Grab And Run
In Afghanistan's remote villages in Kandahar Province, the Canadian military has long had their presence, working hard to win the oft-bandied 'hearts and minds' of ordinary Afghans. Dutch troops, also located nearby, extend themselves to arduously and with great danger, work to produce a positive result in the ongoing offensive against the Taliban. Now U.S. forces have joined to assist their Canadian and Dutch counterparts in taming the countryside and its conflicted people.
Conflicted in every imaginable way. Loyalty to others of their religion, their heritage, their tribe if not their clan. Sometimes too, those of their direct clan who have decided to join the Taliban. Knowing that foreign troops invariably come and they inevitably go. This too is the history of Afghanistan, the land that the God whom they worship appears to have entirely left off his schedule of self-empowerment to partake of the good things life has to offer.
What is on offer in Afghanistan is, as it has always been, oppression, death, destruction, cruelty, misogyny, mistreatment of children, suspicion of foreigners. As to the latter, little wonder. Foreigners have always brought the people of the country nothing but tragedy, writ large. As for their own leaders, they have brought oppression and human rights abuses, but who in Afghanistan can identify quite what that might be?
Throw in their lot with the foreign troops, help them to identify those who slip in and out of normal society but who are really aligned with the Taliban? Those who construct IEDs and leave them on the roadways where foreign troops are certain to patrol? Save the life of a foreigner wearing fatigues, carrying guns, travelling in huge armoured vehicles? In so doing identify a brother? The foreign troops will leave. The memory of treachery will not.
In his defence, attempting to avoid extradition to the United States where he is wanted to stand trial for selling weapons to al-Qaeda for use against foreign troops, Abdullah Khadr, a Canadian of Egyptian descent, of the infamous al-Qaeda-Khadr family, claims innocence of charges brought against him. He was 13 when sent to a camp in Afghanistan for weapons training.
Entirely normal, expected of every man-child in the country, he asserts. He was taught to use rocket and grenade launchers, how to detonate explosives. This education, he claims, is an integral part of "Muslim culture". There is a grenade launcher, he said, in every home in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He avers never to have discussed ideology with his father whose dream was to "unite the Muslims".
This is the culture and the mindset that foreign forces of the West are battling. Canadian soldiers riding LAV3s, toss handfuls of candies out of the gunner's hatch of their light armoured vehicles. Children run alongside the road, catching the candies, exultant at their loot. And then they pick up rocks, so handy in the landscape, and happily lob them at the vehicle as it pulls away.
The Afghan National Army is working with Canadian troops in their daily expeditions to ensure the roads are clear of IEDs. Counter-IED experts, part of the Quick Response Force, must check out anything Afghan soldiers detect that may be deleterious to their longevity. They may find the IED, before it can cause another foreign troop tragedy, or they may find the constituents of one, hastily abandoned.
Do the villagers know beforehand of the presence of these lethal devices? Without doubt they do, or they may. And do they acknowledge the vigilance of the foreign troops on their behalf, by forewarning them? Very occasionally. Meanwhile, the food aid, the reconstruction, the new medical clinics, the schools, the civil infrastructure is welcome. And the inadvertent deaths of innocent Afghan civilians also blown up by IEDs is unfortunate.
All of this re-building and civil instruction and values-transference can be helpful to the people of Afghanistan, but no foreign country, no coalition of foreign well-wishers and aid workers and specialists in the law, no trainers of police, and of the civil service, can make the country into a viable nation, capably effective and able to fend for itself.
Neither Pakistan, nor Iran represent as laudable examples. India, which has been attempting to assist Afghanistan does, however. Where will Afghanistan eventually align itself? Should it become successful in eventually leading itself toward a future of promise in a new era of hope for its people.
Conflicted in every imaginable way. Loyalty to others of their religion, their heritage, their tribe if not their clan. Sometimes too, those of their direct clan who have decided to join the Taliban. Knowing that foreign troops invariably come and they inevitably go. This too is the history of Afghanistan, the land that the God whom they worship appears to have entirely left off his schedule of self-empowerment to partake of the good things life has to offer.
What is on offer in Afghanistan is, as it has always been, oppression, death, destruction, cruelty, misogyny, mistreatment of children, suspicion of foreigners. As to the latter, little wonder. Foreigners have always brought the people of the country nothing but tragedy, writ large. As for their own leaders, they have brought oppression and human rights abuses, but who in Afghanistan can identify quite what that might be?
Throw in their lot with the foreign troops, help them to identify those who slip in and out of normal society but who are really aligned with the Taliban? Those who construct IEDs and leave them on the roadways where foreign troops are certain to patrol? Save the life of a foreigner wearing fatigues, carrying guns, travelling in huge armoured vehicles? In so doing identify a brother? The foreign troops will leave. The memory of treachery will not.
In his defence, attempting to avoid extradition to the United States where he is wanted to stand trial for selling weapons to al-Qaeda for use against foreign troops, Abdullah Khadr, a Canadian of Egyptian descent, of the infamous al-Qaeda-Khadr family, claims innocence of charges brought against him. He was 13 when sent to a camp in Afghanistan for weapons training.
Entirely normal, expected of every man-child in the country, he asserts. He was taught to use rocket and grenade launchers, how to detonate explosives. This education, he claims, is an integral part of "Muslim culture". There is a grenade launcher, he said, in every home in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He avers never to have discussed ideology with his father whose dream was to "unite the Muslims".
This is the culture and the mindset that foreign forces of the West are battling. Canadian soldiers riding LAV3s, toss handfuls of candies out of the gunner's hatch of their light armoured vehicles. Children run alongside the road, catching the candies, exultant at their loot. And then they pick up rocks, so handy in the landscape, and happily lob them at the vehicle as it pulls away.
The Afghan National Army is working with Canadian troops in their daily expeditions to ensure the roads are clear of IEDs. Counter-IED experts, part of the Quick Response Force, must check out anything Afghan soldiers detect that may be deleterious to their longevity. They may find the IED, before it can cause another foreign troop tragedy, or they may find the constituents of one, hastily abandoned.
Do the villagers know beforehand of the presence of these lethal devices? Without doubt they do, or they may. And do they acknowledge the vigilance of the foreign troops on their behalf, by forewarning them? Very occasionally. Meanwhile, the food aid, the reconstruction, the new medical clinics, the schools, the civil infrastructure is welcome. And the inadvertent deaths of innocent Afghan civilians also blown up by IEDs is unfortunate.
All of this re-building and civil instruction and values-transference can be helpful to the people of Afghanistan, but no foreign country, no coalition of foreign well-wishers and aid workers and specialists in the law, no trainers of police, and of the civil service, can make the country into a viable nation, capably effective and able to fend for itself.
Neither Pakistan, nor Iran represent as laudable examples. India, which has been attempting to assist Afghanistan does, however. Where will Afghanistan eventually align itself? Should it become successful in eventually leading itself toward a future of promise in a new era of hope for its people.
Labels: Human Relations, Realities, Religion, World Crises
posted by Pieface | 6:59 PM
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