Soldiers from the Royal Canadian Regiment burst into a suspected Taliban stronghold in in Pashmul in 2006. Image: Graeme Smith/Queen's Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum/Flickr

Content note: The following contains depictions of sexual abuse, violence, and acts of war that could be triggering for some.

With the Taliban quickly taking control of all major Afghan cities — including the capital, Kabul, and the presidential palace it houses — we should be asking: what was the point of all that bloodletting? 

More than 200,000 Afghan civilians and combatants have been killed since the U.S., Canadian and British invasion two decades ago. A few thousand Canadian, U.S., British, and more troops also died in the fighting. 

Canada’s biggest military deployment since World War II, more than 40,000 Canadian troops fought in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014. Canada spent $20 billion on the military operations and related aid mission in Afghanistan. While the stated rationale of the war was to neutralize al-Qaeda members and topple the Taliban regime, the Taliban has now regained control of the country and Jihadist groups’ influence has increased. 

In October 2001, the U.S. unilaterally invaded Afghanistan, launching air strikes in support of Northern Alliance rebels fighting the Taliban government. Canada’s Joint Task Force 2 special forces aided these efforts. 

Portrayed as a battle against the misogynist Taliban, the foreign intervention benefited an equally unsavoury assortment of warlords who previously imposed the veil and banned education for women, as well as destroyed schools, museums and cinema halls. Individuals responsible for massive human rights violations during Afghanistan’s mid-1990s civil war were appointed to prominent government positions. 

Some in the Canadian Forces (CF) sympathized with the Afghan warlords. In March 2006, Maclean’s reported on General Rick Hillier’s “enormous respect for the warlords — even making allowances for those who profit from the poppy business.” The magazine quoted the Chief of the Defence Staff saying:

“I saw the finest leaders that I have ever had the opportunity to meet. They beat the Russians pretty fairly and squarely, at the end of the day they were responsible for thumping the Taliban and throwing them out, along with a significant number of Al-Qaeda folks.”

The CF purchased millions of dollars in goods and services from companies run by former warlords. 

At the peak of the war, over 3,000 Canadians fought a violent counterinsurgency in Kandahar. Between April 2006 and December 2007 Canadian troops fired an astounding 4.7 million bullets, including over 1,650 tank shells and 12,000 artillery rounds. 

In A Line in the Sand: Canadians at War in Kandahar, Captain Ray Wiss praised Canadian troops as “the best at killing people…We are killing a lot more of them than they are of us, and we have been extraordinarily successful recently… For the past week, we have managed to kill between 10 and 20 Taliban every day.” 

In September 2006, the CF spearheaded NATO’s Operation Medusa aimed at Taliban strongholds in the Panjwaii and Zhari districts of Kandahar. This is how Corporal Ryan Pagnacco described the airstrikes:

“After watching bomb after bomb drop on these targets, I wondered how anything could survive. I figured that when we went in, we’d be walking into a ghost town.” The Medusa offensive forced 80,000 civilians to flee their homes, resulted in hundreds of enemy combatant deaths and “at least 50 civilians were killed over several weeks of bombing.” 

On numerous occasions the western press reported on Canadian troops killing Afghan civilians. “Canadian soldiers have repeatedly killed and wounded civilians while on patrol in civilian areas,” noted the New York Times in May 2007. In July 2008, Canadian soldiers killed a five-year-old girl and her two-year-old brother after their vehicle got too close to a convoy. The father said afterwards that “if I get a chance, I will kill Canadians.” (Because of an agreement between Kabul and Ottawa, Afghans had no legal right for compensation if they were hurt or their property damaged by Canadian soldiers.) 

Canadian armoured vehicles regularly fired warning shots at bikes, cars or trucks that got too close, often causing crashes, leaving Afghans injured or worse. In June 2006, France 2 TV showed unedited images of Canadian soldiers searching villages and houses, breaking down doors and interrogating residents. According to a report in La Presse, Canadian soldiers were shown telling villagers that it was not smart to join the Taliban because our soldiers are really good, they are well-trained and good shots, “and you will die.” Later, the video shows a Canadian commander saying “too bad for you if you don’t want to tell us where the Taliban are hiding. We will come and kill them. We will drop many bombs and fire all over. Is this what you want? Well then continue telling us nothing.” 

Canadian troops’ actions in Afghanistan belie claims of high-minded motives. The CF used white phosphorus as a weapon against “enemy-occupied” vineyards in Afghanistan while Canadian special forces participated in highly unpopular night-time assassination raids. 

The most-deadly element of the war was airstrikes. While no Canadian planes dropped bombs in Afghanistan, Canadian troops regularly called in U.S. air strikes. Canadian personnel also operated the NORAD systems that supported U.S. bombings and some heavily armed Canadian helicopters launched nighttime operations. 

Most of the individuals detained by Canadians — and turned over to the Afghan army and prison system — were likely tortured. Under the Geneva Conventions the military force that detains someone is responsible for their treatment and many of those detained by the CF were likely tortured with knives, power cables and open flames. Or raped. The second highest-ranked member of Canada’s diplomatic service in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2007, Richard Colvin, reported to a parliamentary committee that “the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured.” Additionally, dozens of individuals given to the Afghan army by the CF were unaccounted for, perhaps lost in a prison system that did not keep good records, or maybe killed. 

Many of those detained by the CF had little to do with the Taliban. According to Colvin, “it was the NDS (Afghan National Directorate of Security) that told us that many or most of our detainees were unconnected to the insurgency…We detained and handed over for severe torture a lot of innocent people.” 

The CF regularly handed over children they suspected of Taliban ties to the NDS, which often tortured them. The Toronto Star reported that in late 2006 a Canadian soldier heard an Afghan soldier raping a young boy and later saw the boy’s “lower intestines falling out of his body.” Reportedly, the Canadian military police were told by their commanders not to interfere when Afghan soldiers and police sexually abused children. 

Despite attempts to portray the situation otherwise, the invasion of Afghanistan did not have UN approval. After the U.S. invaded, the Security Council was pressured to authorize the use of force to defend the installed Afghan government. Non-American foreign troops in Afghanistan were effectively under U.S. command. 

Canada followed the U.S. into this 20-year-long predictable disaster. Every thoughtful person should learn a few lessons: interference in other country’s internal affairs (whether civil war as in the case of Afghanistan or elections) is wrong; war is only good for those who profit from it; do not trust those who beat the drums for war — they are likely paid, directly or indirectly, by the military industrial complex. 

Yves Engler is the author of 11 books. His Stand on Guard For Whom? — A People’s History of the Canadian Military is available August 23.

Image: Graeme Smith/Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum/Flickr 

Yves Engler

Dubbed “Canada’s version of Noam Chomsky” (Georgia Straight), “one of the most important voices on the Canadian Left” (Briarpatch), “in the mould of I. F. Stone” (Globe and Mail), “part...