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Canadian military shields Afghan village from Taliban
Don Martin, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, July 16, 2007
GHORAK, Afghanistan -- Until the Taliban came calling last month, this mud-walled mountain village in northwestern Kandahar province was home to 100 families.
There was a medical centre, a school and a robust farming community churning out crops of opium-bound poppies supplemented by the more legally desirable, but less lucrative, honeydews and cucumbers.
But the doctor disappeared three weeks ago after a Taliban fighter gave him an offer he couldn't refuse. Then the school teacher fled after being warned her next day in the classroom would be her last alive. The political leadership that used to preside over the region from the compound abdicated their responsibilities a couple of years ago.
The heart of their community scared off, the village emptied of villagers. Now there are just seven families waiting -- and hoping -- Canadians can turn their lives around.
The second half of a massive convoy of tanks, light armoured vehicles and supply trucks rumbled into Ghorak under the cover of darkness Sunday night and set to work fortifying and rebuilding the defences of the regional political centre at sunrise Monday.
A day earlier, six village elders had met with Maj. Alex Ruff of Hotel Company to learn about a Canadian mission they hope will restore stability and bring back the residents.
It would be easy to denounce this particular mission as a waste of military manpower, after more than 100 bored soldiers lounged around with little to do for 10 days while headquarters slowly dispatched another convoy loaded with barbed wire, sand bags and barriers to fortify the outpost.
As this three-day mission rolls into its 11th day, it seems to me that brass at the Kandahar Air Field deserve a slap on the head for organizational ineptitude and, frankly, dispatching an overkill of firepower, given that locals report only a dozen or so insurgents in the area.
But those village elders are haunting. There's a resigned fear in their eyes, as if they've seen every horror and just want it all to end.
They confirm that a 10-year-old boy in the village was beheaded by the nastiest of the Taliban brutes last week after being observed giving bread to local police. When the father tried to intervene, he was hanged from the nearest tree. Yet, they relay the story through an interpreter with all the nonchalance of having witnessed someone put down a donkey with a broken leg.
Life here is short and cheap. Living is a constant struggle. And yet, ask them what they need from Canada and their answer is surprising.
"Peace," says one elder, barefoot, yet - inexplicably in a land that runs on AMT (Afghan Maybe Time) -- wearing a knockoff Omega wristwatch. "We don't need anything else. Just give us peace."
No problem, says Ruff, "that's why we're here."
So far, so good. We hadn't been hit by mortar fire or rocket-propelled grenades at this writing, as the pullout began from this inhospitable amenity-free camp out.
Trouble is, when our military shield is gone, the village will be protected by a police force that ran away after the last Taliban attack and an army that, while universally praised for its budding professionalism, still looks like its foot soldiers were recruited from a Grade 11 class.
I guess you have to ask yourself to consider the alternative. To leave without doing anything? To let those Taliban bastards terrorize a town into vacating so that their drug smuggling corridor, which runs directly through this valley, can reopen?
Given that option, there really is no choice. That's why the soldiers stayed, waited for overdue supplies to arrive and did what they could to repair the site under a broiling sun.
Ruff insists there's merit in merely parking such a powerful military display in full view of Taliban insurgents, daring them to attack while knowing they'd never attempt such a suicidal mission. It would send a message to the insurgency that the villagers have friends in high and heavily armed places, he says.
Perhaps, then, this is Canada's future in Afghanistan. It's not about unleashing the quick-draw guns to run through grape fields and kill a couple of Taliban fighters for military cameraman.
Read Prime Minister Stephen Harper's words on Afghanistan carefully and, while he talks of letting Parliament decide on ending the military mission in February, 2009, that's not the same thing as ending the humanitarian or reconstruction responsibilities of the deployment.
Canada may well keep soldiers here indefinitely to escort and protect ventures like these -- albeit hopefully more efficiently staged in the future -- that are designed to support Afghans trying to rebuild a society safe from the Taliban's terror.
Canadian forces will leave this isolated outpost -- hopefully today, because there are a lot of filthy bodies screaming for a shower, and none more than a smelly yours truly -- but they'll leave behind a defensive barrier designed to fend off the barbarians, and let a more civilized culture take root
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=6bb7e610-b1e1-4c9c-b2bc-a3e6368622a8&k=73273
Don Martin, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, July 16, 2007
GHORAK, Afghanistan -- Until the Taliban came calling last month, this mud-walled mountain village in northwestern Kandahar province was home to 100 families.
There was a medical centre, a school and a robust farming community churning out crops of opium-bound poppies supplemented by the more legally desirable, but less lucrative, honeydews and cucumbers.
But the doctor disappeared three weeks ago after a Taliban fighter gave him an offer he couldn't refuse. Then the school teacher fled after being warned her next day in the classroom would be her last alive. The political leadership that used to preside over the region from the compound abdicated their responsibilities a couple of years ago.
The heart of their community scared off, the village emptied of villagers. Now there are just seven families waiting -- and hoping -- Canadians can turn their lives around.
The second half of a massive convoy of tanks, light armoured vehicles and supply trucks rumbled into Ghorak under the cover of darkness Sunday night and set to work fortifying and rebuilding the defences of the regional political centre at sunrise Monday.
A day earlier, six village elders had met with Maj. Alex Ruff of Hotel Company to learn about a Canadian mission they hope will restore stability and bring back the residents.
It would be easy to denounce this particular mission as a waste of military manpower, after more than 100 bored soldiers lounged around with little to do for 10 days while headquarters slowly dispatched another convoy loaded with barbed wire, sand bags and barriers to fortify the outpost.
As this three-day mission rolls into its 11th day, it seems to me that brass at the Kandahar Air Field deserve a slap on the head for organizational ineptitude and, frankly, dispatching an overkill of firepower, given that locals report only a dozen or so insurgents in the area.
But those village elders are haunting. There's a resigned fear in their eyes, as if they've seen every horror and just want it all to end.
They confirm that a 10-year-old boy in the village was beheaded by the nastiest of the Taliban brutes last week after being observed giving bread to local police. When the father tried to intervene, he was hanged from the nearest tree. Yet, they relay the story through an interpreter with all the nonchalance of having witnessed someone put down a donkey with a broken leg.
Life here is short and cheap. Living is a constant struggle. And yet, ask them what they need from Canada and their answer is surprising.
"Peace," says one elder, barefoot, yet - inexplicably in a land that runs on AMT (Afghan Maybe Time) -- wearing a knockoff Omega wristwatch. "We don't need anything else. Just give us peace."
No problem, says Ruff, "that's why we're here."
So far, so good. We hadn't been hit by mortar fire or rocket-propelled grenades at this writing, as the pullout began from this inhospitable amenity-free camp out.
Trouble is, when our military shield is gone, the village will be protected by a police force that ran away after the last Taliban attack and an army that, while universally praised for its budding professionalism, still looks like its foot soldiers were recruited from a Grade 11 class.
I guess you have to ask yourself to consider the alternative. To leave without doing anything? To let those Taliban bastards terrorize a town into vacating so that their drug smuggling corridor, which runs directly through this valley, can reopen?
Given that option, there really is no choice. That's why the soldiers stayed, waited for overdue supplies to arrive and did what they could to repair the site under a broiling sun.
Ruff insists there's merit in merely parking such a powerful military display in full view of Taliban insurgents, daring them to attack while knowing they'd never attempt such a suicidal mission. It would send a message to the insurgency that the villagers have friends in high and heavily armed places, he says.
Perhaps, then, this is Canada's future in Afghanistan. It's not about unleashing the quick-draw guns to run through grape fields and kill a couple of Taliban fighters for military cameraman.
Read Prime Minister Stephen Harper's words on Afghanistan carefully and, while he talks of letting Parliament decide on ending the military mission in February, 2009, that's not the same thing as ending the humanitarian or reconstruction responsibilities of the deployment.
Canada may well keep soldiers here indefinitely to escort and protect ventures like these -- albeit hopefully more efficiently staged in the future -- that are designed to support Afghans trying to rebuild a society safe from the Taliban's terror.
Canadian forces will leave this isolated outpost -- hopefully today, because there are a lot of filthy bodies screaming for a shower, and none more than a smelly yours truly -- but they'll leave behind a defensive barrier designed to fend off the barbarians, and let a more civilized culture take root
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=6bb7e610-b1e1-4c9c-b2bc-a3e6368622a8&k=73273
