Kennedy’s Astonishing Naïvety on Afghanistan

On Jason Cherniak’s blog today, he recounts a conversation he had with Gerard Kennedy about Kennedy’s proposed policies in Afghanistan:

“Later, though, I got to talk to Kennedy in a social setting. Suddenly he was a friendly person who wanted me to understand his policy. He explained that the goal is not to leave Afghanistan, but to focus on building social programs in the provinces under government control. He thinks that once you show success in some provinces, families in other provinces will make rational choices and give up on the rebellion. Until that time, there is little point in sending out the troops to impose a system that the rebels do not understand.”

Before I tear into this statement, I should make it clear that I’m entirely basing the following comments on Jason’s description of his conversation with Kennedy. If the above description is inaccurate then Jason should apologize for misrepresenting Kennedy’s views, and I’ll retract the following comments:

Is Kennedy actually so completely ignorant of the situation in Afghanistan that he thinks the major impediment to peace is that we’re not properly connecting with Afghani families? Does he actually think that the main driver of the insurgency is a concern with the inadequacy of the social services that the government is providing? Can there be any doubt that a group that specifically targets their suicide bombers at judges, police officers and aid agencies that are trying to build schools and provide health care has values and goals utterly antithetical to Afghanis who want to live in peace and security?

I can’t imagine what set of social programs we could implement that would convince the insurgents to stop their attacks. Perhaps we could invite Pakistan in to implement their madrassas in place of the existing primary schools. Maybe we could subjugate or violently convert all non-Muslims and Muslims who are too liberally minded. How about reinstating public executions for homosexuals and adulterers?

The main body of the insurgency is former Taliban and their supporters backed up by international jihadists–many of whom have cut their teeth in the insurgency in Iraq–along with an assortment of warlords who don’t want to cede power to the central government. These are not people who are merely aggravated that we have ‘imposed a system that they do not understand’. They are fundamentally opposed to the values and loss of power that liberal democracy represents.

Pluralism? Debate? Dissent? They understand what these things are, but the widespread acceptance of these values would undermine the absolute control that they want and need to impose their extreme interpretation of the Koran on the rest of society.

Don’t take any of the above as support for expanding the mission in Afghanistan. It’s certainly open to debate whether Canada should have gotten involved here in the first place and whether it’s possible to actually impose democracy in a country that has never had one before. I think Kennedy is probably quite right that we shouldn’t be getting heavily involved in new military expeditions in the country, but not because we have to give the insurgents more time to understand us.

If Kennedy’s basing one of the few major stands he’s taken in this leadership race on the intellectually vacuous reasoning he provided Cherniak, it’s extremely difficult to take him seriously as a leader.

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