FAAE Committee Report

Afghanistan is perhaps one of the most nuanced countries in the world and hence defies simple categorization. Very few authorities can claim deep expertise on Afghanistan. Amongst the skilled few who can claim such in-depth knowledge are academics who have devoted a lifetime of study to the region and the country …, cultural anthropologists who have an understanding of the dynamics within central Asian tribes and peasant warfare … [and those] who have had an intimate relationship with the country. (…) In my three years of very high-level linkages into the country and the mission, with over 30 voyages to Afghanistan straddling the period 2003-2006, I was amazed to discover how little I actually knew …

George Petrolekas,
"The Future of Canada’s Role in Afghanistan",
Submission to the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan[9]

Lacking a comprehensive modern census and a consensus about how groups are to be enumerated, scholars estimate that Afghanistan contains anywhere from fifty to two hundred ethnic groups. As anthropologists have learned, however, many Afghans do not necessarily identify with such categories of classification. How Afghans have viewed such labels depends upon specific political and social contexts and has proved highly variable over time.

Robert Crews and Amin Tarzi,
"The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan", 2008[10]

Canadians have to understand, to gain a better understanding of the complexities of the Afghan people, including the diversity of their religions, their ideologies, and their ethnicities. These are the things that make up their national psyche, and they are at the root of much of the internal discord. It is important to learn from Afghans themselves and about their capabilities. That's what I hope Canada and Canadians will do.

Hon. Flora MacDonald,
Evidence, FAAE Meeting No. 19, March 13, 2008, p. 2[11]

Scholars of Afghanistan are unanimous that it is impossible to understand the current situation of and prospects for the country without some appreciation of its unique historical and pre-9/11 context. Afghanistan first emerged as a defined territory in the mid-eighteenth century, but did not achieve independent statehood until after the 1921 treaty that ended the third British-Afghan war.[12] During the late nineteenth century landlocked Afghanistan was often seen as a Central Asian “buffer state” between the contending empires of Russia and Great Britain, part of the so-called “Great Game” being played over Central Asia and the Middle East. Some have argued that the Afghanistan of recent decades has again been the object of a new strategic game among greater powers and interests, both regional and international.[13]

Afghanistan has known only rare periods of peace within a mostly violent history. A modern constitution (constitutional monarchy with some democratic elements) was only achieved in 1964, but King Zahir Shah was overthrown by a coup in 1973 which proclaimed a republic. Following the successive turbulences of Communist rule, Soviet occupation, mujahideen civil war, the rise to power of the Taliban and defeat of its Islamist “emirate” regime in late 2001, the monarchy was not restored. Afghanistan’s new constitution (its sixth since 1923) as an “Islamic republic”, approved by the Constitutional Loya Jirga in early 2004, draws considerably on the 1964 constitution.

The realities of Afghanistan are plural involving a multiplicity of factors and actors. The Taliban regime that emerged out of the rubble of the post-Soviet mujahideen civil war, capturing Kabul in 2006 but never controlling all of the country, was more complicated than it appeared, as detailed in Ahmed Rashid’s seminal 2000 study Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. Their regime was only ever recognized by three UN member states (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). Especially after Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden issued a call to global jihad against the United States from Afghan soil in early 1998, after major terrorist attacks against US interests, and after Taliban outrages came to public attention, there was increasing international pressure on the regime to cease such behaviour and its provision of sanctuary for Al-Qaeda’s leadership and terrorist training camps.[14]

At the time, Afghanistan was rarely on the foreign policy radar screen of Canada. Of course, the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent multinational military intervention to remove the Talian regime under the auspices of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom dramatically changed all that. On  September 12, 2001, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invoked its Article 5 provision on collective self-defence for the first time in its history. Afghanistan quickly rose to the top of the Canadian international policy agenda, and has been there again since early 2006 when large numbers of Canadian combat troops were deployed to dangerous Kandahar province; where, provided certain conditions are met as outlined in the Government motion passed on March 13, 2008, they will remain until 2011.

For Canada, Afghanistan represents more than a military mission with an end date. It entails a comprehensive long-term engagement with that country requiring a coordinated approach among all Canadian government channels involved, notably in the areas of defence, diplomacy, development and democratic governance. In his appearance before the Committee, Colonel Mike Capstick, former head of Canada’s Strategic Advisory Team Afghanistan (SAT-A) in Kabul during 2005-2006, began by calling Canada’s future role in Afghanistan “without doubt, the most important foreign policy debate that Canada has been involved in during my lifetime”.[15]

At the same time, for outsiders, Afghanistan presents a notoriously intricate and dynamic combination of characteristics and circumstances. Matt Waldman, Oxfam International’s Policy and Advocacy Advisor in Afghanistan told the Committee on April 8, 2008 that “Afghanistan is an incredibly local society”; hence solutions cannot be simply top-down but need to be tailored to the local level as well as nationally.[16] Crews and Tarzi refer to Afghanistan’s “extraordinarily complex landscape of human diversity”. Explaining how the Taliban phenomenon has persisted, re-emerging as a menacing “neo-Taliban” movement that has “continued to shape the politics of Afghanistan, its neighbors, and the world beyond”, they refer to “multiple and distinct insurgencies”.[17] Other scholars point to the geographically disparate inter- and intra-tribal variations and factional conflicts that are encountered on the ground.

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What is certain is that Afghanistan and Afghans have suffered greatly from decades of warfare and instability. It is essential that this terrible legacy be overcome. Into the seventh year of major military and non-military international intervention in Afghanistan post-9/11, Afghans must perceive real improvements in their daily lives and personal security. There has been a great deal of ongoing debate on the balance of positive and negative trends in Afghanistan, and this was evident from the sometimes conflicting testimony that the Committee received.

We heard different views, some more optimistic, others less so, about the situation in Afghanistan. The Committee has listened carefully to such assessments of Afghanistan’s current circumstances and future prospects. In this report, our primary concern is with how best Canada can make a real difference in benefiting the Afghan people. A pragmatic approach demands that we face up to a mixed situation that is in flux and in which progress has and can be made but is not yet irreversible. We can demonstrate resolve to help without minimizing the extent of the challenges that remain.

As Mark Schneider of the International Crisis Group put it in recent testimony to a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee:

Six and a half years after intervention in Afghanistan, positive developments include a popularly elected government, a stable new currency, two million females back in school and access to basic health care for a large percent of the population, according to UN and government figures. However, Afghanistan’s social indices still rank it 174^th out of 178 nations in the UNDP Human Development Index.[18]

Afghanistan, as Barnett Rubin notes, has the youngest population in the world (57% estimated to be under the age of 18), making education and job creation key objectives. Most Afghans still live in rural areas, are extremely poor, illiterate, lack electricity and often other basic services as well. Moreover, as Kabul resident Joylon Leslie has observed, it is not just a matter of throwing more aid money at the problems since “the failure of the government, and of the international allies, to ensure basic security is the single most important cause of public disaffection in Afghanistan”.[19] According to US official sources in 2007, there were “approximately 140 suicide bombing attacks … inflicting large numbers of civilian casualties”.[20] The worst suicide bombing in Afghanistan’s history occurred in February of this year near Kandahar City. More generally, with respect to the effects of the insurgency, Schneider noted the following in his remarks to the US Congressional Committee:

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified earlier this year that suicide bombings were up 27% in 2007 over 2006. He should have added that they are up 600% over 2005; and that all insurgent attacks are up 400% over 2005.

The UN Secretary General reported last month the looting of 40 convoys delivering food for the World Food Programme (WFP) in 2007, 130 attacks against humanitarian programs, 40 relief workers killed and another 89 abducted.

There were 8,000 conflict-related deaths in 2007, 1,500 of them civilian.[21]

Last year was also the worst year yet for international soldier deaths with 230 killed, including 29 Canadians.[22] Moreover, In May 2008, for the first time since 2003, more foreign soldiers died in Afghanistan than in Iraq.[23]

To say the least, maintaining conditions of security remains a top priority for achieving overall progress in Afghanistan. Although advances are taking place in training the Afghan army, and violence is concentrated in certain districts mainly in the south, Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff General Rick Hillier described to the Committee an increase in “indiscriminate” insurgent attacks, acknowledging as well that “the direct threat [to Canadian and other coalition forces and to Afghan civilians] is still very real”, and that “the security situation … is still very fragile” for civilians, either international or Afghan, attempting to do development work in the south.[24]

More generally, as Canadian Colonel Capstick told Committee, “the single greatest need, cited in report after report, is human security”.[25] This message also comes through in the latest report (March 6, 2008) of the UN Secretary General to the UN Security Council[26], the January 2008 report of the Independent Panel on Canada’s Role in Afghanistan – as elaborated on by its Chair John Manley and two other members in testimony before the Committee[27] – and in subsequent international reports on the situation in Afghanistan.[28]

UN Security Council Resolution 1806, adopted on March 20, 2008, in extending and bolstering the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative in Afghanistan – Norwegian Kai Eide’s appointment to this post was announced on March 20, 2008 – reiterated “its concern about the security situation in Afghanistan, in particular the increased violent and terrorist activities by the Taliban, Al-Qaida, illegally armed groups, criminals and those involved in the narcotics trade, and the increasingly strong links between terrorism activities and illicit drugs, resulting in threats to the local population, including children, national security forces and international military and civilian personnel …”. The resolution went on also to express concern over “the harmful consequences of violent and terrorist activities by the Taliban, Al-Qaida and other extremist groups on the capacity of the Afghan Government to guarantee the rule of law, to provide security and basic services to the Afghan people, and to ensure the improvement and protection of their human rights and fundamental freedoms …”.[29]

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The Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan had full access to government information, having as its secretary David Mulroney, then Associate Deputy Minister in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and head of the Interdepartmental Task Force on Afghanistan set up in May 2007, subsequently appointed Deputy Minister to a new Privy Council Office (PCO) Afghanistan Task Force in early February 2008, working “closely with Ms. Susan Cartwright, Foreign and Defence Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister”.[30] In light of that, the Panel’s report[31] was notably pointed in its critical assessments of past Canadian efforts and approaches in Afghanistan, including in regard to the interdepartmental coordination process itself to that point. The following excerpts from it are indicative:

We are trying to help a country whose recent history has been one long, unending tragedy, and whose prospects still appear bleak. The question of Canada’s future role defies a simple answer. … It is made more complex because we assumed responsibility for fighting an insurgency in a dangerous province of the country and we did so with little political debate and not much public engagement. And that insurgency is far from defeated. (Chair’s Foreword, p. 3)

To put things bluntly, governments from the start of Canada’s Afghan involvement have failed to communicate with Canadians with balance and candour about the reasons for Canadian involvement, or about the risks, difficulties and expected results of that involvement. (p. 20)

The Panel strongly believes that the Afghan and ISAF governments need first to craft a much more unified and coherent security strategy, and then to impose practical, verifiable criteria for gauging and analyzing the course of that strategy. (p. 13)

Afghanistan remains a shockingly poor and dangerous place for too many Afghans. … Gender discrimination remains pervasive; the illiteracy rate among women has been put at 87 per cent, as against 57 per cent among men. And Afghanistan reports one of the world’s highest rates of tuberculosis infection, another common marker of severe poverty. (p. 18)

[T]he Canadian aid program in Afghanistan has been impeded not only by the dangerous security environment in Kandahar but by CIDA’s own administrative constraints. … Funding allocations aside, CIDA staffers in Kandahar do not often venture beyond their base, in part, we were told, because of restrictive security regulations maintained by CIDA’s headquarters in Canada. … It makes little sense to post brave and talented professional staff to Kandahar only to restrict them from making regular contact with the people they are expected to help. While we acknowledge the courage and professionalism of the civilians posted to Kandahar, the Canadian-led PRT in Kandahar also displays signs of the fragmentation and uncoordinated effort that prevail throughout the programming of international development aid in Afghanistan. … We also believe that the Provincial Reconstruction Team, sooner rather than later, should be placed under civilian leadership. (pp. 25-26)

Further, Panel members believe that Canada’s civilian programs have not achieved the scale or depth of engagement necessary to make a significant impact. … It is essential to adjust funding and staffing imbalances between the heavy Canadian military commitment in Afghanistan and the comparatively lighter civilian commitment to reconstruction, development and governance. (p. 28)

Separate departmental task forces are not the answer to inadequate coordination of Canadian activities. These coordinating efforts would have stronger effect, and achieve greater cross-government coherence, if they were led by the Prime Minister, supported by a cabinet committee and staffed by a single full-time task force. Fulfilling Canada’s commitment in Afghanistan requires the political energy only a Prime Minister can impart. (p. 28)

The Government has accepted the report in principle, putting in place the aforementioned PCO task force which supports a new five-member Cabinet Committee on Afghanistan chaired by Minister of Foreign Affairs David Emerson (then Minister of International Trade). Many, though not all of the elements of the Manley report’s recommendations, have been incorporated into the Government motion on Afghanistan passed by the House of Commons on March 13, 2008. That motion also reinforces a concern about better communication with Parliament and Canadians that was made strongly in the final recommendation of the independent panel report:

The Government should provide the public with franker and more frequent reporting on events in Afghanistan, offering more assessments of Canada’s role and giving greater emphasis to the diplomatic and reconstruction efforts as well as those of the military.[32]

There are multiple accountabilities that must be considered. Overall, under the umbrella of the 2006 Afghanistan Compact, all parties must be held to its benchmarks, including the Government of Afghanistan, which as an elected government is accountable to its citizens.[33] The Compact is at the core of current Canadian policy. As then Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon. Maxime Bernier described it to the Committee: “The Afghan Compact talks about security, governance, and development as three pillars. Each pillar is equally essential, and the three are mutually reinforcing. Canada’s approach entirely reflects this interdependence. In fact, we have actively sought out issues where we can best leverage our resources, for example, where our security effort will help build capacity in governance or where our development projects will help ensure a more secure environment.”[34]

Afghanistan is also a sovereign state of the United Nations, and therefore troop-contributing and donor countries must be held accountable to its elected government for their actions inside its territory. The Canadian government must also be held accountable to Parliament and Canadians for the conduct of its actions and expenditures in Afghanistan.

All of this is easier said than done. Colonel Mike Capstick, former head of Canada’s SAT-A, provided the Committee with a sobering reality check. Making commitments is important, but the proof is in the implementation. And in the case of the Afghanistan Compact, which sets out the key elements of security, economic and social development, governance, the rule of law and human rights, the achievement of its benchmarks has not been going as well as it could be. As he told the Committee in early March 2008:

The London conference [of 2006 which he attended] was another moment of high optimism. For the first time since the fall of the Taliban regime there was an agreed Afghan international strategic framework and a common language. Promises were made, commitments given, and hope was the prevailing sentiment. That sense of hope would not last long. Within months, the lack of strategic vision and the almost total absence of international cohesion in Kabul began to threaten the compact and the interim ANDS [Afghanistan National Development Strategy].

This lack of cohesion, in fact, puts the entire state-building enterprise at risk. To be clear, the Afghan mission can be lost on the battlefields of Kandahar province, but it can only be won in Kabul. (…)

A few of the most powerful states represented in Kabul, as well as some of the most important development agencies, have consistently weakened the possibility of UN leadership by their insistence on following national and organizational agendas and priorities as opposed to those laid out in the compact.[35]

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It is impossible in a short report to do justice to all of the testimony we received, including the nuances and sometimes divergences in perspective and emphasis. Nevertheless, the Committee is able to summarize some points on which there was virtual unanimity among witnesses. Among these are the following:

• The solution in Afghanistan must be more than military. It must be comprehensive, long-term and sustainable;
• A long-term solution to the stability of Afghanistan as a developing democracy must also be regional[36], involving positive involvement by all of its neighbors, notably with Pakistan and in regard to the particularly troubling border issues between the two countries[37];
• In regard to combating the insurgency within Afghanistan, a successful approach must include the elements of diplomacy, development, democracy, rule of law and good governance, intra- and inter-tribal reconciliation;
• Canada’s contributions in Afghanistan, military and non-military, must have the ultimate aim of making the Afghan state capable of maintaining all elements of security – notably reform of the army, police, courts and corrections system – while providing other basic services to its citizens in all of its territory;
• Canada does not want to keep troops on Afghan soil indefinitely. At the same time, Canada and Canadians must be prepared for a long-term engagement with Afghanistan that focuses on achieving the aim described above;
• Canada needs to be clear about its policy goals in Afghanistan and to communicate those effectively to the Canadian public.

With respect to these points, and the last in particular, there is still work to be done. Professor Robert Jackson, a Canadian who is now Director of International Relations at the University of Redlands, California, underlined at several points in his testimony to the Committee – on the same day that the House of Commons passed the motion on Afghanistan – the bottom-line question: “What is the strategic goal [that Canada wants to see achieved in Afghanistan]? … we should deduce the details of policies from the goals, not the other way around.”[38]

The persistent divisions within Canadian public opinion indicate that this is not as clear as it should be. Following the terms of the House of Commons motions of March 13 and April 8 (the latter passed unanimously), the creation on April 10, 2008 of a Special House of Commons Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan, on which four members of this Committee sit, will help to strengthen the information, monitoring and accountability process. In line with that, the Committee believes that the Government must be more forthcoming about the details of its strategic framework for long-term engagement in Afghanistan.

Minister David Emerson, speaking as chair of the Cabinet Committee on Afghanistan, indicated on the same day as the creation of the special committee that the Government will start releasing quarterly reports on the progress of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan.[39] On June 10 Minister Emerson, Minister of Foreign Affairs, tabled in the House of Commons the inaugural report entitled Canada’s Engagement in Afghanistan: Setting a Course to 2011.[40] Significantly, this report announced a substantial increase in total Canadian assistance to development and reconstruction in Afghanistan over the decade 2001-2011, from $1.3 billion to $1.9 billion. It also outlined a pronounced shift in concentrating Canadian assistance on Kandahar province, from 17% to 50% of future programming. The report described Canadian priorities and objectives, and concluded by stating: “Benchmarks are being prepared that will allow Parliament and Canadians to assess progress towards these objectives, and will be presented in next fall’s quarterly report. Future reports will measure progress against those benchmarks to 2011.”[41] The Committee urges that these reports provide to the fullest extent possible frank and detailed results-based assessments, which can be examined by Parliament.

Recommendation 1

Taking into account the decisions of the House of Commons and the first quarterly report presented to the House on June 10, the Government of Canada should continue its efforts to communicate to Parliament and Canadians a comprehensive strategic policy framework for Canada’s multi-year engagement in Afghanistan in support of the international benchmarks already agreed to in the 2006-2011 Afghanistan Compact. Adjustments made as necessary to this Canadian framework should be promptly explained to Parliament and the Canadian public. Future quarterly reports on the implementation of Canadian policy objectives in Afghanistan should include, to the fullest extent, possible frank and detailed results-based assessments of Canadian support to the realization of internationally agreed benchmarks and timelines. These reports should also include an update of the financial costs of Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan.

Notes to the Introduction