Afghanistan: Why Reconstruction Is Not Enough (Pt.3)

This is part three of a five part mini-series on Afghanistan. Today: Why Reconstruction Is Not Enough

Certainly, Stéphane Dion’s recent declaration of the necessity of a ‘Marshall Plan’ for Afghanistan sounds all well and good to Canadians, but he needs to get informed. In post-WWII Europe, countries still had the capacity, through civilian infrastructures and organizations, to plan for and distribute the aid given to them. In Afghanistan, this infrastructure still doesn’t exist, and where it does, the effectiveness of this infrastructure is hampered by violence. Secondly, there already is an aid and reconstruction plan in place. We’re already doing reconstruction in Afghanistan, building roads and transportation routes, schools and health care facilities, wells and housing. As of now, $20 billion in aid has been pledged for development in Afghanistan.

Also unlike post-WWII Europe, there continues to be violence. Terrorism and insurgency stall the distribution of aid. According to UNICEF, in the first nine months of 2006 alone, more than 60 schools burned down. There is instability and danger in Afghanistan – the fact of the matter is that we can’t just keep rebuilding schools. A country cannot and will not rebuild until conditions are secure enough to do so. Canadian Forces in Afghanistan are key in establishing safer conditions, so that the reconstruction and aid distribution can occur. Reconstruction independent of security is futile, and Canadians cannot pass the buck to other countries involved in the UN Mission in Afghanistan. We must support our reconstruction with efforts to establish security and faith in the stability in the region. Otherwise, there will be no long-term growth, no long-term reconstruction, and no long-term success in Afghanistan.

Critics of the Afghanistan mission that push for shift from a combat-orientation to a solely reconstruction-orientation miss an important point – reconstruction is not especially safer than the current combat-oriented mission that the Canadian forces are undertaking. Of the 45 Canadian soldiers that have fallen in Afghanistan, six died in friendly fire accidents, four in accidents, twelve in combat, and twenty-three were killed by terrorists when “on patrols providing security in support of reconstruction efforts”. In other words, only 27% of Canadian fatalities during the mission is the result of combat with insurgents. Canadians need to support an aggressive combat mission against the Taliban, because the Taliban will never be defeated by complacent reconstruction. This stance on reconstruction dooms international efforts in southern Afghanistan to failure.

Plain and simple, reconstruction cannot make any progress if we do not combat forces that threaten the stability and security of the region. Not only do we have to provide direct security for reconstruction efforts, we have to continue to maintain our combat-oriented approach in order to aggressively root out those that actively seek to disrupt and damage Canadian reconstruction efforts. Without Canadian offensive action, Islamic extremists have to time to strategize, plan and implement attacks that will certainly lead to far more damage to Afghanistan.