THE HONORABLE GORDON O'CONNOR: OUR VERY OWN DONALD RUMSFELD

Yesterday, our Defence Minister said that Afghanistan was a 'success story,' 'improving,' and that Canada will have a presence there until the progress made cannot be reversed by Taliban extremists. He said that he would watch the progress this year to determine whether the Afghan mission needed to be extended beyond its existing mandate - i.e. Canadian troops there until 2009 and millions of dollars in aid until 2011. He did not mention the billions more required in military expenditures.

This was consistent with the statements of happy warriors Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Treasury Board President Vic Toews. Earlier in the week while in Afghanistan they announced further aid to the Afghan police. Proudly sporting their bullet proof jackets and strutting about in the style reminiscent of General Patton, they used their photo-op to declare that Canadian assistance would not only help Afghanistan develop a professional civilian police force that would fight crime, but also promote Canadian values such as the Rule of Law and human rights.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission monitors carefully the goings on in Afghanistan. This is what Ahmad Zia Langari a commissioner of the AIHRC has to say about the Afghan police that our Government is trying to bolster with our money. He said, "There is not a very strong rule of law and the government is not keen to follow the law. Also, in the criminal court there is not a very strong and clear code for prosecuting police action." . . . "The main problem in Afghanistan is the culture of impunity. The government is not powerful. When a Governor, for example, has committed violence or he has been very corrupt, he is not prosecuted. The President just changes his position."

A recent joint report by the Pentagon and the US State Department said the Afghan police was 'far from adequate' at carrying out even conventional responsibilities. The report stated that recruits were illiterate and there was pervasive corruption.

Nicholas Kristof, a prominent American Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist and
columnist as well as an expert on the history and politics of Asia and the author of several books on the subject recently interviewed President Karzai in Afghanistan. Karzai accused Pakistan of aiding the Taliban so as to turn Afghanistan into a colony of Pakistan. In Karzai's mind the NATO forces had focused on the wrong targets in seeking to wipe out terrorists. Instead of attacking villages, they should have stopped Pakistan from harboring and financing the terrorists. In other words, NATO should have been fighting the source of terrorism - namely, Pakistan. Karzai said that terrorism in his country was surging because of the Pakistani policy of turning a blind eye on the Taliban.

Kristof, an acknowledged Asian expert, who has witnessed the troubles in Afghanistan first hand, described conditions in southern Afghanistan as 'a catastrophe.'

In fact, the only optimists around talking about progress in Afghanistan is the Conservative Government of Bush's pal Steve Harper together with his Rumsfeldian Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor (a character right out of Dr. Strangelove, to be sure) and two dim-witted Ministers, Stockwell Day and Vic Toews. All of the feel-good talk about our commitment to Afghanistan is likely to continue only until the election is held. Then, whichever Government takes power, it will be truth time. No more photo-ops with bullet proof vests for campaign pamphleteering ballyhooing pointless and toothless assistance to a corrupt and violent Afghani police force. No. Then we will have a painful reassessment of our Afghanistan policy, the result of which will be to high-tail it out of there and pronto.

STOCKWELL DAY AND VIC TOEWS: INTO THE BREACH

What a joke. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Treasury Board President Vic Toews on a junket to Kandahar. They are making the trip to provide assistance to the Afghan police.

Kandahar is well known for many reasons . For instance, it is a City that for a couple of hundred years at least has been known to be one of the most lawless on earth. For countless generations it has also been known to have among its residents more religious fanatics per capita than almost anywhere in the world.

The Afghan police force in Kandahar and elsewhere in Afghanistan is known to be ridden with corruption. Murder, rape, torture, pillage and bribery is its idea of law enforcement, not to mention looking the other way respecting poppy production which supplies heroin to the world. Many argue that it is the disgrace of the Afghani police that gives strength to the Taliban. Even the Pentagon and U.S. State Department have acknowledged this sorry state of affairs.

So what are Day and Toews doing in Kandahar. Don't laugh. They are there to spearhead a Canadian Government initiative to help train the Afghan police in such areas as weapons training, searching of suspects and vehicles at checkpoints, and how to respond to roadside bombs. Surely the Afghani police, coming from a country that by and large has been perpetually at war, have nothing to learn from the Canadians about those subjects. Unless it is to learn about the application of a Charter of Rights - which I am sure neither Day nor Toews had in mind.

To assist the Afghanis, Canada is providing 36 Canadian civilian police officers. In addition, Canada will pay for 2500 uniforms and other police equipment, help pay police salaries, and assist in the building and renovation of police stations as well as prisons.

Day, with his usual vacuity, stated that '. . . our police are playing an important role in promoting Canadian values such as the rule of law and human rights, and will help to bring stability and peace to Afghanistan." Fat chance.

Canada has an impossible job in Afghanistan. The west has not put its money where its mouth is. Their meager NATO troop levels in the country together with a reluctance of most of the contributing nations to get involved in the real hot spots of the country will doom the whole exercise to failure. The Russians couldn't control the country with 3 or 4 times the troop levels provided by the NATO forces. The Afghani Government is getting weaker by the day. According to all reliable sources, the Taliban is getting stronger. Its a helluva mess.

Just maybe, that is the reason why Day and Toews made the trip. Get some phony mileage out of a photo-op while you can, and keep bamboozling the public that our contribution actually has a chance of success. Until the election is held. After the election, they can deal with the fallout. Until then, milk it for all its worth.