National Defence Committee on Sept. 25th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Bercuson, have you any comment?

[Prof. David Bercuson]

I absolutely agree with that. I think you've asked, what is an appropriate role for parliamentarians? Let me simply say what I think is not appropriate, and that is to question tactics, to question operations even, to a certain extent. I think your role needs to be at the strategic level. You should be looking into resources. You should be looking into personnel policies. You should be looking into post-action medical services, such as whether the people who are coming back are getting enough psychological counselling. All of that and on a regular basis--on a regular basis. What I call strategic questions are: Is the overall political mission still doable? Are the conditions that led us there in the first place still in place? In other words, do we want to continue to achieve the political objectives we set out for ourselves in April of 2005? Are those political objectives still worthy?

The most important question that I think your committee should be asking itself on a regular basis is, does the government of Hamid Karzai still have the support of the people of Afghanistan? For example, if that government loses support, how do we measure that? Should that not be the time for us to rethink our mission and our presence there? Those are the kinds of questions that I think you should be asking.

I think you also need to know...I have great regard for the Canadian Forces and for its high command, but let's face it, they play politics as much as anybody else does in Ottawa, and sometimes you need to question some of the statements they are making about accomplishments and achievements. I don't say in any sense that I don't believe what they're telling me--I tend to believe what they're telling me--but it's your job, as parliamentarians, to challenge them on it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

That's it. Sorry, Mr. Scott. Time flies.

That ends the second round. The order for the third round is to start with the Liberal Party, then Conservative, then Bloc, and that will take us to 5:30 p.m. and that will about wrap it up.

Mr. Dosanjh.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you.

Well, Dr. Bercuson, the last statement you just made is in fact the kind of question I was thinking of asking. I have two questions, one in that regard and the other about something you said earlier.

We read a report from Graeme Smith, one of our journalists in The Globe and Mail on Panjwai. Are you familiar with the report in Saturday's Globe and Mail?

[Prof. David Bercuson]

Yes, I think I read it. Yes, I think so.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I would like you to comment on that, in the vein that you were talking about. Obviously, Mr. Smith is suggesting that with respect to Panjwai, we weren't given all of the goods or straight goods, generally speaking, by NATO. I don't know whether that's true or not; I'm simply asking that as a question. You're an expert. If you've looked at it, tell me what you think of that report.

Secondly, you said in your earlier remarks about the woman who was killed, who was the director of women's programs, that that tells us, in itself, why we're there.

Nobody can argue about equality for women, children going to school, construction happening in Afghanistan, Afghanistan becoming a democratic country. But if I recall generally, we're there, actually, to make sure that Afghanistan doesn't fall back into the hands of those who would turn it into a base of operations against us and other democracies across the world.

I know that women's equality and development generally are the routes through which we get there eventually, but I would like you to comment on that as well.

Thank you.

[Prof. David Bercuson]

Sure.

Let me take your second point first. I believe as an historian that one of the lessons we've learned from history is that those governments that oppress their own people are most likely to commit aggression against others. I don't think it's a separate issue. I think they're two sides of the same coin. When we look at the great totalitarian dictatorships and aggressors over the last 100 years or so, we will invariably find that the ones that were the most dangerous to international order were also the ones that built prisons for their citizens on a large scale. I think they go together.

As for your first question, I have to put this in a careful way, but let me be very frank about this. I'm a military historian, so I get to do the job of looking back at military campaigns long after they have been fought, and often comparing the actual results of the campaigns against what was said at the time by military leaders, by political leaders, and by journalists. What I find very often is that there is a significant gap between what is being said at the time and what actually happened. Part of that arises out of this phenomenon, which we're all familiar with, called the “fog of war”. It simply is extremely confusing. Wars are very confusing, and not too many people really know very much about the real picture at any given time, and sometimes including those who are actually fighting it.

Does this mean that I believe NATO said everything that was right and everything that NATO said about the battle of Panjwai is true? I can't. If I was going to believe everything they were saying, I would give up my job as a military historian, but it doesn't mean that I don't think that the overall picture is not a relatively positive one. It's just that whenever I hear a general saying A or B or C, including our own beloved military leaders, I always say, okay, is that really what's happening or is there something else going on underneath, and is it something that's being hidden from me or is it just something they don't know about?

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I want to say I'm not suggesting that I disagree with women's equality or children going to school and young women going to school. I was just trying to make the point--and I take your point--that our ultimate objective is to make sure that Afghanistan doesn't become a terrorist base of operations against us and others like us. I agree with your other statement that if you don't have equality and democracy in a society, that society is subject to becoming a centre of operations of terror.

That's the end of my remarks. If there is any time left, Mr. Cannis might want to ask a question, because he wasn't able to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

There are 10 seconds left.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

President Karzai indicated, and I'm sure you heard it on his presentation, that there are fewer children enrolled in school. Can you confirm that?

The last question is that we know the problem, and that is the poppy growth in that area. Why are we just not focusing on eliminating that, thus eliminating revenue, thus addressing the problem more seriously? Why aren't we doing that?

[Prof. David Bercuson]

I don't know why we're not doing it. I think it's probably tied up with a very complicated local picture of trying to use those people, those resources, that are best able to help our cause, and to do so with a sense of immediacy. Maybe the poppy elimination is something that needs to be done in the long run but can't be accomplished quickly. I don't really know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Hawn for five minutes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I have a relatively quick question, and I'm sure it's a question Mr. Cannis really wanted to ask if he had had more time. You brought up Dieppe and the sacrifice at Dieppe. We lost hundreds of people in one day, and as he rightly points out, we didn't quit, and our allies didn't quit, and so on. How do we help Canada and Canadians come to grips with the reality of the necessary sacrifice and great risks shared among our allies for a noble cause? How do we do that?

Dr. Bland first.

[Dr. Douglas Bland]

I hope it will always be a difficult job for you.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you. I do too.

[Dr. Douglas Bland]

But it's not the comparing of battle casualties of one war with those of another war that's important. What I think is remarkable here is the sense of resolve people had during other conflicts that we could bear the costs, and we could do it. After Dieppe, a lot of Canadians picked up their lunch boxes and went back to work here in Canada.

It just seems that somehow in this case, maybe it's a particular case, in suffering these casualties, which are less than we do on a lot of peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and so on, and in training accidents perhaps, we don't have the stomach for it, and I'm not quite sure why that is.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Dr. Bercuson, or I'll just defer to my colleague for another question.

[Prof. David Bercuson]

I agree with everything that was just said.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I'll defer to Mr. Calkins.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

There are three minutes left.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Just to follow up on that line of thinking, Dr. Bland, you said it's not particularly useful to compare statistics based on casualties and so on from previous engagements, and I would agree with that. But I think it is particularly important to compare policy objectives and the willpower of governments of the day.

We can go back and look historically at the willpower that was in place when the Korean War was going on and the willpower that was in place during the war in Vietnam, and take a look at the results that happened when there was a lack of public willpower or when the government of the day lacked the willpower to finish the job. Could you elaborate on that for us?

We know the cost of being involved so far has been very great, but could you just elaborate, based on some of the things we've seen in past history, on what the cost of losing would be compared to the price we're paying right now for what appears to be a mission where we're actually succeeding?

[Dr. Douglas Bland]

That's hard to say. For Canadians...well, the Americans will protect us, so I guess we don't have to worry about it too much.

Maybe we don't want to make a contribution to the alliances we signed on for. Maybe we don't want to be involved in the responsibility to protect. Maybe we don't want to be part of the United Nations peacekeeping missions.

It just occurs to me...and one of my students said it the other day. She said, “I don't understand. This is a UN mission sponsored by the UN, voted by the Security Council. It's a rightful mission. The people of Afghanistan asked us to be there. We're not contributing a great deal, being a country of 32 million people and a G-8 leader. If this isn't a mission that Canadians can back, I guess there isn't anything we'll do.”

And I don't have the answer to that question either.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

Mr. Bachand.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

My last question is for both of you.

Based on the facts that you are currently aware of, how satisfied are you with the operation as you perceive it? If you had any adjustments to make over the next few weeks, what would they be?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Bercuson, do you have any comments?