0:01 okay we're going to be talking about
0:04 Afghanistan mainly and also peripherally
0:07 the other countries that Canada has been
0:09 involved in or could become involved in
0:12 the first point here is that Afghanistan
0:14 has been for a very long time rated as
0:18 the least peaceful country in the world
0:21 Canada originally went into Afghanistan
0:26 in 2001. it went in because of 9 11 and
0:29 The Joint Task Force 2 jtf2 went into
0:32 Afghanistan where they joined the
0:34 Americans and the British troops that
0:37 were trying to topple the Taliban regime
0:40 and establish schools for girls and so on
0:47 Force began to go in because of 9 11 and
0:50 they were followed by a wave of
0:53 international organizations Canada put
0:55 in more money and Aid into Afghanistan
0:59 than anything else for 13 years
1:02 Canada had Tim Hortons shops in Afghanistan
1:04 Afghanistan
1:07 Afghanistan its first president was
1:10 called Karzai the second one is Ashraf
1:14 ghani the United Nations authorized NATO
1:16 to undertake the operation in
1:19 Afghanistan which was called isaf so
1:22 NATO took over from the U.N in 2003
1:26 initially Canada contributed 700 and
1:27 then gradually
1:32 2300 and then 3 000 Personnel in huge
1:37 operations like Medusa in Kandahar
1:40 as the war became increasingly unpopular Canada
1:42 Canada
1:44 Canadians became more and more upset
1:47 about the number of suicides and the
1:50 number of deaths finally under Stephen
1:53 Harper the government decided the
1:54 conservative government decided to get
1:57 out of Afghanistan and they left by
2:01 2014. the United States left in August
2:05 2021 seven years later so the Canadian
2:07 Forces were there for more than 13 years
2:10 and the United States was there for 20
2:13 years for two decades that's why this is
2:14 so important
2:17 where is Kandahar as I mentioned that
2:20 was the main area of fighting and Kabul
2:26 I might show a map and ask you where the
2:28 capital is or I might ask you how many
2:31 Canadian soldiers were killed
2:34 here's a diagram that I often use to
2:37 show the increasing force and violence
2:39 because this type of peacekeeping
2:42 support operation became more one of
2:45 Peace enforcement not so much peace building
2:46 building
2:49 the problems with robust inter peace
2:53 enforcement are that it allows a much
2:56 more a broader interpretation much
2:58 firmer stance much more aggressive
3:04 why did the United States and Canada
3:07 withdraw well mainly the Taliban was
3:09 very resilient the emergence of the
3:12 terrorist organization Isis or isil
3:15 resulted in significant territorial
3:17 losses to the Afghan government and many
3:19 many casualties
3:22 basically the Taliban overran the
3:24 districts and Villages that the Canadian
3:26 Forces secured foreign
3:28 foreign
3:30 defense requirements in Canada
3:33 necessitated a withdrawal from
3:36 Afghanistan by Canada and the United States
3:37 States
3:39 Afghanistan is highly affected by
3:42 climate change militarization poverty
3:43 poverty
3:46 violence against women a culture of war
3:48 and so on so all these things decreased
3:51 increased rather than decreased
3:54 let me emphasize that Canada's exports
3:56 to the Middle East were the world's
3:58 second largest after the United States
4:02 Canada actually leapfrogged over these
4:04 other countries into second place in
4:07 2016 with three
4:11 3.44 billion in annual sales of military
4:14 equipment to the Middle East so while
4:15 Canadian government officials spoke
4:18 about human rights and so on Canada was
4:21 ranked as the world's largest sort of
4:24 sixth largest export weapons exported
4:27 overall and that does not count the
4:29 Canadian experts to the United States
4:31 production sharing agreement I will talk
4:33 more about that later this term but for now
4:34 now
4:37 I think it's important to take to heart
4:40 the UN Secretary General ban ki-moon's
4:43 warning that the world is over armed and
4:45 peace is underfunded
4:48 another world leader Pope Francis
4:51 complained about the fact that weapons
4:53 are being sold money is drenched in
4:56 Blood and it is our duty to stop the
4:59 arms trade so the Canadian Prime
5:02 Minister was hailed around the world for
5:04 his commitments
5:07 Erica blama was awarded the Nobel Prize
5:10 nobody Pope Francis the U.N Secretary
5:15 General could Forge peace in Afghanistan
5:17 I'm the president of the Canadian peace
5:19 research organization Association and
5:21 right now we're trying to get any
5:22 students in this class that are
5:25 interested in presenting a paper at York
5:30 University on May 30 30th 31st or June
5:32 1st if you have a paper and you'd like
5:34 to talk about war or you'd like to talk
5:37 about peace baby you want to deal with
5:42 the labs or f-35s contact me by email
5:44 maybe you're interested in ballistic
5:46 missile defense maybe you want to talk
5:48 about nuclear weapons and modernization
5:51 I'm interested in hearing your paper and
5:53 sponsoring it at the Canadian peace
5:56 research Association conference which is
5:59 an academic conference
6:02 what about uh the middle Powers they cut
6:04 the United Nations annual peacekeeping
6:08 budget of approximately 10.58 billion in
6:10 order to reduce the burden they cut it
6:13 drastically by billions of dollars they
6:15 simply cannot afford peacekeeping operations
6:17 operations
6:19 the number of Canadians that were killed
6:23 in Afghanistan was 158 but also we're
6:26 learning now that 54 Canadian soldiers
6:29 committed suicide and maybe more so that
6:33 is also expensive and costly
6:36 let me emphasize that combat capable
6:39 enforcement needs to be combined with
6:42 peacekeeping training civilians and
6:44 volunteers need to know more than just
6:47 combat capable training so we need to
6:49 have more peacekeeping training on the
6:52 battlefield and on site maybe at a
6:54 peacekeeping training center
6:57 I think that Canada could still train
6:59 the trainers and could support us
7:02 security what's called security sector
7:05 reform in Afghanistan Canada could still
7:08 jump start a U.N emergency piece of
7:12 Service Canada could re-establish the
7:15 Pearson peacekeeping Center this would
7:16 signal our commitment to the United
7:20 Nations and NATO as well as burnish our
7:22 fairly solid peacekeeping record let's
7:25 go back to talk about isaf
7:29 isaf was part of Canada's commitment to
7:31 Nato and Canada went back to the
7:34 Kandahar region this coincided with a
7:37 huge increase in aggressive behavior by
7:39 the Taliban and also large-scale
7:42 offensives against the Taliban like
7:46 operation Medusa in 2006. so Canada at
7:49 its height committed 3 000 Personnel
7:52 every six months so many many Canadian
7:55 Forces went to Afghanistan what happened
7:56 to them
8:00 while suicide attacks killed military
8:02 personnel Canadians and the war in
8:05 Afghanistan became very very unpopular
8:09 our combat rule ended then we trained
8:12 the trainers for a few years operational
8:14 attention was the Canadian contribution
8:16 to the training Mission so the
8:18 government kept talking about the
8:20 importance of training the Afghan
8:23 National Security Forces many many
8:25 Canadians that you will meet went to
8:28 Afghanistan to help build schools I've
8:30 had interviews with Rory O'Connor and
8:34 different people well even Ben Mori has
8:37 gone to Afghanistan
8:41 my PhD candidate Sakina and poor who was
8:43 formerly the senior security adviser to
8:46 the Afghan president Karzai and then he
8:48 became the senior security adviser to
8:50 the Minister of Defense under President
8:53 Ashraf ghani the current Minister we
8:57 reported that after Canada withdrew from
8:59 Kandahar the Taliban just completely
9:02 overran all the villages that the
9:04 Canadian Forces had secured and rebuilt
9:08 and they they took over the and and and
9:11 built madrasas colleges for Islamic instruction
9:17 was a devastated country that it was
9:19 very terrible to hear from saki about
9:21 his own guards being killed in terrorist
9:25 attacks I it was very difficult to keep
9:27 arguing that Canada should recommit
9:30 especially from my safe safe perch in
9:33 the Ivory Tower of academe the Trudeau
9:35 government wanted a seat on the security
9:37 Council the United Nations so then we
9:40 argued yes we should commit
9:42 many people said oh we should send
9:45 trainers and we should go on and on and
9:48 and so on but
9:51 um I think we need to realize that the
9:53 the whole Ukraine crisis was building up
9:55 and so could there be a peacekeeping
9:58 mission there that was a problem and
10:02 returning to Afghanistan before the it
10:07 turning to Afghanistan rather than
10:10 starting Anew in Ukraine might have
10:14 helped might help long-term stability
10:16 but the problem was Canada just did not
10:18 want to take the lead Canada did not
10:21 want to re-engage with NATO
10:24 Donald Trump also switched course many
10:27 times so I I'm not going to go into all
10:30 of his switches but he would sign off on
10:33 plans to send 4 000 more troops adding
10:36 to the 8 400 or the people didn't know
10:39 was there eleven thousand who knows it
10:41 was very hard for me to get the numbers
10:44 and then he decided to draw down the
10:46 forces and then he argued that he would
10:48 never have allowed the debacle in
10:50 Afghanistan that's what he's saying as
10:53 the right Vice as a candidate for the
10:56 Republicans possibly
10:59 Trump's very impulsive foreign policy
11:01 strategy was reigned in by the
11:04 Republicans they tried to prevent him
11:06 from pulling completely out of Afghanistan
11:08 Afghanistan
11:10 which is interesting because it's the
11:12 fact that they were wanting to stop him
11:14 means that they could try to stop him
11:17 again he kept reversing more and more
11:20 back and forth more and more back and
11:22 forth thus confusing even his own negotiators
11:28 own acting uh even the U.S defense
11:30 secretary wrote a public letter that was
11:33 critical of trump and he was then
11:35 replaced by Patrick Shanahan all of
11:38 these people Patrick Shanahan and the
11:40 acting chief of staff had no military
11:42 experience in Afghanistan
11:45 the Republican selenators then stalled
11:49 uh Trump's effort to send half of the 14
11:51 000 U.S forces home so you're getting
11:53 the main message the U.S policy went
11:56 back and forth Donald Trump appointed
11:58 this guy uh the peace on voice only
12:02 Khalil zad to try to negotiate while
12:04 they were backtracking and while they
12:05 were trying to negotiate with the Taliban
12:07 Taliban
12:10 the peace talks continued in Doha I was
12:14 actually there in um uh yeah yeah
12:18 February 2020 and uh looked at all the
12:21 kind of the tables here and so on I had
12:23 no hope that the negotiations would
12:26 continue the Taliban promised not to
12:29 allow the use of Afghan soil for
12:31 international Regional they couldn't
12:32 make that promise they wouldn't have
12:35 been able to deter Isis they also
12:37 promised the Americans to withdraw more
12:40 troops back and forth different numbers
12:43 problem was that the United States was
12:45 negotiating with the inherited the
12:48 Taliban Founders and their inheritors
12:50 and so they you know the hakani network
12:54 was there I was in Doha but not invited
12:56 to the talks at that time
12:59 the Taliban had a very consistent List
13:01 of Demands and basically they want and
13:03 they probably still want full
13:05 implementation of Islamic law and
13:06 Customs so they wanted the
13:09 democratically elected government of
13:12 ashrafghani to completely change its
13:14 political system in ways that would not
13:18 conflict with Islamic code and that was
13:20 because their goals were more religious
13:23 they were willing to wait and not be in
13:24 a hurry
13:27 as well the um
13:29 Ashraf khani pictured here and Donald
13:31 Trump were in a hurry they wanted to
13:32 look like they were successful
13:35 especially gone he wanted to reach an
13:38 agreement before the general election
13:40 that would make him look good
13:43 there was all sorts of pressure to
13:46 remove the American troops from the
13:49 bases and the 29 members of NATO at that
13:52 time there were 29 now there's 30. they
13:54 they were very worried the U.S Special
13:57 Forces would be gone and then it would
13:59 be way too dangerous for the Germans
14:01 Italians and other countries to be stuck
14:05 there so in April 2021 all the NATO
14:07 allies decided at a secret meeting to
14:10 withdraw by September 11th 2021 this was
14:13 a very bad decision
14:16 even NATO policy makers that were there
14:18 emailed me and said it was a very bad
14:21 decision uh you know here the talks were
14:23 dragging on The Afghan government was
14:25 embroiled in in huge amounts of
14:28 controversy nobody was negotiating with
14:31 isil and there was the prospect that ice
14:33 over dayash French word for it would
14:35 take over the Taliban one country so who
14:38 would we negotiate who would be who
14:41 would be accepting these terms
14:44 the NATO officials tended to very
14:47 quietly say well look the Canadian Armed
14:49 Forces can take on more of a military
14:51 rule but Canada did not want to do that
14:54 Canada wanted to contribute 250 troops
14:58 to help defend Latvia and also Canada
15:02 sent 250 troops to Iraq so Canada kept
15:03 saying well we're in Iraq and we're in Latvia
15:04 Latvia
15:07 meanwhile the discussions went and as
15:10 diplomats as future diplomats I hope you
15:12 understand that it's very hard to take
15:16 on a armed movement and and transfer it
15:18 into a political party how would you
15:20 take an armed movement and finally I
15:22 think it's really important to talk
15:24 about women's right because women rights
15:27 women's rights were supposed to be
15:31 protected by NATO over 18 20 years they
15:33 really tried and especially women's
15:36 rights and constitutional rights and so
15:37 the NATO officials and Canadian
15:39 officials felt there could be no
15:42 compromise let's talk about Afghanistan
15:45 at least we forget a little bit more I'm
