BREACH OF TRUST

From: 'We have absolutely no reason to give up' (Graeme Smith, Globe and Mail, February 23rd, 2007)

Exactly one year after Canada took responsibility for Kandahar, many Canadians are expressing deep skepticism about that dream. Canadian troops fought the biggest battles of their generation to protect this dusty city on the other side of the world, losing 45 lives and spending $2.3-billion in Afghanistan so far, and the broad outlines of the country's plight have hardly changed: It remains terribly poor, and plagued by a vicious insurgency. This week, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion called for Canada to give up the mission in Kandahar by 2009 at the latest, saying the whole approach was flawed.

But a dozen interviews with key players in Kandahar, including the provincial governor and two of President Hamid Karzai's brothers, suggest that the people who are the most intimately involved in building Afghanistan are vastly more optimistic than observers abroad. A positive outlook is a job requirement for many of these people, as they have staked their careers, or their survival, on the effectiveness of foreign intervention.

Their arguments in favour of the Afghan project, however, are also rooted in a broader understanding of the historical context of Canada's struggles in Kandahar, and the significance of the fight for the country's south. They listed the mistakes of 2006, and the dangers of the coming years, and all of them reached the same conclusion: success is possible.[...]

These optimists describe a city slowly emerging from the grip of fear, enjoying unprecedented interest from aid donors and hoping to seize this chance to build a legitimate economy. If all goes well, and that's a major caveat, they say it's possible that the next few years will see Kandahar light up with new sources of electricity, establish new factories, revive its agricultural exports and resume its ancient role as a major trading centre.

While the major battles around Kandahar in 2006 are usually viewed by Canadians as proof that the situation got worse last year, the Afghan leadership views the fighting as a necessary step, a component of success rather than a hallmark of failure.

It is one thing to overstay one’s welcome, but just imagine being a young Afghan full of gratitude and hope for the future and being told by a “progressive” Canadian that the situation is hopeless and that he would be much better off if Canada withdrew in favour of the Taliban while promising to protect him through human rights initiatives at the United Nations.