Canada Has Officially Pulled Out of Afghanistan and Left a Mess

Afghan National Army soliders patrolling in 2007. All photos via the author.

Panjwayi’s rocky, sandy, mountainous landscape looks a lot like Star Wars’ desert planet of Tatooine, a weird mix of modern technology and centuries-old dwellings; a cross between the Old Testament and a Mad Max movie.

One would think the place is secure. Afghan National Army‘s easily recognizable Toyota pickup trucks carrying heavily-armed, battle-ready soldiers are as ubiquitous as the military camps from which they come and go. The camps are concrete-walled, strongly-defended fortresses such as the one dominating the bazaar from Ma’sum Ghar’s mountaintop, a former Canadian military forward operating base transferred to the Afghan military when the country recalled most of its troops and all of its fighting force in July 2011.

Today marks the formal conclusion of Canada’s 12-year mission in Afghanistan with the last Canadian troops returning to Ottawa. And yet, while many Afghan civilians greet the departure of foreign troops from their land with some degree of relief—Afghanistan has a well-documented history of unwelcoming military occupation by strange nations—some wish they had stayed a bit longer.

Najibullah sits comfortably in his shaky, humble shop boarding Panjwayi’s bazaar’s dusty yet recently paved main road—it looks better than some streets in Montreal. Like many Afghans, he can’t remember how old he is, ballparking it between 60 and 63, but he mentioned his prime years serving in the Afghan National Army under Zahir Shah, the country’s last monarch deposed in 1973 by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan. "The last time I remember things were going the way they should,” he said while gazing around vacantly, as if searching for something he knows he will not find.

“My son disappeared three years ago. I never heard of him again. Rumour is he joined the Taliban. Nothing is certain for me anymore. That damn war destroyed our lives. Nothing will ever be the same and fear will dominate our lives from now on.”

The future does seem blurry at best for the 75,000 people still living in Kandahar province’s Panjwayi district, one of Afghanistan’s bloodiest battlefields from the latest war, second only to the neighbouring Helmand province. Poverty is always a major concern with a gross national income of $680 USD per capita, but so is security. Canadian troops left the area in July 2011, concentrating their efforts on training and beefing up a struggling Afghan National Army, leaving the US in charge of securing the area. But the bell will also toll for the remaining 27,000 American soldiers still deployed in Afghanistan as part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. A bilateral security agreement guaranteeing 10,000 US military trainers and consultants was drafted amidst a Taliban attack in November 2013, but President Hamid Karzai delayed its signature until after the April 2014 Afghan Presidential election—in which he is not allowed to run.

Old Man Najibullah.

Such a massive foreign troop withdrawal puts tremendous pressure on fledgling Afghan security forces, both military and police—a pullback also seemingly premature. A 2012 US Government Accountability Office report indicates that only nine percent of Afghan army units are considered “autonomous,” with half of them still needing further training and mentoring only 18 months before the 2014 mission deadline. Almost the same for Afghan National Police outfits whose numbers are slightly worse, with a seven percent complete autonomy figure.

Worrisome situations like this called for local initiatives. 32 year-old Ahmadullah leads a small, 50-man Afghan Local Police contingent, a district-level force made up of local volunteers trained by American Special Forces. “A month after we finished training, we were already engaging Taliban fighters without support from American soldiers. I lost four men in our first fight,” he said while adding that the ALP closely works with Afghan national security forces.

As of November 2013, five months had passed without a firefight, and according to security and military sources, the creation of the Afghan Local Police seems to be successful. “The best way we can hurt the Taliban is by having them lose their grip on villagers. If the villagers fight them, they have nowhere to go,” said Ahmadullah.

But the ALP isn’t without its problems, basically being a foreign-funded, foreign-trained, organised local militia. Human rights organizations routinely investigate allegations of war crimes, most notably in a scathing report by Human Rights Watch published in 2011. “The constant resort to militias as a quick security fix suggests a lack of understanding of how oppressive even a small militia can be when it operates without proper oversight and with impunity when it commits abuses. When militias engage in rape, murder, theft, and intimidation, and when there is little or no recourse to justice for victims, the creation of militias doesn’t decrease insecurity, it creates it,” suggest the authors of Just Don’t Call it a Militia: Impunity, Militias and the Afghan Local Police.

Too little, too late

Panjwayi’s local leaders euphemistically describe Afghanistan’s last war as “unfinished business” as the spectre of the Taliban’s possible return lurks around the corner.

“We live in fear of the Taliban. Nobody I know wilfully supports them, it’s mostly out of fear or despair,” said Najibullah, still glancing into the distance.

Panjiway Shura leader, Haji Mahmood.

Haji Mahmood, Panjwayi’s leader of the Shura, the district’s popular assembly, echoes the elderly Afghan’s grievances. A sturdy, black-bearded man in his mid-40s, his looks feature the textbook example of a Pashtun, Kandahar’s main ethnic group. Expressing gratitude to Canadian and American soldiers who fought and died on Panjwayi’s sandy battlefield, he also fears their departure. “They should have stayed at least another decade,” he said. “In Afghanistan, things take a long time to change. People in the district tell me they start to be scared as Americans prepare to leave. Some of them who worked for the foreigners started receiving more death threats than ever through night letters posted on their home doors.”

He also acknowledges the difference between US and Canuck troops. “Americans are fighters. Canadians were builders.”

Both armies have operated in the district since 2001, but they mostly conducted “in-and-out” operations until the beginning of 2008, with a 2009 troop surge inspired by Gen. Davis Petraeus’ moderately successful Iraq strategy. Only then have they started occupying villages on a more stable basis, establishing more solid—and essential—links with local leaders.

“Too little, too late," said Panjwayi’s district leader, Haji Faizal Mohammed. While he also praises American and Canadian military efforts, he expresses worry about the future and stresses that Canadians, especially, left many incomplete projects to wither, citing in prime example the paving of Highway 1, the area’s main road stretching from Kandahar City to the Horn of Panjwayi, the district’s westernmost edge—a strategically important objective since it impedes the Taliban’s ability to place improvised explosive devices along the road and increases economic activity by facilitating transportation to the province’s capital. “They left with the last seven kilometers gravelled,” he said. No other country picked up the project, likely to remain as it is for the time being. Mohammed also wished the Canadians stayed so they’d keep carrying on reconstruction projects. “They completely remade the bazaar and the district center [the local government building],” he said. While he praises Afghan forces’ abilities and eagerness, he’s unsure they can permanently assure the district’s safety, let alone the country.

While official Canadian military PR did not respond to my inquiries about the pull out, retired Canadian colonel Pat Stogran who commanded 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and a seasoned veteran of the ill-fated 1990’s peacekeeping missions in the Balkans, was frank about the conflict: “We lost,” he said.

The official closure of the Afghan front in the West’s War on Terror leaves a fog of postwar uncertainty in its trail, but hope can still be found in the Afghan people’s core beliefs.

Old man Najibullah puts it simply. “Only Allah can guide and save us.” @mforgues