Canada in Afghanistan

The War So Far

Peter Pigott

• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781459712393
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

It has been said that Canada is a country with too much geography and too little history. Afghanistan has too much of both. As the war escalates in Afghanistan, more Canadians are asking what we are doing there. For a country that has specialized in peacekeeping, this war is a shock — one that we have not yet comprehended. As the casualties mount, Canadians will want to know why we are there.

Canada in Afghanistan introduces readers to Afghans and their culture, gives historical background from our involvement since 9/11, and covers operations casualties and the results. Also included is an examination of a new strategic experiment — the provincial reconstruction team and the technological advances used in this war. Cautionary predictions conclude the book. Canada in Afghanistan is an introduction to what is happening in Afghanistan and what we can expect through 2009.

1

“The Petri Dish of Afghanistan”¹

Fortress of Islam, heart of Asia,

Forever free, soil of the Aryans,

Birthplace of great heroes.

— Afghan National Anthem

To the sophisticated Persians, the land of rocks and desert at the edge of their empire was Yaghestan. Filled with savages who would never accept the rule of law, it was simply where civilization ended. There is some evidence that the country’s most ancient name was Avagana, a Sanskrit term, but another school of thought believes the land was originally called Ab-bar-Gan, or “High Country,” which derives from the Sumerian language and dates back as far as 3000 BC. In religious terms, the Afghan or Pashtun origin is said to stem from the Old Testament’s Abraham. Afghana, Saul’s grandson, was raised by David and was made chief of the army. His family became so powerful that in the sixth century BC, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, exiled them to Khor, the site of modern Afghanistan. Greater Khorasan is a historical region that includes territories in today’s Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan. Persian travellers referred to the many tribes in its mountainous area as Pashtun from the language spoken there, and it was only in the 18th century that Europeans called the area Afghanistan, after the Afghans, the ruling tribe then.

The Afghans themselves have an explanation for the physical features of their country. After creating the countries of the world, God had some rubbish left over. This he moulded together and dropped on an area of the planet that no one wanted, creating Afghanistan. Trapped historically between Persia, Russia, India, and China, the country has been cursed throughout history. From ancient times this collision of mountain ranges, tribes, and empires has had a strategic importance, even more so today since its modern neighbours are Pakistan, China, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the first two being nuclear powers and the third suspected of trying to join that club. The British historian Arnold Toynbee thought Afghanistan was “the roundabout of the world” (“traffic circle,” in Canadian terms). For Lord Curzon, British viceroy of India at the beginning of the 20th century, it was the cockpit of the world.² After the disastrous British and Soviet invasions, Afghanistan earned the title of Graveyard of Empires. A geographical expression in search of a state, Afghanistan is more commonly called the Corridor of Asia. Whatever the name, to the great powers of any day, Afghanistan has always been a vacuum that has to be filled.

Located in Central Asia on the geologic Iranian Plateau, Afghanistan is 647,500 square kilometres, an area similar in size to Manitoba and slightly smaller than Texas. Like Switzerland and Austria, it is landlocked, mountainous, and heir to a few languages and religions. Its present-day boundaries are artificial, having been drawn up early in the 20th century in London and Moscow. Because of its past, Afghanistan was known for the ferocity of its warriors. In fact, so impressed was Lord Kitchener with an Afghan tribe called the Hazaras that in preparation for a Third Afghan War (1919) he raised a battalion of Hazara Pioneers. When London wisely cut its losses and refused to get involved with pacifying Afghanistan, the Hazara battalion accompanied Kitchener home and during World War I went to France, Kurdistan, and Baghdad, fighting for the British with distinction.

The Hindu Kush slices through the country, beginning in the high northeast where the former Soviet Union, China, and Pakistan meet, then continuing to the barren lowlands of the Iranian border. Because of these mountains, Afghanistan is chopped into the Central Highlands, the Northern Plains, and the Southwestern Plateau. Deep, narrow valleys, the storied Khyber and Bolan passes, the Suleiman Mountains that march across the border with Pakistan, and the Central Highlands form the popular notion of Afghanistan.

Rarely reported in the media is that better distribution of water is critical if Afghanistan is ever to become a stable nation. Although the country has experienced several years of drought, it still possesses tremendous water resources. Drought, ineffective management, and lack of available infrastructure have created conditions for massive internal displacement of the population. The dearth of water has caused opium cultivation to increase, inflamed local conflicts over access rights to water, and raised health concerns. The recent proliferation of thousands of tube wells has also led to a decrease in the water table, further disrupting the local community as control over wells becomes an issue. Despite all this, there is no shortage of available water in Afghanistan.³The problem is one of management. There are three types of irrigation systems in the country: surface, karez, and formal. Fifty-five percent of irrigation is by traditional methods such as diverting surface river water. Karez systems use the groundwater by digging tunnels that channel the liquid from underground to the surface where it can be redirected to crops. With streams and seasonal springs, karez systems comprise 30 percent of the nation’s irrigation, with the remaining 15 percent consisting of formal systems such as large-scale government projects.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that only 1.4 million hectares of land out of a potential 5 million hectares is currently available for extended seasons. The average production of wheat is 1.3 metric tonnes per hectare, but with improved water management this figure could potentially triple. The application of surface systems is often based on traditional use, and local management of these includes the distribution of water as well as responsibilities for maintenance. Samandar, a 40-year-old peasant from Andarab, a district in the northern province of Baghlan, told the United Nations’ Integrated Regional International Network that he had lost a son and a brother to a water dispute in his village. “They were killed by farmers of a nearby village,” he said. He believed that more than 70 percent of the tensions and anxieties affecting his village arose from disputes over the distribution of irrigation water.

Vineyards have flourished for centuries along the Arghandab River valley in Kandahar Province, and before the Soviet war, Afghanistan was the source of 60 percent of the world’s raisins, exporting them largely to Iran and Pakistan. Only known as a battleground to Canadians, this lush farmland is divided into rectangular sections called jeribs, roughly equal to 2,000 square metres. Farmers usually surround their jeribs with thick mud walls and work the land using the methods employed for centuries. They create row upon row of parallel chest-deep ditches, either by building upwards with mud or digging down into the beige earth. These troughs serve as trellises for green grapes, which tend to be smaller than the grapes found in Canadian supermarkets but which have a more intense flavour. Other crops include wheat, pomegranates,⁴ watermelons, squashes, marijuana,⁵ and poppies. The last is harvested for opium and also the tasty seeds. Almonds (especially a thin-shelled variety known as khargazi) and pomegranates from Kandahar Province were once famous throughout the Indian subcontinent. The country’s agricultural base suffered severe damage during the frequent wars, and the recent drought further jeopardized the industry.

The country’s future hopes and wealth lie in the untapped mineral deposits and natural gas in the foothills of the Northern Plains where the Amu River, historically known as the Oxus, flows. The U.S. Geological Survey and the Afghanistan Ministry of Mines and Industry Joint Oil and Gas Resource Assessment Team estimate that there are huge deposits of crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids in northern Afghanistan. In 2003 the Ministry of Mines, in partnership with various donors, made great strides in identifying priority projects and ensuring the regulation of the sector. The Minerals Law was passed in July 2005, and the Hydrocarbons Laws were approved by the Afghan government in December 2005. The World Bank estimated that Afghanistan’s existing mining operations were worth about US$60 million annually, and on June 30, 2006, the Bank announced that it had approved a US$30 million grant to assist the government to “effectively regulate the country’s mineral and hydrocarbon resources and foster private-sector development in a transparent manner.” By March 20, 2007, the Afghan government hopes that an enabling regulatory environment for commercial extraction of the country’s mineral wealth and other natural resources will be in place, not only for the oil but for more mundane resources such as the crushed rock, sand, and gravel necessary to build schools, houses, and hospitals. But without more stability and security, Mining Watch Canada has warned, private investors won’t feel safe, and as long as the Taliban remains in the country, any mining development will become the focus for insurgents, either as political targets or as a source of “revolutionary taxes.”

With no particular home are nomadic tribes like the Kochi, who despite decades of war continue to herd goats and the fat-tailed Afghan sheep. Many herdsmen have taken to long-distance truck driving, which because there is no railway system is the country’s only means of internal and international trade—and smuggling. Within the Hindu Kush live the Persian-speaking Hazaras, distinctive with their Mongol features and Shia religion, two reasons they have endured centuries of persecution by the Pashtun majority, who consider them munafaqeen (“hypocrites” or “false believers”). South of the Hindu Kush are the historic cities of Kabul, Kandahar, and Ghazni, home of the Pashtuns. In the north are the smaller, less-populous cities of Faizabad and Mazar-i-Sharif, where the Turkic ethnic groups live. Rising out of the western desert, or Registan, is the cultural jewel of Herat. An ancient oasis on the Silk Road, it has benefited from its distance from Kabul and proximity to the Persian (and now Iranian) trade routes. The civility and culture of the Persian Heratis so impressed (or duped) the Russians that they allowed their officers stationed there to bring their families with them. When on March 15, 1979, the city’s inhabitants rose up and massacred those families, the enraged Soviets bombed the ancient city into rubble, so much so that a British journalist likened what remained to the ruins of Hiroshima. But, as the Soviets discovered, this did little to stop the insurrection.

In the first days of the current war, on October 7, 2001, when the U.S. military claimed it had “taken out” the Taliban’s “command and control” bases in Kabul and Kandahar, nothing was really affected.⁶ Cities in Afghanistan aren’t cities in the usual sense, i.e., sources of industry, religion, learning, or government. Afghans depend on the countryside for all of that. Occupying or laying waste to the nation’s cities has little effect on an overall military campaign against the Afghans. Rather, Afghan cities are liabilities, sucking in troops for garrison duties and food aid to feed starving refugees. Parasites, cities are also infested with media, both national and foreign, who are quick to report on human-rights abuses. Their historical/spiritual antecedents notwithstanding, the strategic worth of cities like Kabul and Kandahar is not in their industrial or intellectual wealth—for there is none—but in their airports.

The capture of the former Russian air base at Bagram outside Kabul was essential to both the Taliban and its enemies. The great Afghan military tactician Ahmed Shah Massoud knew that whoever occupied Bagram’s runways had a portal to the outside world, allowing allies to funnel in supplies by air. The airport at Kandahar, essential to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and now sporting an inukshuk erected by the first Canadian Forces to arrive, deserves a book of its own. Originally built by the Americans in the 1960s, expanded by the Russians to take heavy bombers, the airport at Kandahar, its terminal architecture reminiscent of airfields in the former Yugoslavia, takes its place in the ranks of historic airports such as those in Berlin, Hong Kong, and Saigon.⁷ It was in a hardened compound at Kandahar Airfield that Osama bin Laden first lived in suburban bliss with his wives and children, his private jet parked outside the terminal like the family station wagon.

When the Americans arrived at Kandahar Airfield and set up base in November 2001, the sprawling complex became a cash cow for the local warlord, Gul Agha Shirzai. Allotted to him by President Hamid Karzai for his help in forcing the surrender of the Taliban, the airport allowed the governor to consolidate his power and wealth. When the United States wanted to pump money into the local economy and not use its own construction battalions or fly in foreign workers, all necessities to rebuild the base, including supplying interpreters, gravel, cell phones, and Toyota pickups, as well as all contracts to provide local labourers and essential fuel supplies, went through Gul Agha Shirzai. Kickbacks to Pakistani middlemen, nepotism for Shirzai’s own tribesmen, and a protection racket to ensure no one else could bid on contracts soon flourished. And with the governor’s militia wearing U.S. Army fatigues and guarding the base’s outermost ring, no one else, from Western media to rival contractors, could get access without Shirzai’s permission. It was no wonder that by 2003 the Afghans equated Shirzai’s thugs with the foreigners who had arrived to help them. Worse was the common perception that the warlord’s atrocities were being ignored and/or condoned by President Karzai.

The dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan is the Pashto-speaking Pashtuns, accounting for about 42 percent of the population. Persian (Dari) and Pashto are official languages of the country. Dari is spoken by more than half of the populace as a first language and serves as a lingua franca for most Afghans. Simply put, Pashto is spoken in the south, while Uzbek and Turkmen are spoken in the north. Smaller groups throughout the country also speak more than 70 other languages and numerous dialects. The Tajik (27 percent), Hazara (9 percent), Uzbek (9 percent), Aimaq (4 percent), Turkmen (3 percent), Baluch (2 percent), and other small groups (4 percent) make up the remaining number.

The Pashtuns are the largest segmentary lineage tribe in the world. There are an estimated 12 million in Afghanistan and more than twice that number in Pakistan, with communities in the United Arab Emirates, the Netherlands, Germany, and Britain. A warrior tribe renowned since they fought Alexander the Great, the Pashtuns through the centuries have successfully defeated more numerous and better equipped invaders that have included the Macedonians, the Mauryans, the British, and the Soviets. Sometimes called Pathans, they are usually tall with light skin and green eyes and have captured the imagination (and photo lenses) of the Western world. They are Sunni Muslims and consider themselves a Semitic race, tracing their origins to Qais, a friend of the Prophet Muhammad. Two tribes, the Ghilzai and the Abdal, dominate the Pashtuns, each claiming descent from Qais’s sons. The Pashtun religious code, Pashtunwali, is rooted in Mosaic Law and has core tenets that include self-respect, independence, justice, hospitality, love, forgiveness, and tolerance for all (especially to strangers or guests). It is a decentralized religion and government—no single person can rule and/or interpret the Word.

Thus, throughout history would-be conquerors didn’t have a single king or chief to subvert, since Pashtun government is based on the collective wisdom of the people in the jirga, an assembly of tribal elders called to wage war or broker peace, tribal or intertribal. It has always been this way, a truth that continues to elude foreign governments. No matter who has occupied the throne or Presidential Palace in Kabul, monarch or Marxist, he has never exercised control over the tribes in the countryside. They have always managed their own affairs and have never called any man their master. The drawback to this tradition is that foreigners from the Macedonians to the Pakistanis have preyed upon the various Pashtun factions for their own purposes, creating a disjointed front.

If there is a centralized authority in the typical mud-walled village, it is the minbar in the mosque. Here is the pulpit from which the mullah delivers his Friday sermon. And if the mosque is adjoined by a religious school, or madrassa, so much the better. Here the taliban (“seekers of truth” or “students”) learned by heart from a mullah not much better educated than themselves the Koran, the tenets of Islamic law, and the life and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.

The rural people have never wanted anything from Kabul except to be left alone. As with the Vikings, Afghans have long practised trading and looting as essential elements of their customs and economy, a way of life highly idealized in Edwardian literature, as noted by Philip Mason in A Matter of Honour: “The harsh soil of the rocky valleys and windswept tops gave only the barest of necessities of life—for anything else—a wife, a horse, a rifle—a man must either go down into Hindustan with a caravan and hope to come back with a full purse or he must raid across the bor...