Going it alone: troops brave combat while political masters duck, dive and weave

Much attention is focused on the corrosive effects of war and big power politics on the fragile Afghan regime in Kabul. But the political cultures of many of the foreign nations caught up in Afghanistan are being strained, too.

One example: the Conservative minority government of Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper. With troops on the ground in Kandahar, Harper and his advisers have placed enormous importance on parading their support for the Canadian Forces. But a higher priority has been the feverish effort to distract attention from the government’s unwillingness to demand, from the Bush administration, an appropriate measure of influence on overall strategy in Afghanistan.

While Canada’s generals have insisted on directing their forces’ military operations, their political masters have shown themselves to be only along for the ride with George W. Bush’s results-averse command team. As a result, the Canadian Forces can point to significant, if painful, gains in conflict zones such as Panjwai and Zhari districts, and with development projects in Kandahar City.

By contrast, Harper and his team can boast of not a single clear policy gain, certainly not on the fronts where progress is most urgently needed: putting pressure on the Taliban leadership in their Pakistani safe havens, and rehabilitating the Karzai regime in Kabul.

Which is not to say that Harper & Company have been completely idle. The Prime Minister and his media handlers have worked tirelessly to silence Canada’s outstanding diplomatic corps. In fact the entire government and civil service has been stifled. Forget about senior staffers or deputy ministers responding to queries from journalists or the public – Harper’s ministers, too, are permitted to say nothing for the record without the express permission of the media master-controller of the Prime Minister’s Office, Sandra Buckler.

But hold on, isn’t Afghanistan a battle for democracy? Perhaps if Kipling were with us, he’d ask Ms. Buckler to explain why freedom of information and government accountability lie wounded and dying not only on Jalalabad’s plain, but Canada’s too.

Nowhere is the Harper government’s fatwa against free speech more evident than in the novel “briefing” format unveiled in Ottawa last week. Journalists were treated to a powerpoint presentation by four government officials - but only one of them was permitted by the PMO to be quoted by name: Harper’s Ambassador in Kabul, Arif Lalani, who complained that Canadians aren’t seeing the “full story” about progress Afghanistan in the nation’s media.

The trio of officials-who-shall-remain-nameless reeled off a list of achievements, all laudable to be sure. But as is often the case with a Harper government media event, the air of paranoia and secrecy - and the trademark whine about the news media - resulted in a predictably sceptical tone to the coverage that followed.

Of course we’ve seen this all before. It’s the style of Bush and Blair: cherry-picking the facts to fit the pitch, while mischaracterizing critical reporting as somehow suspect.

But surely that’s yesterday’s diplomacy. Six years on from 9/11, most people understand that it’s not a bunch of dogged journalists who are responsible for the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather, it’s the Bush administration – and those among America’s allies who continue to defer to it.

If the past three decades of carnage in Afghanistan tell us anything, it is this: whitewashing failure only prolongs the conflict. The essential first step in turning around problem initiatives like the training of the Afghan army and police is to be candid and open about the root cause - inept leadership from the Karzai regime’s foreign sponsors.

But of course that would mean standing up for Canada’s rightful share of command and control beyond the battlefield. We can hardly expect that from a clutch of dissembling whiners.