# Terry Glavin on media meme: "Was our Afghan saga useless – or worse?"



## MarkOttawa (15 Jan 2014)

The meme:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/was-our-afghan-saga-useless-or-worse/article16273850/#dashboard/follows/

TG's response:



> The truth about Afghanistan
> http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/truth+about+Afghanistan/9390880/story.html



Some twitter reaction:

https://twitter.com/davidakin/status/423594478171996160
https://twitter.com/chrisgailus/status/423561961260216320
https://twitter.com/DS_McDonough/status/423576474331774976

See also Matthew Fisher from 24.58 here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEa6cvbUdso

Mark
Ottawa


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## Edward Campbell (15 Jan 2014)

Sean Maloney (RMC) tackled this issue late last year.


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## MarkOttawa (15 Jan 2014)

As Mr Glavin leads his article with!

Mark
Ottawa


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## Humphrey Bogart (15 Jan 2014)

Canadians never really understood why we were in Afghanistan in the first place.  Many probably still can't even point the country out on the map so expecting them to grasp the intricacies of a "very limited" war is a little much to ask.  I remember sitting in a classroom in Grade 9 (I was that young) and watching passenger planes be used as missiles on the Financial and Military symbols of American/Western power.  That is actually something that I will keep in my head forever and it had a profound impact on me.  

That event was enough to convince me that this was a "just war"


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## Edward Campbell (15 Jan 2014)

MarkOttawa said:
			
		

> As Mr Glavin leads his article with!
> 
> Mark
> Ottawa




Yes, indeed. I should have been more clear; my point was to draw people's attention to Maloney's long_ish_ original article.


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## observor 69 (17 Jan 2014)

Just came upon this writers thoughts on the future for Afghanistan: 

Grabbing the Wolf's Tail, Keep Foreign Troops in Afghanistan

By GRAEME SMITHJAN. 16, 2014 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/opinion/grabbing-the-wolfs-tail.html?hp&rref=opinion

Seems to be in line with the general thinking as I understand it.


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## Edward Campbell (17 Jan 2014)

Graeme Smith's writings have been discussed before here on Army.ca; he used to cover Afghanistan for the _Globe and Mail_ ... but he rarely covered the CF in Afghanistan.

The "meme" against which Sean Maloney railed is that we must, with hindsight, see Afghanistan as another Vietnam ... another "defeat" caused by a poor _strategy_, another "domino"* which has fallen to a crafty enemy.

Although, as anyone who follows my ramblings here knows, I'm no fan of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, I think he (probably John Manley, actually) got our objectives almost exactly right back in 2002/03. They were, essentially, self serving: *1* to do, and (even more important to be seen to be doing) our full and (more than) fair share in the UN mandated fight against _al Qaeda_ in Afghanistan; *2* to defend ourselves against an explicit threat from Osama bin Laden by weakening, at least, _al Qaeda_ in Afghanistan, and *3* to help the Afghan people out of the cycle of poverty, bad governance, etc which made the Taliban's success so easy.

As long as we focused on the first two ~ which, in my estimation, were accomplished by about mid 2007, I think we had it right. We did do some, perhaps even more than sensible people should have expected, about the third aim but most people's goals were unrealistic.

As far as I am concerned we, Canada, anyway, "won" in Afghanistan. _Al Qaeda_ is out, we made a major contribution to denying _al Qaeda_ it's own _national base_ in Afghanistan. It is now reduced to fighting over black African backwaters. We "grew" in stature in the world by demonstrating our will and ability to make a significant "hard power" contribution to global _peacemaking_ ~ once again, we "punched above our weight" as so many used to say about us in the 1940s, '50s and '60s. We did make some positive contributions to the lives of ordinary Afghans, some of those contributions will take time to be felt, some will be rolled back, some were and will be "stolen" by our allies.

What did we do wrong? We stayed after 2008, when it should have been obvious ~ *but wasn't, yet, to me* ~ that ISAF and the US led mission had lost its way.


____
* The _domino theory_ was popular, it was _a_ (but not _the_) foundation stone of American strategy, in the 1950s and '60s. Both Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy embraced it, the latter, perhaps, more than the former. It was, I think, the brainchild of the Dulles brothers: John Foster Dulles was Eisenhower's Secretary of State and Allen Dulles headed the CIA. But perhaps it's most fervent advocate was McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy's foreign policy guru.


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## Journeyman (17 Jan 2014)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> _Al Qaeda_ is out, we made a major contribution to denying _al Qaeda_ it's own _national base_ in Afghanistan. It is now reduced to fighting over black African backwaters.


I agree that the AQ _core_ is presently gutted; the establishment of an Islamic emirate has clearly failed.  As such, the 'phase 2' of establishing a broader caliphate is on hold.  

I'm hesitant to take too much credit for this though; I believe the lion's share of the kudos belongs to the American strategy of directly (kinetically) targeting the key leadership and spokesmen.  Sorry (sincerely) for denigrating all the sacrifices, but patting ourselves on the back for building a school (which we subsequently had to fight for) just doesn't feel like a major contribution to success, or give me a warm, fuzzy feeling regarding our strategic thinkers.

However, by eliminating the Al Qaeda core (by whoever/however), the 3rd phase is closer to home -- leaderless Jihad.  There's routine squabbles about "who speaks for" Canada's 600K Muslims, periodical news reports about people being "offended" or "persecuted" because of their beliefs, and most recently that dumbass Calgary kid who got himself killed in Syria for "the cause."  All of these have been aided by widespread social media and things like Western "_occupation_ of Muslim lands," Abu Ghraib/Git'mo, counterterrorism alliances with 'apostate' regimes.....

So, I think it may be a bit premature to declare victory; there's just a changed emphasis.



I'm not in a panic mode about domestic terrorism.  Our security services are doing a credible job (aided, I assume, by US self-interest in a secure northern border). I'd just hate to see it squandered by political correctness and a belief that "we're out of Afghanistan -- the war is over -- kumbaya"


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