Speaking yesterday at a United Nations 2-state solution conference, Prime Minister Carney broached the subject that he would commit the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to assist in “the disarmament and elimination of Hamas as a force.” Sounds like Afghanistan 2.0 to me.Here is the full quote from Prime Minister Carney:"The disarmament and elimination of Hamas as a force, certainly as a political force, military force first and political force, is one of the conditions for a sustained cessation of hostilities and peace. And when you say who is going to do that, there are many proposals, as I suspect you’re aware, from a variety of Arab states, combination of Arab states, and European States, to which Canada would be party, if they were come to pass, for multinational forces to be deployed in Palestine to enforce a peace and drive that process, that process forward.”.BERNARDO: Is it mandatory confiscation or voluntary return for compensation?.What the PM is essentially describing is the UN-mandated, NATO-led, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). ISAF was stood up on 11 Aug 2003, and its objective was to “enable the Afghan government to provide effective security across the country and develop new Afghan security forces to ensure Afghanistan would never again become a safe haven for terrorists.”Except that isn’t what happened..After more than a decade of fighting the Taliban, the Haqqani network, Al-Qaeda, and other Iran and Pakistan backed terrorist proxies, the conflict claimed 158 Canadian soldiers lives and wounded scores more. And unfortunately, the end result was that not only did Afghanistan remain a safe haven for terrorists; it fell under their total control.Our Prime Minister and other world leaders should be cognizant of the fact that any attempt to replicate an ISAF-style force in the theoretical state of Palestine will most likely result in the same outcome. Unless, and this is the key, they’re willing to commit to a campaign that will span generations.Because the problem in Palestine is the same problem that we faced in Afghanistan: time. .HAUBRICH / SIMS: Saskatchewan and Alberta need to stop ignoring their budget problems.Westerners, particularly those in North America, lack the ability to properly grasp how a millennia of conflict and animosity have shaped relations in the Middle East. We have yet to learn, despite our multiple failed attempts to do so, that we just can’t snap our fingers, or in this case, arbitrarily recognize a state, and expect that all of a sudden there will be peace.You’re working against history.I got to experience this firsthand when I deployed to Afghanistan as part of ISAF with the CAF on three separate occasions. On my third tour, I worked directly with the Afghan National Army and as part of the Operational Mentor and Liaison Team (OMLT). .I was enthusiastic, I was motivated, and I desperately wanted to train my Afghan counterparts to be the best soldiers they could be, to embody Canadian values, and to help them rebuild their country to be like Canada. The problem was I had no concept of time; none of us did. In nine months, I thought I could overcome years, decades, even centuries, of ingrained behaviours, poor education, cultural beliefs, prejudices, racism, and rampant corruption. I was so naïve. We all were, and it seems we still are..HANNAFORD: Faith, forgiveness, and a gentle warning to our American friends .For example, it took nearly 8 months for me to finally convince the soldiers in my Kandak to stop defecating in shower stalls, or in toilets where the plumbing had not been properly installed. Something that you or I would find pretty straightforward was actually a major undertaking to achieve.But while that battle for the bathroom opened my mind to realistically managing my expectations, the concept of time as an enemy to a deployed force was brought into sharp focus during a heated argument I had with an Afghan medic.He was upset with me because the training I wanted to do often interrupted his leisure activities. When I asked in exasperation why he didn’t want to train, he told me that he lived here, that he would always live here, and that he didn’t have to leave like I did, so there would be time to learn it later..Time was on his side. He could wait me out, wear me down, and he knew eventually I would leave. It’s the very same principle that was used by the Taliban, and no doubt the same one that Hamas, Hezbollah, and other state sponsors of terror would use as a weapon in a recognized State of Palestine occupied by a Western-backed security force.Granted, Palestine isn’t Afghanistan; in many ways, it’s much worse.In Afghanistan, the population wasn’t raised and educated to hate Jews or Israelis in the way Palestinians have. That hate is embedded into their culture, and that sort of ingrained unreasonable hatred isn’t going to go away because some jejune politicians recognize Palestine as a state. If anything, it actually rewards that mentality and the brutality that stems from it..EDITORIAL: Ottawa’s overreach on the notwithstanding clause threatens provinces rights.Is the Prime Minister ready to commit Canada and its young men and women, their children, and their children’s children, to policing and rehabilitating a Palestinian State? That is the question that should be posed to him. If his answer to that question is no, then the PM and his useful idiot counterparts in the UK, Australia, France, and elsewhere should sit quietly and let Israel continue its war against Hamas until they release the hostages and surrender, or fed-up Palestinians overthrow their terrorist overlords and seek a meaningful peace. But anything short of that, and it’ll be Afghanistan all over again. And neither Palestinians, Israelis, nor the world, will be any better off for all the pain and suffering.
