Quickening

Afghanistan’s former president Burhanuddin Rabbani was assassinated yesterday while attempting to negotiate peace with the Taliban — a morally obscure strategy supported to absurd extremes by an America that’s pressed for time.

Terry Glavin’s take on this crooked path in today’s Ottawa Citizen is crystal:

In Washington, London and Brussels, the whole point now is to convince “war-weary” electorates that capitulation is compromise, that the whole nightmare was brought about by stupid neo-conservatives, and that the problem is an incorrigibly violent and uncivilized Afghan people in whom we need not see the basic human rights we ordinarily recognize in our fairer-skinned selves.

Stand up, Terry.

Jeremy gets published in the National Post. My heart is a bundle of well wishes, admiring salutes, and reverberating pride.

Last weekend I attended a panel discussion on Canada’s post-2011 role in Afghanistan that was organized by the Canada Afghanistan Solidarity Committee. The discussion was based around a CIGI paper written by Chris Alexander (former ambassador to Afghanistan; current Conservative nominee).

Andrew Potter’s piece on the discussion for Macleans is required reading for a re-cap and a solid voice on the issues:

The truth is, Canada’s self-image as a liberal internationalist nation was always vastly oversold. We joined the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 as part of an effort to rid the country of the Taliban regime that had terrorized the country and harboured Islamic terrorists. It was originally billed as an exercise of aggressive self-defence, to deny al-Qaeda a base from which to launch further attacks on the West, as well as an easy way of ensuring our position in world affairs.

But over the past decade, our mission there has taken on a character that is in many ways far more about morality than enlightened self-interest. The goals of our adventure in Central Asia are now explicitly dedicated to bringing peace, stability, and national reconciliation to Afghanistan. It might surprise Canadians to learn that many Afghans take that commitment quite seriously.

It was my first direct interaction with the Afghan community in Toronto (no, eating at Kabul Express does not count) and it was all kinds of awesome. When I was a kid in Calgary, South Asians numbered in the few thousands and functions involving politicians meant pulling out all the stops, wedding styles. This event was no different. Hark yonder a teen singing Christina Aguilera as Najia Haneefi, Chris Alexander, and Terry Glavin look on.

I was particularly looking forward to hearing what Bob Rae (Liberal foreign affairs critic; my MP — who I voted for and hold to account, thankyouverymuch) had to say about our post-2011 plans. Y’know because parliament generally sounds like tumbleweeds on the issue.

Alas, Rae showed up an hour late, messed with the organizer’s timeline, and left early. In between, he yelled “Canada is not leaving in 2011!” to great effect, then proceeded to shirk responsibility about what exactly we’re going to be doing there: “If I was the Minister of Defence, I’d write a white paper.” He uttered this while sitting next to Alexander who is celebrated, no doubt, but is still only a nominee for his riding and who is vocal about his thoughtful list of specifics — even if it has its share of opposition. Good grief, Bob, pay attention.

Terry Glavin, as per usual, says it best:

… our Afghan comrades are clearly annoyed with the ‘Never you mind, dears, we bigshots have everything under control” approach to the question of Canada and Afghanistan Post-2011. It was a bit peculiar for Bob Rae to leave the impression that he was leaping to the defence of what Afghan-Canadians consider to be the worst aspects of the Conservative government’s handling of the Afghanistan file - its opacity, its equivocation, its timidity and its ambiguity. Rae is as decent and competent a Liberal as you’ll find in Ottawa. He should know that nudge-and-wink assurances of backroom horsetrading aren’t going to mollify Afghanistan’s friends. This is vital public policy. It goes straight to the matter of what kind of country Canada is. It’s an issue that demands open public debate, and political leadership.

At least we’re talking, I guess.

Similar panels are being organized across the country. Go.

Screwyloot travels to Kabul armed with a camera, a laptop, and a beard. And shoots to the top of my list of daily reads:

High walls and barbed wire surround the compound. Guards with beards patrol with AK47s. They get old faster than you’d expect.
A British guy overseas it. He sits around with a glock at his side. When we talk he complains about being thought of as a security thug. About being asked if he’s killed anybody. He uses a Tom Cruise line from “The Last Samurai”: “Yes, for money. But I’ll do you for free.”

Most nights he can be found slumped in his chair in front of the satellite TV. Indian satellite, advertisements for Akozay Tea, and B movies. He works his way through a 6 pack as a cloud of smoke builds around him, stretching down the hall despite the closed doors. He doesn’t like Afghans a whole lot but he does like no rules. Nobody telling him he has to leave the pub for a smoke (They killed pub culture!), and he doesn’t mind Pakis so long as they don’t move onto his street, move their extended family in and drop home prices 10%. And he’s not racist, so don’t accuse him of that.

But being here for 5 years there’s still something I can learn from him. Let someone talk and you learn, even if you have to filter out 90%. That he likes me is a strike against someone.

Self-interest: He’ll loan me a flack jacket and helmet.

Read him. I am in awe of his movements and observations.

Terry Glavin grabbed his balls and unleashed great fury in the Post today over Canada’s muddy role in next week’s Afghanistan Conference in London. (Read it. No, really, read it.) High-fives, Terry. The below quote is from his blog:

… It’s much harder work to find excuses for otherwise intelligent Canadians who know nothing about Afghanistan but who will still earnestly proclaim with a straight face that what’s going on here is really all about oil, and that Canadian soldiers are here only to advance the sinister aims of American imperialism, and the plucky Taliban resistance may be animated by a sense of decency we might not share, but none of it is any of our business anyway, and we should just leave.