Against the Canadian's involvement in Afghanistan

Introduction

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We are five students (Mariane , Charlotte, Frédéric, Loïc and Aurélie). After reading the book A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini, we learned more about Afghanistan’s situation. We had to form an opinion about the Canadian’s involvement in this country. Our team is against this mission for many reasons. In this blog, each member will explain his or her point of view and prove it with facts found after doing research about the subject. In short, Afghanistan’s was never Canada’s war, the first goals of the mission were never respected, too many Canadian’s lives were spared, the price for our country is too high and we think fighting violence with violence is not a way to help them. Today, most of the troops left Afghanistan and the Taliban still have power and the Afghanis’ situation is as bad as ever. Those are the reasons that formed our opinion on this situation.

The mission

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The mission was introduced in October 2001 after the September 11th attacks on the United States of America. It was under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s government. They first sent the soldiers to support their neighbourhood country. They soon realized that the Afghan country is in a horrible state: terrorist attacks, assassinations, suicide bombings and improvised bombings make this place very dangerous, education is not easily accessible and there is not much of a health system 75. The operations in 2001 were aimed at neutralizing al-Qaeda members in the country as well as stopping the Taliban regime, organisation that promised peace in the country, but brought the absolute contrary. The Canadian forces were to try to defend their ideas and point of views, build afghan institutions, support democratic processes such as elections and contribute to afghan political reconciliation. They unfortunately got stuck in the country and in the war.

The soldiers

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That could be beautiful to help another country to find peace but war is still present in the country in needing. It’s been already ten years since Canada sent soldiers in Afghanistan. In 2010, Prime Minister Harper announced the progressive return of the soldiers to their home in Canada in July 2011. But lately, Harper said that the mission is still in function for another three years, until 2014. To continue the mission, Canada will send 950 soldiers on the territory around Kabul. Following is a little summary about the troops in Afghanistan. At the beginning, in 2002, Canada sent 850 soldiers for only six months and one year later, he sent 2000 others soldiers. After, in 2005, 1200 soldiers are sent to Afghanistan. In 2006, 2500 Canadians soldiers were sent to Afghanistan and 127 died. Do you imagine how terrible it is for a family when an officer announces that someone close to them died? All the ceremonies that are organized for the soldier’s death are not supposed to happen even less when all the sadness that people who knew the soldier is present. All of this sadness is caused by a war that doesn’t concern us.

By Loic

http://www.canoe.com/archives/infos/general/2009/07/20090707-103644.html http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/International/2010/11/16/001-prolongation-afghanistan-canada.shtml http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/ResearchPublications/2010-26-f.htm#a4

Not a peace mission

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Also, we are against Canada involvement in Afghanistan because the once called “peace mission “became a never-ending fight in which we Canadians never even had a role. It was Jean Chrétien’s government that sent our troops to this dangerous country. Of course, its intentions were good: this mission’s goal was to defend Canada’s interests, to ensure Canadian leadership in world affairs and to help Afghanistan rebuild and maintain a more secure environment. We wanted to help by investing in the future of afghan children through development of an education and health program, advancing security, the rule of law and human rights and delivering humanitarian assistance. Unfortunately, our mission didn’t stay defensive. It became offensive which doesn’t respect at all its objective. Indeed, a battle group of more than 2,000 Canadian soldiers was based around Kandahar. We became a part of their war which is far from what we wanted. This doesn’t solve a thing and leads to no constructive solution. Our country should’ve kept its decision to stay peaceful or else keep the soldiers home or send them to another country that is in a better state than Afghanistan.

CBC News Canada: Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan http://www.cbc..ca/news/canda/story//2009/02/10/f-afghanistan.html

The Tyee: Afghanistan: Wrong mission for Canada http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/10/06/Afghanistan/

SPECA: Campagne pour le retrait des troupes canadiennes en Afghanistan http://speca.ca.edu/campagne-pour-le-retrait-des

This is not our war!

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Another reason why we are against the involvement is because this is not our war. Basically, this war started in 2001 between the USA and the afghan people after the terrorist attack of September 2001. It was to prevent some other attacks from them but they also wanted to avenge themselves against those terrorists who were situating in Afghanistan. When they first talk about this conflict in Washington, the Canada had almost no chance to free himself from this task. According to Jack Granastein and David Bercuson, two repute historians: "Canada apparently did not try very hard to raise its voice and had no impact whatever on key U.S. decisions regarding Afghanistan." However, it’s only after 2003 that we took a bigger place in this war when Washington decided to gradually reduce is troops to 20 000 soldiers and move some of them to Iraq. This is why, since 2006, our soldiers have found themselves under Taliban’s fire. The worst thing is that we kept the Canadian’s troops in this country even if they were killed by afghan because our ``friends`` the Americans felt like they needed us in this war. This war takes all our soldiers and because of the USA position we can’t defend our other interest like helping in Lebanon and Darfur.

By Frédéric Breton

Afghanistan was never Canada’s war, thestar.com http://www.thestar.com/News/article/295277

What we didn’t know about the war in Afghanistan, cbc.ca http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/10/27/f-vp-stewart.html
Afghanistan: wrong mission for Canada, thetyee.ca http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/10/06/Afghanistan/

Help differently

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Helping Afghanistan is a great objective, but we think fighting is not the good way to reach it. There is so many better ways to help their situation. Not only Taliban died, in 2010, 2100 civilian Afghan people were killed and they had no connection with Taliban. Cities were damaged because of war. That is why we think, Canada should help in another way. Like said in the text The mission on our blog, the Canadian mission changed and became offensive. We think it should not have changed. Also, we think charitable organizations make a better difference. Canadian Red Cross, for example, is helping Afghanistan since 20 years. They give first aid in Afghanistan because a lot of people are injured in this war. In 2011, Canadian Red Cross and Afghan Red Crescent society helped women to learn and find a job. They created a small health and rehabilitation system. We think this type of involvement is better than fighting because it makes a direct difference in Afghans’ life and help to make it better. During the Taliban regime, girls at school were only 5000. Create a better education system should be a priority. Help in Afghanistan should be sent directly to people and communities instead of fighting the country. Fighting does not help, Canada should not involve in war, and there is a lot of ways to help Afghanistan and have more great effects.

By Aurélie

http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=22251&tid=001

http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=32330&tid=001

http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/01/13/afghan_solutions_for_afghan_women

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2011/01/26/afghanistan-s-situation-gets-worse-because-of-foreign-army.html

A lot of money out of our country

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We’re against the involvement of Canadians in the Afghanistan’s war because we also think that the war in Afghanistan costs too much to Canada.A journalist of ‘ Le Devoir ‘ said that, in 2011, the final bill for this war could be over 18,1 million of dollars. From 2001 to 2008, the price for the military operations , for international help and for the help to veterans cost between 7,7 and 10,5 billion to the Canada. If those prices don’t change, the Canadians will have to pay between 13,9 and 18,1 billion of dollars when the mission will end, which is the counterpart of 1500 $ by family. If the numbers changed, maybe the Canadians will have to pay more. We think that , for the economic aspect, the Canadians’ involvement in Afghanistan’s war is not a good thing. This enormous bill will put the Canada more in debt that it was before and we won’t have money when we’ll have to spend money for the problem that really concerns the Canada. We understand that the Canada wanted to help Afghanis people in their big problem with the Talibans, but , by helping them, we created another problem in our country.

By Mariane Prégent

Sources :
http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/210042/200-millions-par-mois-pour-la-guerre-en-afghanistan