The
Globe and Mail’s resident left wing-nut weighs in today, His column is reproduced here under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060310.wxcosalutin10/BNStory/National/home
Trust the public on Afghanistan
RICK SALUTIN
From Friday's Globe and Mail
I find it irritating to be told that support for Canada's military role in Afghanistan has fallen due to casualties there. The recent Globe-CTV poll showing a decline was done a full month after the impact of diplomat Glyn Berry's death by suicide bomb, and well before the grim days in March when a rollover was followed by another suicide attack and then the axe assault on Capt. Trevor Greene. So Prime Minister Stephen Harper was wrong to say Canadians shouldn't "cut and run," implying a fearful recoil was behind the opposition. And it is misleading for journalists like Marcus Gee to reverse the order and say, "With casualties on the rise, polls show that support for the Afghanistan mission is falling."
It's also insulting. Why can't political and media elites assume public opinion has its own good reasons. Why did pollster Allan Gregg say he was "very, very surprised at the degree of opposition to something that is not well known by the population"? Can't non-experts have their own forms of analysis? Don't you think it's possible for ordinary people who follow the news to imagine how complex it must be for Afghan peasants to see these small mountains of military equipment with white, clean-shaven faces arrive in their village? At least the other guys, whatever their demands, look like them and speak their language. Maybe they've heard about wedding parties that were bombed by mistake. Likely they know the Americans came before, in the 1980s, leaving them once the Soviets were gone to descend into warlordism from which the Taliban promised to deliver them. Now the U.S. is back, along with allies like the Canadians -- but for how long, and what are their real motives? What about the violence of their own security forces, shown recently on TV, or the belligerent house searches we occasionally see footage of? A Canadian officer said his notions about Pashtun hospitality were confounded by that axe attack -- as if he thought the locals should have taken the same anthro course he did. Maybe Canadians who responded to the poll hold a subtler view of the world.
Maybe they also think supporting democracy there doesn't mean a European-style parliament in Kabul, but rather a sense of local control in the countryside. Maybe they feel history shows Afghanistan is a dreadful place for invaders, no matter what fine intentions they proclaim; and a tedious, low-profile process of civilian aid is the most hopeful route to progress.
Those elites can be awfully shortsighted historically. They tend to have ulterior motives and careers to worry about. Ordinary people can often take a more detached view. It makes them wary of bad processes repeating.
Ordinary people may also be suspicious of the idiotically named "war on terror," of which the Afghanistan deployment is a part. They were right to be suspicious of invading Iraq, which has probably made future terror attacks like 9/11 more, not less, likely. It has even made Iraqis less secure than they were under Saddam, according to a former UN human rights official there.
The case of Afghanistan is different, but exists in the same context.
We've seen these elite-popular disagreements before. Think of Meech Lake or the Charlottetown accord. This one differs because it concerns foreign policy. It also differs because the Canadian military has weighed in. Under General Rick Hillier they are pushing hard for the current policy. Who knows what effect his comments about "scumbags" will have on his own troops and the way people there view them? Our commander in Kandahar has disputed the poll results, based on evidence like his e-mail. Another officer writes scholarly polemics using dubious concepts like failed states. My question is: Don't these soldiers have enough to worry about carrying out their mission? Is it a good idea to load onto them in addition, its ongoing justification?
The Prime Minister opposes a parliamentary debate because it could "weaken our troops" and put them "in more danger." Well, if our political leaders won't cast a sharp, questioning eye on all this, then who will look out for the welfare of our troops and make sure it doesn't all go terribly wrong?
First, let me say that I agree with his first and (most of) his second paragraphs. It is entirely likely that the
media – which Salutin and Hillary Clinton seem to regard as a vast, right wing conspiracy aimed at toppling Saint Tommy Douglas’
New Jerusalem – manipulates the news or, more likely in my view, just gets it muddled. Ordinary Canadians, like most of us here on Army.ca, do watch, read, listen, think and discuss (I hope most (many? just some?) of us think before we discuss) and then we ordinary Canadians make up our own minds. Salutin is right there; but he assumes – wholly, completely and predictably incorrectly – that we ordinary Canadians will, after thinking, end up opposing our Afghanistan mission. Some will; many will not. We will talk amongst ourselves – maybe those who believe we are doing the right thing for (at last) the right reasons will convince some of the weak-kneed nay-sayers, too.
(Parenthetically: I also agree with
part of this:
”… [we] may also be suspicious of the idiotically named "war on terror," …” The key words are idiotically named. We are not, I hope, at war with terror. We have used terror as a weapon, and may – likely will – do so again; we have decorated
terrorists. What do people think Churchill meant when he said “Set Europe ablaze!” was he planning a birthday party? He wanted his forces, mostly SOE – in which many Canadian military personnel served, out of uniform – to
terrorize the Germans and the collaborators. We are at war with
some groups (I call them
movements) which use terror as a tactic. A war on terror is a dumb idea; it’s like
Pink Lloyd Axworthy’s wars on landmines or small arms: dumb ideas propagated by dumb people.
<end rant>)
I object to Salutin’s cheap cracks at senior CF officers – serving and retired – including the one who
”… writes scholarly polemics using dubious concepts like failed states.”
Is Salutin afraid of the competition?
Is he amazed that generals, unlike some journalists, can walk and chew gum?
Edit: typo & to insert hyperlink as required by Army.ca's regulations
