thedrifter
12-17-08, 06:06 AM
Look beyond to see value of war
December 17, 2008
Rosie DiManno
It is understandable that Canadians, mourning six soldiers killed in two roadside explosions only a week apart, think of Afghanistan as a tragedy almost uniquely our own, these losses most vividly felt and purportedly to little avail.
That is a perspective born of unforgivable ignorance, manipulated by a faction that has no shame in exploiting private grief.
Here is something else that happened in Afghanistan last weekend: A 13-year-old suicide bomber blew himself up in Sangin, Helmand province, killing three British Marines.
The boy had pushed a wheelbarrow, in which a bomb was hidden, up close to a U.K. military base before it was detonated, possibly by a remote switch.
That pushed the British casualty list in Afghanistan to 133. Canada, with one-third as few troops on the ground, has lost 103 soldiers.
I do not wish to do fractional math. I will not claim that, proportionately, Canadians have suffered more, because each death weighs the same.
But this – the deployment of children laden with explosives – is an insidious trend by the Taliban, most especially since the insurgency renewed its merciless affiliation with Al Qaeda, on the run from Iraq.
"Such unscrupulous use of children cannot be justified under any circumstances," said Kai Eide, the special representative of the UN secretary-general. "Forcing or coercing children directly into such action is wholly unacceptable by anyone's standards."
Except it is acceptable, obviously, by their standards.
Last June, three British paratroopers were killed by a teenager who had approached a patrol offering the traditional Afghan greeting – placing right hand over the heart and saying "Salaam." Then came the BANG.
Another instance, even more chilling: An Afghan police officer manning a checkpoint, suspicious of a boy (13, it turned out) wearing a heavy coat in the stifling July heat, orders the child to halt. The boy continues walking forward. The policeman fires his AK47, killing the child. At that moment, the boy's 8-year-old brother, hiding nearby, remotely activates the ball-bearing explosives inside his sibling's coat.
The officer, who survived that blast, told a reporter afterwards that the 13-year-old, even as he stared down the AK-47 aimed at his head, was smiling. I doubt it was the smile of a juvenile assassin; more likely the smile of a mentally deficient child.
Would a Canadian or British soldier have shot a youngster in the head like that? I suspect not. And more troops would have been killed.
The Taliban know that our humanity – which can never be forsaken – weakens us. Our despair over casualties weakens us. Our combat fatigue weakens us.
And they respond by recruiting more children from madrassas, preying particularly on the mentally and physically disabled, tutoring the most vulnerable suicide-proxies – young in age or young in mental capacity – in the splendour of martyrdom. Many of these conscripts clearly do not understand what they're doing.
Dr. Yusef Yadgari, an Afghan pathologist, last year studied the remains of 100 suicide bombers. Eighty per cent had some kind of physical or mental disability, or a major illness such as leprosy.
This is the regime fighting to reclaim power in Kabul while we – Canada – declare two more years and out.
If anyone wants to understand why the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting – without deadlines imposed for reasons of domestic politics – it is vital to look beyond narrow interests such as the sacrifices of an individual nation contributing troops to the NATO mission.
We cannot just "do our part" and then bolt, with nothing resolved, the threat far from neutralized, or perhaps accepting a less risky assignment farther from harm's way.
I can tell you that no Canadian soldier would take any pride in that.
Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Ellie
December 17, 2008
Rosie DiManno
It is understandable that Canadians, mourning six soldiers killed in two roadside explosions only a week apart, think of Afghanistan as a tragedy almost uniquely our own, these losses most vividly felt and purportedly to little avail.
That is a perspective born of unforgivable ignorance, manipulated by a faction that has no shame in exploiting private grief.
Here is something else that happened in Afghanistan last weekend: A 13-year-old suicide bomber blew himself up in Sangin, Helmand province, killing three British Marines.
The boy had pushed a wheelbarrow, in which a bomb was hidden, up close to a U.K. military base before it was detonated, possibly by a remote switch.
That pushed the British casualty list in Afghanistan to 133. Canada, with one-third as few troops on the ground, has lost 103 soldiers.
I do not wish to do fractional math. I will not claim that, proportionately, Canadians have suffered more, because each death weighs the same.
But this – the deployment of children laden with explosives – is an insidious trend by the Taliban, most especially since the insurgency renewed its merciless affiliation with Al Qaeda, on the run from Iraq.
"Such unscrupulous use of children cannot be justified under any circumstances," said Kai Eide, the special representative of the UN secretary-general. "Forcing or coercing children directly into such action is wholly unacceptable by anyone's standards."
Except it is acceptable, obviously, by their standards.
Last June, three British paratroopers were killed by a teenager who had approached a patrol offering the traditional Afghan greeting – placing right hand over the heart and saying "Salaam." Then came the BANG.
Another instance, even more chilling: An Afghan police officer manning a checkpoint, suspicious of a boy (13, it turned out) wearing a heavy coat in the stifling July heat, orders the child to halt. The boy continues walking forward. The policeman fires his AK47, killing the child. At that moment, the boy's 8-year-old brother, hiding nearby, remotely activates the ball-bearing explosives inside his sibling's coat.
The officer, who survived that blast, told a reporter afterwards that the 13-year-old, even as he stared down the AK-47 aimed at his head, was smiling. I doubt it was the smile of a juvenile assassin; more likely the smile of a mentally deficient child.
Would a Canadian or British soldier have shot a youngster in the head like that? I suspect not. And more troops would have been killed.
The Taliban know that our humanity – which can never be forsaken – weakens us. Our despair over casualties weakens us. Our combat fatigue weakens us.
And they respond by recruiting more children from madrassas, preying particularly on the mentally and physically disabled, tutoring the most vulnerable suicide-proxies – young in age or young in mental capacity – in the splendour of martyrdom. Many of these conscripts clearly do not understand what they're doing.
Dr. Yusef Yadgari, an Afghan pathologist, last year studied the remains of 100 suicide bombers. Eighty per cent had some kind of physical or mental disability, or a major illness such as leprosy.
This is the regime fighting to reclaim power in Kabul while we – Canada – declare two more years and out.
If anyone wants to understand why the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting – without deadlines imposed for reasons of domestic politics – it is vital to look beyond narrow interests such as the sacrifices of an individual nation contributing troops to the NATO mission.
We cannot just "do our part" and then bolt, with nothing resolved, the threat far from neutralized, or perhaps accepting a less risky assignment farther from harm's way.
I can tell you that no Canadian soldier would take any pride in that.
Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Ellie