Some truths about Afstan...

...and two fanciful notions. Meantime Prime Minister Harper appears to be going wobbly; I fear the current mission cannot be extended if the Conservatives do not win a majority by Spring 2008.

The Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente finds some good sense from a former British diplomat who now lives and works in Kabul:

...listen to Rory Stewart.

In the winter of 2001, a few weeks after the Taliban fell, Rory Stewart walked 1000 kilometres, alone, across Afghanistan. He slept on mud floors and survived on nan bread and tea. It was a crazy thing to do. But the book he wrote about his trip, The Places in Between, is the sanest thing you'll ever read about the place we're trying to save.

Mr. Stewart - who speaks Dari, as well as several other Asian languages - describes an immensely complicated land, where people have profoundly different values and assumptions from our own. It is a deeply religious, largely illiterate, almost feudal world, where tribal alliances are constantly shifting and central authority is nothing but a rumour. "These differences between groups were deep, elusive and difficult to overcome," he reflects. "Village democracy, gender issues, and centralization would be hard-to-sell concepts in some areas."

Most of his account is documentary and descriptive. But toward the end, he unloads some stinging judgments about the well-meaning Westerners who imagine they can fashion Afghanistan into a kinder, more enlightened place. His harshest words are not directed at the foreign troops. They're aimed at the UN officials, the policy-makers, the NGOs, and the would-be nation-builders.

"Most of the policy-makers knew next to nothing about the villages where 90 per cent of the Afghan population lived," he writes. "They came from postmodern, secular, globalized states with liberal traditions in law and government. It was natural for them to initiate projects on urban design, women's rights, and fibre-optic cable networks; to talk about transparent, clean, and accountable processes, tolerance, and civil society; and to speak of a people 'who desire peace at any cost and understand the need for a centralized multi-ethnic government.' ..

...We think that everyone, down deep, is just like us, and that once they have the chance they'll make the same choices we do...The truth is that in Afghanistan (note the official name of the country) - and in the Palestinian territories, and the entire Arab world today - there is no prospect for a secular, democratic state [emphasis added--at least not such a state as we recognize it]...

But Mr Stewart is not all good sense--from a piece by Don Martin of the Calgary Herald:

Take the view of Rory Stewart, the acclaimed author who published a bestselling story of his walk across a dangerously lawless Afghanistan in 2002, two months after the Taliban were driven from power.

Now heading a foundation in Kabul, he says Canada must abandon its doomed military folly in Kandahar and regroup in the north, where it has a reasonable chance of success [emphasis added--and in effect partition the country? And what about all the Pathans further west and north?].

"You can only do real development projects in areas where the local population supports you, consents to your presence, and wants to participate," Stewart told me in an interview.

"By and large in the Kandahar area, we don't have that kind of consent. A powerful and effective minority is trying to kill us while the majority is sitting on the fence, so it's extremely unlikely Canada's going to make much of an impact in southern Afghanistan."..

Especially not if we leave too soon. Moreover, how long will Canadians (and others) stomach taking casualties, after abandoning the south, when the Taliban start killing significant numbers of our troops elsewhere? And what confidence will Afghans in the rest of the country have that international help will continue if the south is let go? They will likely figure it's better to go with the strong horse.

The military itself situation is hardly gloom and doom--plus this headline June 23:

Dozens of militants killed in Afghan south

Jack Layton, for his part, wouldn't know a truth about Afstan if it hit him over the head; this is fanciful gone mad:

...NDP Leader Jack Layton said Canada should stop aggressive military action in the war-torn country and move towards political negotiations.

"It's a war that clearly has no end in sight. It's not improving the lives of the people of Afghanistan -- in fact, what it's doing is building support for the Taliban," Layton told CTV's Mike Duffy Live on Friday.

"A whole new approach should be underway here, and Canada should be in the forefront of that approach, leading to a cease-fire and a comprehensive peace process."..

What if the government of Afstan and our allies don't agree? Are we supposed to launch a unilateral diplomatic initiative?