New Media

Sometimes, you just have to choose sides and bloody well get on with it, and the civilized world has chosen sides.

It’s all true.

The tough slog just got tougher. But it was always going to be a hard fight.

Let’s get on with it.

If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban or allows Al Queda to go unchallenged, that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.

As President, my greatest responsibility is to protect the American people. We are not in Afghanistan to control that country or to dictate its future. We are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States, our friends and our allies And the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan who have suffered the most at the hands of violent extremists.

Those were US President Barack Obama’s words in March. The same conditions still apply in Afghanistan today.

Canada’s and our allies’ response to the challenge of Afghanistan needs no new justification, either. As John Manley put it:

Our presence in Afghanistan is fully justified whether considered from the point of view of international law, humanitarian needs, or Canadian and global interests in security. If we’re not willing to lend our military resources when asked to so by the United Nations, in a mission coordinated by NATO, in a country whose democratically elected government wants us, and whose citizens desperately need us, then we wonder: where and when would Canada do so?

We’re at war against an irredeemable enemy. No more new arguments are needed. We don’t need fine speeches. We know what needs to be done. Let’s get on with it.

Afghanistan is a desperate country. Corruption robs and demoralizes the population. Human rights that are written into the Afghan constitution are mostly given lip service. President Karzai’s approval of a “marital rape law” is an abominable act of treachery to his own people, much less the international community that has sworn to stand by his struggling nation under siege from medieval killers.

The points cited above are reasons for us to stay engaged. We can’t help Afghans help themselves (or pressure the Afghan government to abolish legislation that violates the country’s own constitution) by throwing them to the wolves.

As Mark Collins of the Torch puts it, “Let’s find a perfect country to fight a war in support of.”

The Taliban thugs who threaten to amputate the limbs of those who vote the Presidential election can’t have the last word on democracy in Afghanistan. And if the tenacity of one crucial segment of the population is an indication, the locals are not going to let that happen.

Kabul Business Administration University student Farida Kawoon, 18, quoted by AFP:

There is a big difference between my mother’s generation and mine… I will vote and was very happy to be able to register as a voter. I want to participate in the election and have a say in the fate of my country and select a candidate who has the best interests of the country at heart.”

Further from the AFP report, Afghan vote offers hope of progress to women:

“Women’s groups, which have mushroomed in recent years, have launched a campaign to get five million women — of a total of 17 million registered voters — out to polling booths on August 20.

“Of the 41 candidates for president, two are women; eight of the 82 vice-presidential candidates are women; and 328, or more than 10 percent, of the 3,196 candidates for provincial seats are women.”

Clearly, none of this would be happening if the Taliban were still in chage. But will the women outside the big cities really get the chance to vote? It would be beyond tragic if this latest expression of democracy is sabotaged more by cultural behaviors and poor organization than by violence.

Courage.

With all due respect to the mourning family of Canadian soldier Karine Blais, killed this week by a roadside bomb, she did not, as her godfather claims, die for nothing.

Such statements insult the memory of Karine, and the intelligence of all who serve in Afghanistan under the banner of the United Nations.

Canada has a volunteer army. We’ve been in Afghanistan since October 2001, so it’s reasonable to believe that virtually anyone who has joined in the military since then, or has continued to serve until now, believes in the mission. Nobody joins the Canadian Forces for the generous pay and benefits.

Our mission is to help vulnerable people, who are overwhelmingly opposed to thugs with a medieval fascist agenda, defend themselves and develop peacefully. A sovereign and functioning Afghanistan will be better able to ensure its territory is never again used as a training ground for terrorists to carry out attacks in the West.

Karine Blais didn’t die for nothing. Indeed, one famous passage from our Canadian heritage seems appropriate here:

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Further proof that the Taliban movement that Canada and its Afghan and international allies are fighting may not be the unstoppable fighting force some claim it to be.

Blundering Afghan suicide bomber blows up 6 militants

A setback for the enemies of civilization. Not pretty, but every little bit helps.