Ten years, 153 dead soldiers and four dead civilians later, Canadian troops are taking their final exit from the battlefield of Afghanistan, ending our military's longest war deployment in history. While the conduct and contributions of our soldiers cannot be questioned, the changes we have seen both in Afghanistan, in our military and in the general public have been profound.
Even after the first few dozen troops landed in Quebec late last month, signalling the beginning of the Canadian Forces' permanent withdrawal from the theatre — minus a training contingent — militants proved they have the wherewithal to lay siege to the heart of the country, killing 12 people in an attack on the Intercontinental, one of Kabul's best-known hotels. The Taliban and al-Qaida still have their friends and their hiding places and the ability to make weapons and plan attacks. Of little help is the corruption-infested Afghani government that no one, internally at least, seems inclined to fix.
To put 10 years of war in perspective is particularly difficult, especially with this war. What we saw was not the wars of our grandfathers where armies fought and winners and losers were declared. This was a new kind of war, an insurgency to which the big Cold War-era nations had trouble adapting at first. There were changes, pushes and surges that routed different parts of the country of the enemy, then the soldiers withdrew, the enemy returned and the populace was punished for collaborating with Western soldiers. When the time for battle came, our soldiers, as they always have, distinguished themselves. On the humanitarian front, especially in the first few years of the war, they built wells and schools that helped children, especially young girls, get an education.
Yet the war has never been popular on the home front, especially when we received our baptism by fire courtesy of a pair of United States' F-16 fighters who misunderstood that a training mission was happening below them. Approval of the war and Canada's role in it swayed with the increasing number of dead soldiers, proving that, just as CNN proved in Somalia, the general public has little stomach for a war in which it can see its dead. We saw a riding association of the NDP declare Canadian troops terrorists and numerous pleas to bring our soldiers home. But we also saw children write letters, assemble care packages and many Canadians do what they could to support our troops, even if they did not support the mission itself.
But the greatest change for our forces and for our country was we were no longer known as the peacekeepers. While the 1990s saw our troops deploy as peacekeepers approximately 20 times, the last 11 years have seen only five such operations. We are no longer keeping peace so much as we are trying to fight for it. That is a significant shift for a country that invented the idea of peacekeeping and one that will occupy our military for years to come.
With the announced withdrawal of United States' troops, we are now out of the action, left as instructors to help the Afghan people find their own peace. How that peace will come is still undecided, as we have heard of secretive talks between government envoys and rebel leaders while attacks continue by the enemy and against the enemy. But what is abundantly clear is that, as it has in every military mission on which it was ever deployed, the Canadian Forces distinguished themselves with their professionalism, ability and willingness to try and make Afghanistan a better place. However Afghanistan chooses to resolve its conflict, perhaps that is our biggest legacy of this war.
- St. Albert Gazette, a Great West newspaper
