Esprit de Corps

Throughout the course of the Afghan war, the Canadian historians in the drums and bugles brigade have consistently raised their pointy heads and attempted to cloud the current debate with what they purport to be historical context.

One of the more ridiculous notions they have floated has been the tiresome comparison of the Taliban threat to that of Nazi Germany.

It has been more than eight years since U.S. forces captured Omar Khadr, only 15 years old at the time, following a fierce firefight in a remote Afghan village. Khadr’s trial by an American military tribunal is now underway and is attracting a high level of media attention for several reasons.

First off, Toronto-born Khadr is the only Western prisoner still being held in the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba. Others such as David Hicks from Australia and Richard Belmar, one of nine British detainees returned to the U.K., have been handed over to authorities in their respective countries. Despite repeated urging from Khadr’s original U.S. military defence counsel, the Canadian government has refused to demand that he be released from U.S. custody to face prosecution in Canada. Khadr’s lawyers have insisted that their client cannot receive a fair trial under the American military tribunal system.

On Aug. 3, there was a bizarre report out of the Kandahar airfield that 10 Taliban insurgents had staged a daring daylight attack on the sprawling NATO base. According to the official news reports the assailants had discreetly approached a remote section of the perimeter fence. The first attacker detonated a suicide bomb vest in order to facilitate the entrance of the remainder. Armed with automatic weapons the nine Taliban fighters had plunged into Kandahar premises which contained approximately 20,000 combat troops.

The firefight which ensued included Canadian and US soldiers and the outcome was predictable. Without allied loss, the Taliban attackers were gunned down.

This incident received only scant mention in the Canadian media, but it did prompt some pundits to question the motive of such a doomed, futile endeavour.

When asked by colleagues for my initial response, I had offered the explanation that propaganda was the most likely genesis for the attack, as any tactical gain would have been minimal at best, and strategically such a pinprick penetration could hardly be expected to alter the power balance in southern Afghanistan.

Among some of the most reported revelations to emerge from last week’s Wikileak classified document media feeding frenzy were allegations that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency have been collaborating with the Taliban.

For those who have closely covered the conflict in Afghanistan, this accusation is nothing new. For years now the Hamid Karzai regime has been blaming all of Afghanistan’s woes on Pakistani interference.

As the insurgency has steadily strengthened and the security situation eroded, those international strategists responsible for directing the war effort have been quick to echo Karzai and point their own finger of blame across the Pakistani border. This is far easier than to admit that they themselves mistakenly plunged the coalition forces into an unwinnable conflict.

Following the WikiLeaks revelations, British Prime Minister David Cameron took the opportunity to threaten Pakistan. “We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country [Pakistan] is allowed to look both ways and it is able in any way to promote the export of terror.”