(Mission of folly: Part three) Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan began a few weeks after the terror attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

Immediately following the September 11 attacks, Liberal Defence Minister Art Eggleton announced that Canadian soldiers operating within U.S. military units would participate in any actions taken by the United States to retaliate against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Beginning with this first gesture, the Liberal government quickly moved to lend support to the U.S. assault on Afghanistan.

On October 2, 2001, in response to the September 11 terror attacks, the members of NATO invoked Article 5, for the first time ever. Article 5 declares the alliance’s commitment to regard an attack on one member state as an attack on all. The Chrétien government supported this step which was advocated by the Bush administration and the Blair government.

On October 7, when the U.S. and the U.K. launched their initial attacks on Afghanistan, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced that Canada would provide military support for the War on Terror. The following day, Canadian ships left Halifax en route to the Persian Gulf, where they were to join the U.S. fleet. On October 14, Chrétien declared that Canada would offer “unqualified support” for the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.

Following the rout of Taliban forces in the autumn of 2001 and the establishment of an interim Afghan government in Bonn, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was authorized by the passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution on December 20. The resolution was passed under the authority of Chapter Seven of the UN Charter.

The ISAF was not funded by the United Nations. Participating member states paid for their individual missions and mobilized their own forces to serve in them. In this sense, the ISAF was not a customary UN mission. Initially, the ISAF operation was led by Britain. In August 2003, NATO formally took over command of the ISAF forces.

The operations of the United States and its ISAF allies were initially organized as two separate missions. The American mission, Operation Enduring Freedom, was completely controlled by the United States. It comprised mostly American forces and involved the participation of the forces of a few European allies, as well as some Canadians.

The ISAF operation was a separate mission. For the first two years of its existence, forces under the ISAF were confined to Kabul. Their goal was to pacify the Afghan capital and to lend muscular support to the creation of the new Afghan government.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and other allied forces, who fought under U.S. command in Operation Enduring Freedom, undertook the task of fighting the Taliban and other insurgents in the rest of the country.

Canadian forces were involved both in Operation Enduring Freedom under American command and in the ISAF mission in Kabul. In February 2002, a battle group from the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry was dispatched to Kandahar to serve in U.S. operations against the Taliban in the mountainous south of Afghanistan.

In the spring of 2002, a “friendly fire” incident inflicted on Canadians by U.S. forces was important in shaping the attitude of Canadians toward the conflict. On April 18, 2002, in the so-called Tarnak Farm Incident, a U.S. F-16 fighter jet dropped a laser-guided bomb on a unit of Canadian soldiers. Four Canadians died: Sgt. Marc D. Leger, 29, from Lancaster, Ontario; Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, 24, from Montreal; Pt. Richard Green, 21, from Mill Cove, Nova Scotia; and Pt. Nathan Smith, 27, from Porters Lake, Nova Scotia. In addition, eight Canadian soldiers were wounded.

The American pilot, Major William Umbach and his wingman, Major Harry Schmidt were responding to what they perceived as surface-to-air fire against their aircraft. In fact, what they saw was a Canadian anti-tank and machine gun exercise.

Both Canadian and U.S. military inquiries were held to investigate the incident. The report of the Canadian military board concluded that the Canadian night live-fire exercise had been properly conducted according to agreed upon procedures, and that responsibility for the incident lay with the American airmen who contravened established procedures.

On September 11, 2002, the two U.S. officers were charged with four counts of negligent manslaughter, eight counts of aggravated assault, and one count of dereliction of duty.

Eventually the charges against the pilot, Major Umbach, were dismissed. Those against the wingman, Major Schmidt, were reduced solely to the dereliction of duty charge. Schmidt was reprimanded and fined nearly $5700 in pay. It was found that when he dropped the bomb, Schmidt “flagrantly disregarded a direct order” to hold fire.

The incident received enormous media attention. It left a foul taste in the mouths of Canadians who generally believed the U.S. pilots got off too lightly, considering the gravity of the incident. The incident, which brought the war home in an immediate way to many Canadians, reinforced the sentiment that the U.S. always puts its own interests first, even in relations with allies who are so close to them in so many ways.

From August 2003 to December 2005, the Canadian mission was mainly limited to Operation Athena, the ISAF effort in Kabul to stabilize the government there.

On February 28, 2006, Canadian Brigadier General David Fraser assumed command of the multinational forces in southern Afghanistan. He took charge of a force of 8,000 NATO soldiers, including 2,200 Canadians, as well as Afghan units in the region. These forces were deployed where the insurgency was most robust.

For the Canadians, this mission proved to be bloody and difficult. (Fraser maintained command of southern operations until November 1, 2006, when he relinquished command to Dutch Major General Ton Van Loon.)

In July 2006 and then in September and October, Canadian soldiers with the support of Afghan units and backed up by American, British and Dutch forces fought the multi-phased battle of Panjwaii. Canadian forces, who had been involved in Operation Mountain Thrust, the largest battle in the war since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, moved into the Panjwaii area in July 2006. The purpose of the Canadian offensive was to clear a region where the Taliban had enjoyed notable success in entrenching itself and holding onto territory.

Days of heavy fighting, during which one Canadian soldier was killed, led to the clearing of the Taliban out of the area and the breaking up of their large formations.

After Canadian and Afghan troops left the area, however, the Taliban moved back in, becoming a thorn in the side of the Canadian operations in the Kandahar region.

The second phase of the battle commenced in September when the Canadians launched Operation Medusa, whose purpose was to break up Taliban units and deprive the enemy of its hold on the area.

While the Canadians quickly gained the strategic upper hand, the price was a high one. On the second day of the offensive, four Canadians died in two attacks, and the next day another Canadian soldier was killed and 30 were wounded when an American aircraft accidentally fired on Canadian troops after the Canadians had called for air support. The operation was successful in re-establishing Canadian control of the Panjwaii area, but Taliban hit and run attacks continued there nonetheless.

The heavier fighting and the rise in Canadian casualties sparked a sharper political debate about the war in Canada. In early October 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper staked out his position when he declared that “the mounting Canadian death toll in Afghanistan is the price of leadership that comes with playing a significant role in global affairs.” He was speaking in Calgary where he received the Woodrow Wilson Award for public service.

The same week Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, who had just returned from Afghanistan declared in a television interview that despite the Canadian casualties, the morale among the Canadian soldiers in the zone of conflict remained high. “They know they’ve got great support back here in Canada,” Hillier declared.

A year earlier Hillier had come to the attention of the nation when he said that the purpose of the military was “to be able to kill people” such as the terrorists Canada was fighting in Afghanistan whom the general depicted as “murderers and scumbags.”

A few weeks prior to the Prime Minister’s Calgary speech, at its Convention in Quebec City, the NDP called for Canadian soldiers to be withdrawn from the combat in Afghanistan.

Just before the NDP convention, federal party leader Jack Layton explained the thinking behind his party’s position on the war: “Our efforts in the region are overwhelmingly focussed on military force — spending defence dollars on counter-insurgency. Prime Minister Harper need only look at the experience in Iraq to conclude that ill-conceived and unbalanced missions do not create the conditions for long-term peace.

“Why are we blindly following the defence policy prescriptions of the Bush administration?This is not the right mission for Canada. There is no balance — in particular it lacks a comprehensive rebuilding plan and commensurate development assistance.

“âe¦That’s why I’m announcing that as a first step, New Democrats are calling for the withdrawal of Canadian troops from the combat mission in southern Afghanistan. Withdrawal should begin as soon as possible — working with our international partners to ensure a safe and smooth transition — but with a view to having it complete by February 2007.”

With heavy combat for Canadian units underway and with the political parties taking positions, Canadians had to consider what they thought of this war in a way they had not had to think about a war that involved serious casualties for our armed forces since the Korean conflict.

The basic questions remained to be addressed. What were we doing in this bloody conflict on the other side of the world? What interests did we have in the fight? Canadians also learned, in news reports, to their discontent, that the Taliban insurgents our forces were fighting could slip out of harm’s way across the border into Pakistan where they could find a safe haven until they returned to hit us again.

Canadians were discovering that this war had a dirty underside, that good and evil were not so simply arrayed against each other as they had been told.

As of December 2006, 44 Canadians involved in the Afghan mission, had been killed. From the autumn of 2001 to the spring of 2006, Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan cost more than $4.1 billion.

Prior to 2001, Canada’s relationship with Afghanistan had been quite minor, with Canadian aid to the country averaging about ten million dollars a year. Since then, Afghanistan has become the largest single recipient of Canadian bilateral aid in the world.

At an international conference in Tokyo in January 2002, Canada pledged a dramatic increase in its aid to Afghanistan. According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Canada has committed $616.5 million to the war-torn country covering the period 2001 to 2009. The $4.1 billion spent on Canadian military operations in Afghanistan by the spring of 2006, dwarfs the amount allocated by Canada as aid to Afghanistan. In practice the ratio of military to non-military spending by Canada in Afghanistan is more than 10 to 1.

Canadians have long proudly thought of their nation as a major participant in UN peacekeeping missions. To put Canada’s Afghanistan mission into perspective, let us consider the resources devoted to it as compared with Canadian peacekeeping efforts.

While Canada has well over 2,000 military personnel stationed in Afghanistan, this country currently deploys only 59 military personnel to UN missions world wide. There are over 64,000 military personnel posted with UN missions around the globe, and they are drawn from 95 countries. Canada’s contribution to these missions, in terms of personnel, amounts to a mere 0.09 per cent.

This places us 50th out of 95 in our contribution of military personnel to UN missions. Prior to the mid 1990s, Canada consistently ranked among the top ten countries in its contributions of personnel to UN military operations.

To be continued