Accentuating Afghanistan, Harper echoing Bush!

Accentuating the positive
Mar 1st 2007 | OTTAWA The Economist

The government tries to bolster public support for the mission in Afghanistan

CANADIANS are nowadays queasy about having an army that actually fights. Most would prefer their soldiers to do pleasanter things, like doling out food, rebuilding shattered villages or donning blue helmets for traditional UN peacekeeping. That may be why, when asked about support for the NATO mission to Afghanistan, where Canadian troops have done more fighting than rebuilding since being sent to Kandahar province last year, almost half say they want the mission abandoned and the 2,500 troops home.

This is anathema to Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister who in his first year in office has beefed up the defence budget and extended the Afghan mission by two years to 2009. Echoing America's president, George Bush, Mr Harper has said repeatedly that Canada will not “cut and run” but stay in Afghanistan until the job is done.

But as the leader of a minority government, Mr Harper cannot afford to ignore public opinion, especially when the voices calling loudest for retreat come from the vote-rich province of Quebec. So when this week his government presented Parliament with an Afghan progress report, it concentrated on the C$1 billion ($860m)—since boosted by an extra C$200m—the government has pledged to spend on microfinance, education, rural infrastructure and other development projects in Afghanistan by 2011. Afghanistan is now the biggest recipient of Canadian foreign aid.

Though the report could hardly avoid all mention of combat in what has become Canada's largest military deployment since the Korean war in the 1950s, its language was mild. There was at any rate no mention of the “detestable murderers and scumbags” whom the bellicose chief of defence staff, General Rick Hillier, once said were Canada's target in Afghanistan. Nor did the report repeat a recent comment by Gordon O'Connor, the defence minister, that Canadian troops were in Afghanistan in order to exact “retribution” for the 2001 terrorist attack on New York, in which nearly 3,000 people died, including 25 Canadians. And though development spending was laid out in detail, no total was given for the cost of the military engagement, now entering its sixth year. According to a very conservative estimate by the government last October, this could exceed C$3 billion by 2009.

Focusing on the nation-building while glossing over the killing is probably the best way to extract maximum support from combat-shy Canadians. Mentioning the 37-country coalition in Afghanistan also helps, because it reminds the many Canadians who detest George Bush that they are not the only ones fighting alongside the Americans.
But other developments threaten to push opinion in the opposite direction. Reports disclosed via the freedom of information law by Amir Attaran, a law professor in Ottawa, and made public last month, suggest that Afghan prisoners have been beaten while in Canadian custody. This has stirred memories of the torture and murder of a Somali youth by Canadian troops in 1993. That led to the disbanding of an elite regiment. The alleged beatings in Afghanistan are now the subject of three separate official inquiries.

Also troubling is a case filed in the Federal Court last week by two human-rights groups alleging that Canadian troops are breaking both national and international law by handing prisoners over to the Afghan army, which has a record of torture. Unlike other NATO members, such as Britain and the Netherlands, Canada did not obtain the right to check on the welfare of transferred detainees. It simply gives their names to the International Red Cross. The independent Military Police Complaints Commission is to investigate the affair.

But it is the rising number of Canadian soldiers being killed in Afghanistan that is most likely to determine whether voters eventually choose to see the job through. Since the first troops arrived in 2002, 44 soldiers and a diplomat have lost their lives. The most recent deaths were recorded in November. But with analysts predicting a new offensive by Taliban insurgents when the snow melts this spring, the already wavering home front may be further tested.