Today, the Canadian death toll in Afghanistan went up by four. I haven’t been keeping count so I don’t know what the total is. What I do know is that this headline pops up every second week or so and is part of the larger pattern of patriarchal conservative governments in power (who keep falling inline to the Bush Administration’s patriarchal and dim-witted view of the world). When the Liberals were in power, the Canadians were only being killed by American ‘friendly-fire’. But since the Harper government came to power we’ve seen the Canadians take on more responsibility and become the prime-movers in keeping Afghanistan from falling back to Taliban control. This decade is full of war news because conservative men are running things – be they conservative Islamic men who think the whole world should be Muslim; or conservative Western men who try to tie all this crap to ideas about the glory of war, and ‘right wars’ against ‘evil’ people.Personally, I think the Taliban are shits so I don’t mind the Canadian mission. I am not taking Jack Layton’s recent suggestion to withdraw and negotiate for peace with Taiban seriously. I am a little annoyed with the fact that the awfulness of the Taliban is being obscured in favour of Canadian navel-gazing ( a selfishness which makes headlines of soldiers deaths with no real analysis of what they’re doing in the first place). To say that we’re stooges for half-assed American imperial ambitions is too simple. To say that Canadian soldiers are occasionally being killed because we have a Conservative government in office is also simplistic but somewhat accurate. But I don’t think as a nation we’re all together too simple-minded to agree that keeping the Taliban from returning to power is a worthy thing.

In the months before September 11 2001 (five years ago in the past) the Taliban’s control over Afghanistan was beginning to make headlines in North America. This is the group that executed women on soccer fields, made it illegal to not have a beard, and blew up ancient Buddhist statues as representations of idol worship. It is not an exaggeration to call such behaviors barbaric. Meanwhile, the American government was overlooking such (dare I call them atrocities?) policies because Taliban barbarity was keeping poppies from being grown, and as a reward for their part in the glorious War on Drugs, were receiving significant funding and support. (Ok, maybe not ‘significant’ funding – I’m fuzzy on the details, but I’m working with what was being said five years ago).

All this changed that Tuesday in September. By the late afternoon of the 11th, there was a statement by the leader of the Taliban making the broadcast rounds saying they had nothing to do with the day’s events. Which of course was untrue, as they’d sheltered Bin Laden (who at first too denied responsibility). When the United States attacked the Taliban in October, the reasons were clear and understandable. Overthrowing a barbaric regime was a good thing to do. Chasing after Bin Laden was justified. Men, ‘liberated’ (how that word has been cheapened since) were able to go the barber’s and get a shave for the first time in years.

(I occasionally grow beards and last did so this summer. I shaved it off three weeks ago and this example will always make me thankful that I at least have the option, unlike the men living under the Taliban regime).

Circa 2003 the Americans had destroyed the Taliban. There were accusations of massacres, (which for war is unfortunately normal). There was the fact that they shipped off a lot of these captured men to Gitmo and that some of them were innocent and that some of them were children; all of which will hopefully get sorted out and corrected one day. The Taliban was gone and the civilians of Afghanistan could begin to rebuild civilization under the security provided by outside forces.

Three years later, the Americans have abandoned Afghanistan to the Canadians to devote themselves to securing the Iraqi oil infrastructure so that more obese Americans can scoot around in SUVs using relatively cheap gasoline. (Because ‘America is addicted to oil’ – President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2006). Osama Bin Laden, on the run in Afghanistan, was able to get away because the Bush family had unfinished business with Saddam Hussein. This has meant that the Taliban have been able to rebuild their forces and are trying to return to power, killing Canadians in the process. But, unlike Jack Layton (proving why the NDP are largely irrelevant) I don’t think we should negotiate for peace with them and bring the soldiers home so that we’ll have more on hand for the next Toronto snow storm. Let them do their jobs helping to secure a landscape that hasn’t been at peace in decades. One day they’ll be able to return, but hopefully that will be long after the Taliban have ceaased to be relevant.