"We must not forget these girls"

Two distinguished Canadian soldiers make a plea (earlier post here):

A cowardly attack on a group of schoolgirls should galvanize our nation to help defeat extremism in Afghanistan

Last week, two men with malicious purpose aimed a stream of acid at the eyes and faces of a group of girls, as young as 14, whose only offence was a wish to go to school.

And as punishment, at least two of those girls will never see the light of day again; their friends and countless hundreds of other little girls equally condemned to a lesser life as the very fear of venturing outside their homes denies them a future as surely as the acid in the eyes has accomplished. And to that end it is no different than the torching of schools, the beheading of teachers and the intimidation of parents.

As a friend living in Kandahar said the other day by phone, "what brave men are these to throw acid at little girls?"

Shamsia, 17, lies in hospital in Kabul after being sprayed with acid by men on a motorcycle while on her way to school in Kandahar.

Ghastly, horrific, revolting, shocking, nauseating; not even this lexicon of despair can remotely begin to describe the ravaged humanity that we all must feel as the evil incarnate face of the extremists is yet again revealed in Kandahar, in challenge to us all. We are silent witnesses of an unfathomable nightmare; watching broadcast images of their small bodies quivering in pain as doctors attempted to flush their eyes.

How do we react as a nation?

In the face of such a challenge, we can avert our eyes so that we do not have to face the horror of what we see or we can face it squarely with the resolve that such evil must not triumph.

John F. Kennedy, quoting Edmund Burke, galvanized a nation with the appeal that "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." It is the opposite of what we are told by so many whose mantra has become "there is no military solution to this conflict," with the conclusion that the hope of something better must be surrendered and bartered for a modicum of security no matter what price it imposes.

But that is not quite true. Certainly, in present circumstances there is no military solution, but it is a circumstance we have permitted to occur. Whether because Afghanistan is so far away, or after 30 years of war is only a step beyond a medieval level of existence, the international community has provided only a small percentage of the effort it expended in Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia and Iraq. It is no wonder that there is no military solution available. We took it off the table.

And obscured in all this discussion is that north and west of the Hindu Kush, while imperfect, daily life endures, resisting the metaphor that Kandahar has become for the rest of the country. And most importantly, the vast majority of Afghans have no desire to return to Taliban times and in fact live in terror at the possibility. As seductively simple as appeasement is to western eyes, Afghans could only view it as abandonment.

...as has occurred time and time again, our Taliban foe has wantonly killed innocents. And while our supposedly smart bombs sometimes cause carnage, as often as not it is because the Taliban have hidden themselves behind the human shield of weddings and family gatherings, as much of a war crime as is their deliberate targeting of civilians. And it is all to the same end; what they cannot gain in public support they wrench away with the legitimacy of a gun. This day, girls won't go to school for fear, not because they decided they don't belong there, but because misogynist terrorists have made the decision for them.And so, in the years that we have left before we withdraw, we must not forget these little girls. There will be an election next year and we should do everything in our power to ensure that Afghans have the chance to find their own voice, free of oppression, threat or intimidation...

Colonel (Ret'd.) Mike Capstick was the first commander of the Strategic Advisory Team-Afghanistan in 2005-'06 and worked in Kabul as a civilian last summer. He is an associate at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.

George Petrolekas was involved in the Afghan mission from 2003 to 2007, representing Canada at NATO's operational headquarters in Afghanistan. The opinions expressed are solely those of the authors.