Stephen Harper and Afghanistan

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 12:02 AM - 51 Comments

The Globe puts forward a rather remarkable account of Stephen Harper’s thinking on Afghanistan.

Though it’s widely believed that public opinion is all that keeps Mr. Harper from extending the military mission, the Prime Minister is in fact an Afghan skeptic, according to one person who has worked with him on the issue. Many in his government and the military favour extending the mission, but not the PM – and not just for political reasons. He wants results.

For almost two years, Mr. Harper has harboured deep doubts about the Afghan mission. He worries that extending it would mean throwing good money after bad, and, more importantly, lives with it. After years in which progress has been elusive, he doubts the impact Canada can have.

The Prime Minister’s last major speech on Afghanistan—as noted by John Geddes yesterday—was delivered May 7, 2009 in Kandahar. If, as the Globe reports, he was worried then about progress and purpose, he did not let on. A few excerpts. Continue…

Secrecy and inconsistency

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 5, 2010 at 3:49 PM - 29 Comments

The Hill Times finds a relevant e-mail in last week’s pile of detainee documents.

Canadian Forces headquarters ordered Canadian Military Police in Kandahar to withhold information about detainees from the allied International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, an email among the 2,600 documents the government tabled in Parliament says…

According to [redacted] the situation has not/not improved,” the email says. “The Canadian [Military Police] Provost Marshal in Kandahar has told ISAF that he would be pleased to provide the information but that he has received explicit instructions from NDHQ not/not to do so. [Redacted] said this is very frustrating as ISAF has responsibilities on detainees that it is obliged to discharge.”

The email is equally important on another ground because the Military Police complaint it contains about orders to stay quiet over detainee information was redacted from another version of the same email that the government released last November. That was when the special Commons Committee on Afghanistan began hearing Colvin and other witnesses about Canadian actions during the war and allegations of torture.

'You have your law, we have ours'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 11:47 AM - 11 Comments

The government has tabled another 6,200 pages of detainee documents today. As with last week’s documents, these were not reviewed by Justice Frank Iacobucci, the respected jurist theoretically hired to do just that and cited yesterday by the Justice Minister as the solution to the government’s current standoff with Parliament.

Meanwhile, CBC gets hold of an uncensored report about Afghan attempts to block detainee inspections.

The Afghan human rights agency was appointed by Canada to be its eyes and ears in Afghan prisons at the time. The rights group was supposed to help ensure the safety of detainees who had been transferred from Canadian troops to the Afghans. The Afghan security service, the NDS, took those detainees from the Canadians. The uncensored version of the document states there were “… five failed attempts to access Kandahar NDS facilities in 2007.”

The document says the NDS response on detainee access was often, “You have your law, we have ours.” It says Afghan human rights experts “discussed the access problem with [Afghan] President [Hamid] Karzai … however, this did not help.”

What might have been

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 1:52 PM - 14 Comments

Canadian Press delves into a proposed, but ultimately rejected, plan to put the Afghan army in charge of detainees.

NATO allies lobbied Afghan’s president for a separate legal framework to handle prisoners captured around Kandahar in late 2006 but those efforts “went nowhere,” say internal memos. The records outline an early strategy of the Canadian government as it faced pressure from the International Red Cross and others to take more responsibility for captured Taliban fighters…

The idea was to let the fledgling Afghan army operate a detention facility built by the U.S. rather than rely on either the National Directorate of Security or the country’s shaky correctional system. The proposal included a demand that Afghanistan create a separate legal framework for terror suspects, similar to the U.S. system of military tribunals. Afghan President Hamid Karzai was pressed to carve out “a new detainee policy that would have made the Afghan army responsible for prisoners and created a new class of detainees, but efforts have gone nowhere,” says a Dec. 4, 2006, memo.

Yes, we have a plan

By John Geddes - Monday, February 8, 2010 at 8:50 AM - 9 Comments

The pattern in Ottawa following a humanitarian crisis has long been predictable: first the scramble to help, then the political damage-control exercise to justify delays and disarray. After the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, federal officials were left explaining why it took several precious days to lease a Russian aircraft to fly in a Canadian military disaster relief team. When Israel attacked Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon in 2006, other countries managed to begin evacuating their citizens while Canadian officials were trying to book ships to do the job.
But last month’s devastating earthquake in Haiti has been an entirely different story. Although some inevitable snags have been reported, experts in large-scale relief operations have generally applauded the Canadian effort. “We can see,” said Susan Johnson, director general of international operations for the Canadian Red Cross, “that we’re in a different place than we were in some previous responses on the part of Canada.” Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet are basking in the praise—a welcome distraction from sharp and sustained criticism of the decision to suspend Parliament until after the Winter Olympics.

The more agile reaction this time is no accident. The federal government’s capacity to coordinate operations after a major disaster abroad has been systematically overhauled in recent years, precisely because it was previously found wanting. Among the old shortcomings: no large central stockpile of emergency aid supplies, no single federal agency with the authority to pull together the response, not even a full roster of trained public servants to call in to man the phones in an operations room.

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Outside the wire

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, December 5, 2009 at 4:03 PM - 27 Comments

David Pugliese undoes one of the more popular counters to Richard Colvin’s testimony.

There have also been allegations about the extent of Colvin’s travels in Afghanistan. Retired general Lewis MacKenzie said recently on CTV that based on information “from a very reliable source, (Colvin) was not permitted outside the wire in Kandahar probably once and maybe not more than once, and so was the victim of having to talk to a number of other people, diplomats, military, intelligence, et cetera, to send his opinion out on his now infamous e-mails, doing the very best he could with restrictions that were placed on him.”

The claim that Colvin went off the base only once was also repeated by Globe and Mail columnist Christie Blatchford. It surfaced again on Tuesday, with the Conservatives using it to try to undercut Colvin’s reputation. “Here is a man, Mr. Colvin, who spent about a day out of his entire tour outside of the wire and had these few interviews,” said Treasury Board president Vic Toews.

The Citizen has confirmed, however, that Colvin left the base at least six times to travel into Kandahar, in addition to travelling to other locations in Afghanistan.

Behind the detainees issue: the 2006 Kandahar surprise

By John Geddes - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 4:15 PM - 1 Comment

The Richard Colvin controversy raises broader historical questions about why Canada was so ill-prepared for combat in Kandahar—and the need to take all those detainees—in the first place. This is admittedly a matter of recent history, not current news, but I find it intriguing.

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What happened to those 130?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:50 AM - 0 Comments

The government has long maintained that to disclose the number of detainees transferred by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan would violate operational security, but a government source now tells the Globe that approximately 130 were transferred during the first 14 months of combat operations in Kandahar.

In June 2006, when news broke that Canadian soldiers had twice intervened to prevent the execution of prisoners, a spokesman for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission told the Canadian Press that about 30 percent of prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities were abused. CP’s report of June 2, in its entirety, after the jump. Continue…

Only a dozen

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 2:35 AM - 30 Comments

Canwest talks to the current warden of Sarpoza prison in Afghanistan.

Prisoners were tortured at Sarpoza Prison in Afghanistan, but not in nearly the numbers alleged this past week by a Canadian diplomat, the prison’s chief warden has told Canwest News Service.

“Yes, there was torture and people were certainly beaten,” chief warden Col. Abdullah Bawar said Saturday during an interview conducted inside the prison’s heavily guarded walls. “Hands and legs would be tied and they would be beaten with cables. I even remember one man who broke his leg from a beating.”

Although his timeline was a bit fuzzy as to when such abuses stopped, Bawar estimated that “around 100 prisoners” from a population of about 1,100 had been physically abused during 2006 and 2007, which he referred to as “this dark period.” The information Bawar offered makes it nearly impossible to say precisely how many — if any — of the abused prisoners would have been handed over by Canadian troops. A rough estimate suggests it may have only been as many as a dozen.

In a separate analysis, David Pugliese estimates Canada may have turned over nearly 600 detainees. Former diplomat Harry Sterling says the Colvin paper trail should be easy to follow. And CBC posts the report that, if I’m not mistaken, momentarily brought a halt to transfers in November 2007.

Important context to come

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 20, 2009 at 4:33 PM - 16 Comments

Unsolicited, a three paragraph statement from Foreign Affairs arrived just now.

It is important to let the Parliamentary Committee process unfold and to consider and weigh the testimony of subsequent witnesses before drawing any conclusions about how events in Afghanistan may have unfolded in 2006 and 2007.

It is our understanding that other current and former DFAIT employees will be testifying before the Parliamentary Committee. Their testimony will provide important context and information about this issue.

Canada has a robust monitoring regime for Canadian transferred detainees in place. From the beginning of our engagement in Kandahar in 2005, Canada has taken steps with the Afghan government to ensure that Afghanistan meets its domestic and international obligations with respect to the treatment of detainees.

'I will do my best to shed light within the limits imposed by my professional obligations'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 1:58 PM - 9 Comments

As promised, here is the full opening statement of Richard Colvin in his testimony before the special committee on Afghanistan yesterday.

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'There is no proof'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 11:26 AM - 2 Comments

More from Lawrence Cannon. The commanding Canadian general takes a slightly different position.

The Canadian general who commands all forces overseas said Thursday in Kandahar City that he was not able to speak to Mr. Colvin’s specific charges because he was not in charge at the time.

“What for me is important is that there is due process,” said Lt.-Gen. Marc Lessard, commander of Canadian forces overseas. “People will testify. You have to deal with the past if things were wrong.”

Richard Colvin speaks (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 5:18 PM - 19 Comments

Canadian Press has an excerpt from Mr. Colvin’s opening statement.

Counter-insurgency is an argument to win the support of the locals. Every action, reaction or failure to act become part of the debate. In Kandahar, Canada needs to convince local people that we are better than the Taliban, that our values were superior, that we would look after their interests and protect them. In my judgment, some of our actions in Kandahar, including complicity in torture, turned local people against us. Instead of winning hearts and minds, we caused Kandaharis to fear the foreigners. Canada’s detainee practices alienated us from the population and strengthened the insurgency.

The end is the beginning is the end

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 16, 2009 at 1:30 AM - 8 Comments

Defence Minister Peter MacKay comments from Kandahar.

MacKay said Natynczyk’s interpretation of Parliament’s instructions to withdraw from Kandahar was “reflective of what everyone from the prime minister on down views as those instructions.”

But MacKay was unclear on what direction the mission would take after 2011 and whether it would involve regions of the country outside of Kandahar. ”The military mission is changing,” he said. “It is obviously transitioning at 2011 to emphasis on reconstruction, development, things that we are doing now but we’ll be able to do more. And clearly, there is discussion as to how this is going to take place. We’re tasked with that now.”

The previously stated positions of Gen. Natynczyk and the Prime Minister’s Office are here. Full audio of the Defence Minister’s comments are here. And a rather interesting interview with Hamid Karzai is here.

The general and the PMO

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 7:09 PM - 12 Comments

CBC, October 10. The Conservative government intends to keep some Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan in a non-combat role beyond Parliament’s 2011 end-date for the military mission, CBC News has learned. Dimitri Soudas, a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office, told CBC News there will be Canadian troops in Afghanistan after 2011, though “exponentially fewer.” ”I would caution you against saying dozens or hundreds or a thousand, there will be exponentially fewer,” Soudas said. “Whether there’s 20 or 60 or 80 or 100, they will not be conducting combat operations.”

CBC, tonight. Amid speculation over a future role for Canadian forces in Kandahar, Canada’s top commander says he will withdraw all of the country’s soldiers from the region by 2011. ”The parliamentary motion directs that it will be the end of the military mission in July of 2011. I mean those are the words that are there,” Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Walt Natynczyk told CBC News in an exclusive interview. “And for me it’s pretty clear. What we do for the Canadian Forces are military missions.”

Geddes has analysis. CBC has the full audio of its interview with Walt Natynczyk.

Natynczyk gets it right: out of Kandahar, full stop. But what (or where) next?

By John Geddes - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 5:48 PM - 10 Comments

Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Walt Natynczyk just told CBC’s Evan Solomon that he’s started doing what’s required to pull Canadian troops out of Kandahar in 2011, in keeping with the House of Commons motion passed on March 13, 2008 that commits the government to doing just that.

What a relief to hear Natynczyk put it so plainly. Up to now, for reasons I’ve never been able to fathom, debate around the 2011 withdrawal date has often been muddied by a mistaken idea that the House motion left the government wiggle room by only committing it to ending Canada’s “combat role.”

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Will we ever know what happened in Afghanistan? (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 1:19 PM - 4 Comments

Richard Colvin’s affidavit is unsealed.

A former Canadian diplomat warned the federal government in May 2006 of “serious” and “alarming” problems with the handling of Afghan prisoners in Kandahar. Richard Colvin, now deputy head of intelligence at the Canadian embassy in Washington, filed several reports throughout his roughly 18 months in Afghanistan…

The Conservative government repeatedly said in the spring of 2007 that it had received no credible reports of prisoner abuse. But Colvin said he warned the deputy commander of the provincial reconstruction base after he became aware of problems upon arriving in Kandahar in April 2006.

Juggling chainsaws (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 11:48 AM - 0 Comments

A reader points out that Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie first reassessed the readiness of Canada’s military in July.

Juggling chainsaws

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 12, 2009 at 11:32 PM - 7 Comments

Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie, February 16. Canada’s army is being pushed to the limit by the strains of keeping a 2,700-strong military mission in Afghanistan and the force will need at least a year to recover once the troops return on schedule in 2011, the top army commander said on Monday … Leslie said men and equipment in Afghanistan were wearing out fast and likened his job to juggling a chain saw. ”We are at the limit … we are now sending senior noncommissioned officers and officers back for their fourth tour,” he told Reuters in an interview at Canada’s defense headquarters. ”Our equipment is going to have to be reset, just like our soldiers have to be reset at a certain time.” Leslie said that once the troops had returned, it would take between 12 and 16 months to restore the army’s full fighting capability.

Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie, October 13. The Canadian force is due to pull out in 2011. However, Gen-Leslie told The Independent that after spending £3bn on new equipment including armour and helicopters, and an upsurge in recruiting, his force would be ready to continue with the mission if ordered to do so by the government in Ottawa … The commander said that following losses inflicted by the Taliban, “we took a long, hard look at what needed to be done and I think we are now the best equipped of all Nato troops in Afghanistan”.

The question of 2011 (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 11:22 PM - 6 Comments

The transcript of Bob Rae’s scrum with reporters after Question Period this afternoon.

Question: A question on Afghanistan.  You want some clarity on Afghanistan.  The government says their position’s clear with regards to the combat mission.  What’s not clear?

Bob Rae: Well, I don’t think the government is telling us what are they planning on doing after 2011 and there was a very – I thought very ambiguous comment made by the Minister saying we’re going to honour the 2008 resolution until we replace it with a new one.  Well, what does that tell you?

You know if you compare what’s going on here and what’s happening in the U.S. and elsewhere, the debate is much less public and much less open and transparent as to what the government is thinking about.  What are the options on the table?  What are the various things that the government might do?  We haven’t heard a word from the government about any of these things and I think we’re – I think the Canadian people are entitled to that.  We know that the discussions are underway inside the American administration.  We have a pretty clear sense of what the options are on that table but we don’t have any idea what the options are on Mr. Harper’s table.

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Our future in Afghanistan: didn't the House say something on this matter?

By John Geddes - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 9:33 AM - 19 Comments

Defence Minister Peter MacKay says keeping Canada’s Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar after 2011 is a possibility, and in doing so he raises a basic question about the government’s Afghanistan policy.

Canadian Press reports that MacKay was asked pointedly by reporters about whether the PRT would stay in Kandahar beyond the planned withdrawal data, and he replied airly, “We’re considering a number of options.”
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Donuts, hockey, tax cuts and Afghanistan

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 4:36 PM - 86 Comments

Below is a transcript of the Prime Minister’s speech today at the Tim Hortons Innovation Centre in Oakville.

If I ever get round to writing a book about this time in Ottawa, I may very well argue that this, in content, setting and context, is the quintessential speech of Stephen Harper’s premiership. Continue…

The Governor General and her troops

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 10:36 AM - 6 Comments

Clad in a soldier’s uniform to symbolize her role as Canada’s honourary commander-in-chief, Governor General Michaëlle Jean wrapped up a secret two-day trip to Afghanistan on Wednesday. Among Jean’s stops were the cenotaph at Kandahar Airfield, which bears the names of 129 Canadian soldiers killed as part of the Afghan mission, a girls’ school not far from the Canadian base, the headquarters of the provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar, and a local hospital. Jean said she hoped her trip would show Canadians the mission in Afghanistan is far from a lost cause. “It’s very important that Canadians realize that, yes, our soldiers are taking many risks,” she said, “but are also doing something that is absolutely exceptional.”

'So that the flame of hope that I saw in their eyes continues to burn'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 3:54 PM - 7 Comments

According to her office, the Governor General has just returned from a day trip to Afghanistan. Her remarks to the troops there are below.

I have been anxiously awaiting this opportunity to come back here, to this country where your mission has brought you.

Particularly given that at this very moment, Afghanistan is going through a pivotal time in its history, as its people struggle to overcome decades of distress and insecurity.

This morning, I had the opportunity to visit the Sayad Pacha School, built in 2008 with Canadian aid, where 520 students, half of whom are girls, attend classes. When I asked those children about their dreams for Afghanistan, without hesitation, they answered: Security. Security to go after their dreams, and education to achieve them.

So it is for these children that you are working. It is for them that we are here and for them that you are giving so selflessly. So that the flame of hope that I saw in their eyes continues to burn. So that these young girls and boys who dream of becoming engineers, doctors, teachers—who told me so with such pride, such confidence, such faith—can thrive as they follow the luminous path of their dreams.

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