Canada's reputation hangs between Pakistani aid and Afghanistan war

BY MATTHEW FISHER DECEMBER 30, 2008

Taliban fighters who only weeks ago were at war with Canadian troops in Kandahar frolicked at a lake near the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar.

The holidayers are part of the annual fall migration of large numbers of Taliban fighters from the many battlefields of southern and eastern Afghan-istan. As cold nights sap their energy to fight in the lowlands and mountain passes become choked by snow, the Taliban flood into Afghan refugee camps to the north of the Pakistani capital for the winter.

"Those who fight the Canadians are retiring for the winter," said Sami Yousafzai, a News-week correspondent widely considered to have the best contacts among the Taliban of any journalist.

"It is not just the camps that are becoming full of fighters right now. So are the mosques. The Taliban is relaxing and rebuilding its muscles for next spring," said Mr. Yousafzai, who was shot four times in a failed ambush near Peshawar in November.

Although NATO and Canadian forces have once again announced a winter campaign to take the fight to the Taliban, this will be hard to do when so many of them have found a haven across the border in Pakistan. It has been here that the Taliban and their foreign allies from al-Qaeda have gone to recuperate, reacquaint themselves with their wives and children and pick up money and fresh arms.

"Guerrillas need water to swim and they find that water in Pakistan. Canadians must understand that nobody can eliminate the Taliban in Afghanistan without doing something about the situation in Pakistan. It is the key to everything," Mr. Yousafzai said as he sat shakily in a chair, swaddled in bandages at a secret safe house. A bullet was still lodged in his left arm after what he guessed was an attack by bandits trying to kidnap him and a Japanese colleague for ransom.

One of the curious aspects of Canada's war in Afghanistan is that while most Pakistanis vehemently oppose the U.S. military presence there, Canada's role has largely escaped criticism.

"This is an amazing PR feat," said Zaid Hamid, director of Brass Tacks, a company that provides security and threats analysis. "Despite the fact that Canadians are fighting and dying there, the entire focus is on the Americans. Even the Pakistani military does not discuss the Canadian role."

"It is not fair, of course, but the U.S. is the greatest superpower ever, so everything here is seen from that perspective," said Jamshed Ayaz, a retired major-general who left the military six years ago and now runs a think-tank. "It is not important what Canada says in NATO or anywhere in the world. It is what the U.S. says that matters."

"Ignorance is bliss," chuckled retired senior diplomat Tayyab Siddiqi of how little attention Canada's war in Afghanistan has received in Pakistan. "You have somehow retained your reputation as a country that only dispenses foreign aid with no strings attached."

Talat Hussain, a hugely popular Pakistani television journalist, recently spent four days embedded with Canadian soldiers in Kandahar. While in Afghanistan, he produced five news stories watched by tens of millions in which Canadians were prominently featured trying to help at a school and several police stations.

"Good for Canada if you get a free ride on Afghanistan here," Mr. Hussain said. "Otherwise, you'd close your embassy and I'd be meeting you in a bunker. The Americans are hated and you can hide behind that image."

Asked how Canada has managed to stay so far below the radar on Afghanistan, a senior diplomat at the Canadian High Commission in Islamabad did not reply directly. His only words were: "We'd like to keep it that way."

What Canada is best known for in Pakistan has been the help that it has given to this country over the years. The aid began with surplus steam locomotives in the late 1940s and early 1950s when Canadian railways switched to diesel power. This was followed by grain shipments, development money for dams and a Candu nuclear power reactor. More recently, Canada has provided a home for many Pakistani immigrants.

"From a Pakistani perspective, the difference between Canada and the U.S. today is that Canada has not shown it has an agenda," said Ahsan Iqbal, an MP and information secretary for the Pakistan Muslim League-N, part of the ruling coalition government.

"Canada has made no attempt to dictate our domestic policies or our foreign policy. It may be in Afghanistan, but it is not considered to be Canada's war. It is an American war."

Elaborating on the same theme, Moonis Ahmer, who teaches International Relations at the University of Karachi, says, "our understanding is that Canadian troops are more tolerant and the Canadian line is not seen as staunch as the American line."

Talat Hussain had high praise for the Canadian troops he was with in Kandahar.

"Unlike the U.S. marines, the Canadians I saw had a sense of respect for the diversity of cultures," Mr. Hussain said. "They were more polite. They were obviously well organized and well equipped. They took their work seriously.

"I found the Canadians had some interesting perspectives. The officer cadre was obviously thinking a lot about why they were there. They were interested in the larger issues. They wanted to know the Pakistani perspective, although, of course, there were lots of disagreements."

Sami Yousafzai also had a high opinion of Canada's soldiers across the border, where he said they were facing "the strongest group of Taliban because Kandahar was where the Taliban had its base and Mullah Omar wants it back.

"Nobody can take Kandahar from the Canadians, but the Canadians are a little bit lucky because the infiltration from Pakistan is not as strong there as it is further north. Lots of jihadis come into Kandahar from Pakistan to fight, but they do not bring good arms with them. The heavy arms are going in further north from staging areas at Ghazni and Paktika."

However, Canada's participation in the Afghanistan mission has drawn some sharp fire here.

"The amount of money that Canada has spent in Afghanis-tan is in direction proportion to the number of enemies that Canada has made in the Muslim world," said Mr. Ayaz, the retired general, who emphasized that he said this with regret because he and his family were longtime admirers of Canada.

Zaid Hamid, a controversial figure here who has sometimes been accused of having ties to parts of the Pakistani military thought sympathetic to the Taliban, said Canada had made a grave mistake by becoming so deeply involved in Afghanistan.

"My assessment is that Canada is not independent," Mr. Hamid said. "It is attached to the U.S. policy, but is doing a damn good job of hiding that fact.

"This is a war Canada cannot win. You have made a mess of your foreign policy and needlessly created tensions within your own country. It is a bad investment because you are known as a country that has been good to immigrants from here. America and Britain have clout and can sustain themselves in the region, Canada cannot."