Mr. Speaker, I will start by acknowledging, from the bottom of my heart, the dedication and the courage of the women and men in the Canadian Forces, and to express my sincere condolences to the families of the fallen.
It is for that reason that I refuse to ask them to continue to risk their lives in an ill-thought out strategy. The mission we are asking them to carry out is simply the wrong mission. It is government's role and government's decision to ensure that this is the right mission.
This discussion today is important. We want to ensure that what we are doing is indeed the right tool to accomplish Canada's goals. We should be asking whether this strategy will solve the growing hostility between the west and some in the Muslim world, whether it will achieve a just and sustainable and peace in Afghanistan.
Last August, the NDP called for the end of Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan. After five years in this war, a war longer than the first world war, the Conservatives and the Liberals, who put us there, should be rethinking Canada's role.
I am especially troubled by the Conservatives' view of the world and of Afghanistan, which was well summarized by the member for Edmonton Centre last week when he said:
This is a war against evil, pure and simple. It is a war against an outfit called the Taliban, which is associated with an outfit called al-Qaeda, which is associated...with a whole bunch of other outfits around the world. They are, pure and simple, in four letters, evil. It is a four letter word.
This is a simplistic mindset, reminiscent of George Bush's approach in Iraq, that I suppose allows the Conservatives to think that complex problems of a different civilization can be solved militarily with air strikes.
The situation in Afghanistan is, by all authoritative reports, incredibly complex. The threads go far beyond the Taliban. The forces of the warlords, who are still in control of militias in Afghanistan, the criminal elements, the porous border with Pakistan, the fact that insurgents can go back and forth across the border with impunity and the criminal elements involved in the poppy production in Afghanistan all contribute to the negative security environment.
I will admit that I do not know much about military tactics and strategy. I leave that to our very competent generals and soldiers.
However, I understand the nature of the conflict, the sociology, and it is not a struggle between good and evil. Saying that it is shows an obvious lack of understanding of the nature of the conflict and of foreign affairs. I do not think the government knows what it is doing in this area. The confusion of its own minister makes that clear.
The Senlis Council and many others continue to say that this war is unwinnable militarily. The government's own Minister of National Defence said the same thing in an interview I heard. The Senlis Council has added that to continue this asymmetrical war risks killing far more civilians and works against Canada's goal.
Because Canada took over command of a previously U.S. led Operation Enduring Freedom and became involved in war fighting, we were seen by many of those that we are trying to help as the enemy. Although Canadian Forces are working hard to promote stability, the security situation by all objective accounts has deteriorated.
Ms. Adeena Niazi of the Afghan Women's Organization of Toronto stated that Afghans do love the Canadians who bring security, peace and development. However, she then asked how we could bring peace when we bring war. It is past time to rethink Canada's current strategy now, not in 2009.
The resolutions to many modern conflicts over the past couple of decades have come about through a peace process that genuinely addresses the political causes and issues of the conflict and, in so doing, isolates the criminal elements.
Eventually, those with genuine political objectives will come forward and those with alternative objectives will be isolated. Those who seek peace will gravitate toward a peace process. If there is no peace process, there is nowhere for them to go.
Canada must begin to work now with their allies to establish a comprehensive peace process and that means with all those involved in the conflict, including neighbouring countries. A sustained program of development aid to help Afghanis move out of abject poverty is required to bring a truly lasting peace.
As John Watson, the director of CARE Canada, said:
...we [cannot] keep concentrating on the military/technological side without undercutting the world view that motivates our enemies.
I want to acknowledge the important role of the military in such a peace process, but it should be one of protection, not aggression. We cannot achieve peace without that cordon of protection but that is far different than the American style, seek and kill, counter-insurgent mission that is presently alienating many Afghans.
Contrary to the claims by the Conservatives that our party does not support the forces, I want to clearly say that I do not doubt that the intentions of our troops or our commanding officers is to achieve peace. I believe that the ultimate goal of the Canadian Forces, like all Canadians, is peace. I do not doubt their courage nor the calibre of their competence.
It is the government's errant strategy that we oppose. It is the government's insensitivity to our international agreements, turning a blind eye to the Geneva convention until prodded by the opposition.
In the NDP, we have a vision for the role Canada can play in the world. We believe Canada can and should be a leader for strategic diplomacy, international law, reversing the arms race, conflict prevention and eradicating world poverty because it is the most effective, proven and ethical approach to global security.
The reason the NDP could not support last week's Liberal motion to extend the Afghan mission for another two years was that it was impossible to reconcile the increasing evidence that this is a failed mission, the insecurity that is growing and the growing number of deaths among our troops and Afghan civilians. The Liberals' motion was not about changing course on a wrong-headed mission. They refused to admit that they got us involved and now they are trying to stand firmly, I would call it, on a paper fence.
If we have the right mission, peace takes a very long time and we cannot put an end date on it two years from now, which is why the motion just did not make sense to me.
At the beginning of every speech that I have heard, everyone has expressed support for the troops but those are just words unless we truly stand up for what we believe would be in the best interest of the troops, of Canada and of global security.
I believe in a mission to bring sustainable peace in Afghanistan. Such a mission would justify asking our troops to make the sacrifices they are willing to make. The current mission is precisely the opposite of such a mission and to support it, based on a narrow and sometimes, as it has seemed to me, cartoonish understanding of the conflict, is not supporting our troops. It is asking them to be cannon fodder in a backward strategy with no hope for success, and I cannot accept that for one more day.
Today's motion would end this wrong-headed counter-insurgent mission and begin immediately with the right mission, one for a just, prosperous and sustainable peace. There is no other way.