They no longer think kindly of Canada in Kandahar. The Canadians have left the building. Their promises no longer heard.
Oh, they marched so bravely up the Khyber Pass (figuratively) past the Pashtun tribes of Pakistan into the reality of the Pashtun peoples of Afghanistan. The image of the Canadian soldiers following the skirl of the bagpipes up the pass gives death time to mark those who would be his.
Turn the clock back 200 years and those are British troops marching up the pass. They marched up the pass to make the world safe for the growing of the opium poppy on the Northern Frontier of India—now Pakistan. The British East India Company had ready markets in China for opium back then and the safety of the growing fields was important.
Little has changed in the succeeding 200 years. The Afghans have learned to live on the rations of foreign troops and the opium poppy crop in the country has become the largest in the world. Only under the Taliban has the opium poppy crop been reduced but they became the enemy when they would not turn over Osama bin Laden to the Americans.
Despite the efforts of foreign troops in Afghanistan to kill off the Taliban, there are ample new recruits for them in the Madrassas of Pakistan. These religious colleges are indoctrination centres producing a steady stream of zealots eager to smite the infidels in the name of the Prophet. And the profits of the drug trade pay for their weapons.
In the ten years of Canadian military taking part in active fighting duty in Afghanistan, nothing has been accomplished. Soldiers have died. Pashtun fighters have died. The drug trade continues. The Afghan warlords stay in power. Nothing is resolved.
Canada also has shipping containers full of materiel for its troops left behind in Afghanistan. Trucking this materiel to Karachi in Pakistan for shipment to Canada will take much time and many bribes. Luckily, the Chief of the Defence Staff tells us there is nothing essential in the containers.
And, oh yes, we should also mention that the Americans started the current war against the Afghan people because the Taliban in Afghanistan would not give up Osama bin Laden. The Americans attacked and removed the Taliban and established a group of warlords in their place. As for Osama bin Laden, he was killed by some U.S. Navy Seals and C.I.A. operatives on May 2, 2011. He was hiding in his home in Pakistan.
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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