

"Almost begrudging respect is paid to the intellect and skill of current Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier, who it says, single-handedly bamboozled the best minds in Ottawa into adopting Canada’s International Policy statement. That should come as no surprise, given that Lang was quoted in The Globe and Mail on Aug. 10, 2006, saying: “The problem is, there isn’t anyone who can take him (Hillier) on with a counterworld view. He blows them away.” The problem wasn’t Rick Hillier: the problem was with the Liberals who were supposed to exercise informed oversight over him..."

No one in the military command structure should be "bamboozling" their civilian overseers. The military works for civilians, Hillier needs to understand this. One can only wonder what the Torch gang would say if Hillier made an end run around Harper.

It just boggles my mind that the military essentially selected its own mission in Afghanistan. I'm not sure whether it was Hillier's war-is-a-force-that-gives-us-meaning mentality or Martin's indecisiveness or combination thereof, but it seems as though it was far from inevitable that we got stuck with the worst assignment in Afghanistan.

Our Own MacArthur

Maclean's (hardly some pinko anti-war magazine) has an interesting bit on how Rick Hillier pushed to have us take on the worst assignment in Afghanistan (so it wasn't a result of Liberal dithering that we got this assignment) in order to pursue his personal agenda. A sample:

"He wanted a deployment that would get Canada deeper and deeper into the most troubled part of Afghanistan. It was heavy lifting. And it was an initiative that would impress the Pentagon and even George Bush."

Oh, so we didn't do this out of concern for the Afghans or because we felt some grand moral obligations. We did this so that we could make friends at the Pentagon! Why would we do that?

"A new consensus, led by DND, was rapidly emerging in Ottawa: Canada, and in particular the Canadian Forces, needed to do something significant for Washington -- something that the Pentagon really valued -- to compensate for the refusal to participate in BMD."

In other words the DND felt bad for the Pentagon. The last time I checked we were a sovereign state that does not need to impress the Pentagon. How about just telling the Pentagon that BMD isn't particularly effective? I mean it can shoot down missiles that it's told to shoot down in advance, I still wouldn't bet on it in a real scenario.

But this wasn't the only reason that Hillier put Kandahar out there as our mission:

"Canadians would be justifiably proud of their government and their military for undertaking a difficult and important assignment."

Oh swell, a self-esteem boost. The proudest I have been of our government in the past decade was when Jean Chretien declined to participate in the morass of Iraq. We took a principled stance and went against traditional allies like the US and UK. And we were right. It is one thing to undertake a "difficult" assignment, I fear what we have in Afghanistan is an impossible assignment exacerbated by the US fixation with the opium trade.

Rick Hillier Mucking Up Armed Forces

According to the National Post Hillier's reorganization projects for the military are taking personnel out of important frontline roles and creating needless duplication. I know that a great number of conservatives and Conservatives like how Hillier talks tough and so on, but if he can't manage the overall structure of the military he should get out. His title is General, not Trash-Talker.

The Cult of Hillier

Well not quite, but it appears that senior staff in the Canadian Forces are unhappy about Gen. Ricky's new "personality-driven" military. While no one in the report comes out and slams Hillier they do say that this sort of thing could become a liability. Maybe it already has, though the military would surely want to defer to Hillier - militaries being hierarchical and all that. Someone needs to put Hillier in his place, the man has to accept that the Canadian Forces serve the people of Canada and not the other way around. He ought not to whine and complain about budget cutbacks or what-have-you, it is the role of his civilian overseers to determine what the country can afford to spend on the military. His role may include requests, proposals, pleas, whatever; but when the government determines what money the military will get, his role is to shut up and take it.

Really Poor Reasons to Stay in Afghanistan

Right-wing blog, Celestial Junk argues that we should be in Afghanistan because the soldiers like doing the work there.

Well, that's good for the soldiers. No seriously, I mean it, it's reassuring to know that we have a well-trained military that has recruited people who are well-suited to soldiering and that they are able to function under tough conditions.

As long as we live in a world that seems to require nation states and their attendant militaries, it's nice to know that ours can do its job.

That does not stand as a reason though that we ought to be in Afghanistan. You see what Mr. Junk has done is contrast "soldiers" with "whining" Canadians. Soldiers don't mind being in Afghanistan, but their work is threatened if the great bulk of this country wants to pull out.

Guess what, that is as it ought to be. We do not, despite Hillier's fantasies, live in a military dictatorship. If the majority of Canadians take the "whining" position then it's too bad for the military, we'll bring 'em home. Civilian oversight, that's how it works. Of course soldiers like to be in the field, that's what they've been trained for, but the rest of us decide when they are needed to do that.

A final thought, I have read stories (can't find a link) suggesting that the Canadian military really wanted to go to Iraq in 2003 too. Good thing we didn't go along with that idea, eh?

O'Connor Needs to Quit

Canada's Defence Minister, Gordon O'Connor needs to step down. It seems like he's gotten himself into another scandal. Every scandal, every misstep by O'Connor merely serves to weaken him. The problem is that we need a strong Defence Minister now to counterbalance Rick "MacArthur" Hillier who seems to be perturbed at every hint of civilian oversight.

Of course it is entirely possible that Harper is simply quite comfortable to give Hillier a free hand to make up illegal detainee transfer deals or whatever. Hillier - like any general in a free society - needs to have strong civilian oversight. I have doubts about Harper ever wanting to provide that, and I have even greater doubts as to whether O'Connor is capable of providing it.

How will we know when to leave Afghanistan?

In respect I think the war in Iraq has to be easier than the war in Afghanistan. That is, at least in Iraq there is a sort of benchmark - that is to say no one can call the Iraq war a success until things are at least where they were when the war started. There was a rotten authoritarian government and a hated dictator, but at least there was some kind of civil society. You may have had to watch what you said, but at least you could go out in the streets. At the very least, the idea should be to get Iraq back to where it was. Increasingly I think that's all that the US will be able to manage - if that.

What about Afghanistan? Here we aren't starting with any elements of a modern society, instead there is a tribal culture that thrives on the opium trade. So when are things good enough in Afghanistan to pull out? More so than in Iraq, Afghanistan threatens to be war without end. The border with Pakistan will probably fester for some time to come, the Taliban's support will ebb and flow. We can dig all the irrigation ditches we want, we can rebuild whatever we want, none of that provides us with some kind of warranty against ideological defects.

In this vein it makes sense that neither Harper nor Hillier wants to talk about when to leave Afghanistan. As long as we are there, our military and political leaders can claim that they need our help. I doubt there will ever be an event that can clearly indicate that we are no longer needed. Mullah Omar is not going to walk into Kabul to sue for peace. In the meantime any call for a withdrawal date can be construed weakness. Make no mistake though, our withdrawal will be an arbitrary date, no matter who sets it or for what reason. There will be no neat conclusion of hostilities.

Harper's Dirty Wars?

There was something posted on Buckdog a couple days ago that continues to bother me. Jason Kenney, the man Harper put in charge of drumming up ethnic votes said the following:

“[Canada] will pursue every possible avenue in concert with our allies to ensure that [Iran] does not come into possession of nuclear weapons, which could unleash unimaginable violence.”

Every avenue? Normally this would just seem like posturing, but remember we have 2000 troops in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Now I'm not saying that Harper would cast aside our NATO commitments (though it sure is convenient that our main battle tanks are there already). Afghanistan though would be a great operational base for, say, JTF 2. I could see both Hillier and Harper being willing to commit JTF 2 to some kind of foolishness in Iran if they were asked.

We need to ask tough questions when we're being told that Canada is pursuing every avenue. What are we committing to here? Given that no one is ever told what JTF 2 does, I don't think this is far-fetched at all.

Our Own MacArthur?

That's how Michael Byers decribes Canada's top general, Rick Hillier. Hillier seems to see his roll in part as being the trash-talker in chief. He also thinks it's his job to "sell" the war to Canadians. But beyond that, it seems as though Hillier is trying to tell us all what the scope of the mission is:

The Martin government also assumed Canada would contribute to the combat mission for a limited time only. But Hillier changed his tune shortly after Stephen Harper was elected: "From NATO's perspective, they look at this as a 10-year mission, right? Minimum. There's going to be a huge demand for Canada to contribute over the longer period of time."

Hillier promised Martin that the combat mission would not preclude Canadian participation in UN peacekeeping missions elsewhere. He's since broken that promise, ruling out troops for Lebanon and Darfur on the basis that Canada is fully committed in Afghanistan.

Sorry Rick, this is a democracy, the military gets marching orders from its civilian masters, it's not the other way around.