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2141 Lesson 6.1 Conventional Wars in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan | Erika Simpson | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: 2141 Lesson 6.1 Conventional Wars in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan
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The content analyzes Canada's long-standing involvement in Afghanistan, highlighting the complexities of the mission, the reasons for withdrawal, and the broader implications for international peacekeeping and the global arms trade.
okay we're going to be talking about
Afghanistan mainly and also peripherally
the other countries that Canada has been
involved in or could become involved in
the first point here is that Afghanistan
has been for a very long time rated as
the least peaceful country in the world
Canada originally went into Afghanistan
in 2001. it went in because of 9 11 and
The Joint Task Force 2 jtf2 went into
Afghanistan where they joined the
Americans and the British troops that
were trying to topple the Taliban regime
and establish schools for girls and so on
Force began to go in because of 9 11 and
they were followed by a wave of
international organizations Canada put
in more money and Aid into Afghanistan
than anything else for 13 years
Canada had Tim Hortons shops in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan its first president was
called Karzai the second one is Ashraf
ghani the United Nations authorized NATO
to undertake the operation in
Afghanistan which was called isaf so
NATO took over from the U.N in 2003
initially Canada contributed 700 and
then gradually
2300 and then 3 000 Personnel in huge
operations like Medusa in Kandahar
as the war became increasingly unpopular Canada
Canada
Canadians became more and more upset
about the number of suicides and the
number of deaths finally under Stephen
Harper the government decided the
conservative government decided to get
out of Afghanistan and they left by
2014. the United States left in August
2021 seven years later so the Canadian
Forces were there for more than 13 years
and the United States was there for 20
years for two decades that's why this is
so important
where is Kandahar as I mentioned that
was the main area of fighting and Kabul
I might show a map and ask you where the
capital is or I might ask you how many
Canadian soldiers were killed
here's a diagram that I often use to
show the increasing force and violence
because this type of peacekeeping
support operation became more one of
Peace enforcement not so much peace building
building
the problems with robust inter peace
enforcement are that it allows a much
more a broader interpretation much
firmer stance much more aggressive
why did the United States and Canada
withdraw well mainly the Taliban was
very resilient the emergence of the
terrorist organization Isis or isil
resulted in significant territorial
losses to the Afghan government and many
many casualties
basically the Taliban overran the
districts and Villages that the Canadian
Forces secured foreign
foreign
defense requirements in Canada
necessitated a withdrawal from
Afghanistan by Canada and the United States
States
Afghanistan is highly affected by
climate change militarization poverty
poverty
violence against women a culture of war
and so on so all these things decreased
increased rather than decreased
let me emphasize that Canada's exports
to the Middle East were the world's
second largest after the United States
Canada actually leapfrogged over these
other countries into second place in
2016 with three
3.44 billion in annual sales of military
equipment to the Middle East so while
Canadian government officials spoke
about human rights and so on Canada was
ranked as the world's largest sort of
sixth largest export weapons exported
overall and that does not count the
Canadian experts to the United States
production sharing agreement I will talk
more about that later this term but for now
now
I think it's important to take to heart
the UN Secretary General ban ki-moon's
warning that the world is over armed and
peace is underfunded
another world leader Pope Francis
complained about the fact that weapons
are being sold money is drenched in
Blood and it is our duty to stop the
arms trade so the Canadian Prime
Minister was hailed around the world for
his commitments
Erica blama was awarded the Nobel Prize
nobody Pope Francis the U.N Secretary
General could Forge peace in Afghanistan
I'm the president of the Canadian peace
research organization Association and
right now we're trying to get any
students in this class that are
interested in presenting a paper at York
University on May 30 30th 31st or June
1st if you have a paper and you'd like
to talk about war or you'd like to talk
about peace baby you want to deal with
the labs or f-35s contact me by email
maybe you're interested in ballistic
missile defense maybe you want to talk
about nuclear weapons and modernization
I'm interested in hearing your paper and
sponsoring it at the Canadian peace
research Association conference which is
an academic conference
what about uh the middle Powers they cut
the United Nations annual peacekeeping
budget of approximately 10.58 billion in
order to reduce the burden they cut it
drastically by billions of dollars they
simply cannot afford peacekeeping operations
operations
the number of Canadians that were killed
in Afghanistan was 158 but also we're
learning now that 54 Canadian soldiers
committed suicide and maybe more so that
is also expensive and costly
let me emphasize that combat capable
enforcement needs to be combined with
peacekeeping training civilians and
volunteers need to know more than just
combat capable training so we need to
have more peacekeeping training on the
battlefield and on site maybe at a
peacekeeping training center
I think that Canada could still train
the trainers and could support us
security what's called security sector
reform in Afghanistan Canada could still
jump start a U.N emergency piece of
Service Canada could re-establish the
Pearson peacekeeping Center this would
signal our commitment to the United
Nations and NATO as well as burnish our
fairly solid peacekeeping record let's
go back to talk about isaf
isaf was part of Canada's commitment to
Nato and Canada went back to the
Kandahar region this coincided with a
huge increase in aggressive behavior by
the Taliban and also large-scale
offensives against the Taliban like
operation Medusa in 2006. so Canada at
its height committed 3 000 Personnel
every six months so many many Canadian
Forces went to Afghanistan what happened
to them
while suicide attacks killed military
personnel Canadians and the war in
Afghanistan became very very unpopular
our combat rule ended then we trained
the trainers for a few years operational
attention was the Canadian contribution
to the training Mission so the
government kept talking about the
importance of training the Afghan
National Security Forces many many
Canadians that you will meet went to
Afghanistan to help build schools I've
had interviews with Rory O'Connor and
different people well even Ben Mori has
gone to Afghanistan
my PhD candidate Sakina and poor who was
formerly the senior security adviser to
the Afghan president Karzai and then he
became the senior security adviser to
the Minister of Defense under President
Ashraf ghani the current Minister we
reported that after Canada withdrew from
Kandahar the Taliban just completely
overran all the villages that the
Canadian Forces had secured and rebuilt
and they they took over the and and and
built madrasas colleges for Islamic instruction
was a devastated country that it was
very terrible to hear from saki about
his own guards being killed in terrorist
attacks I it was very difficult to keep
arguing that Canada should recommit
especially from my safe safe perch in
the Ivory Tower of academe the Trudeau
government wanted a seat on the security
Council the United Nations so then we
argued yes we should commit
many people said oh we should send
trainers and we should go on and on and
and so on but
um I think we need to realize that the
the whole Ukraine crisis was building up
and so could there be a peacekeeping
mission there that was a problem and
returning to Afghanistan before the it
turning to Afghanistan rather than
starting Anew in Ukraine might have
helped might help long-term stability
but the problem was Canada just did not
want to take the lead Canada did not
want to re-engage with NATO
Donald Trump also switched course many
times so I I'm not going to go into all
of his switches but he would sign off on
plans to send 4 000 more troops adding
to the 8 400 or the people didn't know
was there eleven thousand who knows it
was very hard for me to get the numbers
and then he decided to draw down the
forces and then he argued that he would
never have allowed the debacle in
Afghanistan that's what he's saying as
the right Vice as a candidate for the
Republicans possibly
Trump's very impulsive foreign policy
strategy was reigned in by the
Republicans they tried to prevent him
from pulling completely out of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
which is interesting because it's the
fact that they were wanting to stop him
means that they could try to stop him
again he kept reversing more and more
back and forth more and more back and
forth thus confusing even his own negotiators
own acting uh even the U.S defense
secretary wrote a public letter that was
critical of trump and he was then
replaced by Patrick Shanahan all of
these people Patrick Shanahan and the
acting chief of staff had no military
experience in Afghanistan
the Republican selenators then stalled
uh Trump's effort to send half of the 14
000 U.S forces home so you're getting
the main message the U.S policy went
back and forth Donald Trump appointed
this guy uh the peace on voice only
Khalil zad to try to negotiate while
they were backtracking and while they
were trying to negotiate with the Taliban
Taliban
the peace talks continued in Doha I was
actually there in um uh yeah yeah
February 2020 and uh looked at all the
kind of the tables here and so on I had
no hope that the negotiations would
continue the Taliban promised not to
allow the use of Afghan soil for
international Regional they couldn't
make that promise they wouldn't have
been able to deter Isis they also
promised the Americans to withdraw more
troops back and forth different numbers
problem was that the United States was
negotiating with the inherited the
Taliban Founders and their inheritors
and so they you know the hakani network
was there I was in Doha but not invited
to the talks at that time
the Taliban had a very consistent List
of Demands and basically they want and
they probably still want full
implementation of Islamic law and
Customs so they wanted the
democratically elected government of
ashrafghani to completely change its
political system in ways that would not
conflict with Islamic code and that was
because their goals were more religious
they were willing to wait and not be in
a hurry
as well the um
Ashraf khani pictured here and Donald
Trump were in a hurry they wanted to
look like they were successful
especially gone he wanted to reach an
agreement before the general election
that would make him look good
there was all sorts of pressure to
remove the American troops from the
bases and the 29 members of NATO at that
time there were 29 now there's 30. they
they were very worried the U.S Special
Forces would be gone and then it would
be way too dangerous for the Germans
Italians and other countries to be stuck
there so in April 2021 all the NATO
allies decided at a secret meeting to
withdraw by September 11th 2021 this was
a very bad decision
even NATO policy makers that were there
emailed me and said it was a very bad
decision uh you know here the talks were
dragging on The Afghan government was
embroiled in in huge amounts of
controversy nobody was negotiating with
isil and there was the prospect that ice
over dayash French word for it would
take over the Taliban one country so who
would we negotiate who would be who
would be accepting these terms
the NATO officials tended to very
quietly say well look the Canadian Armed
Forces can take on more of a military
rule but Canada did not want to do that
Canada wanted to contribute 250 troops
to help defend Latvia and also Canada
sent 250 troops to Iraq so Canada kept
saying well we're in Iraq and we're in Latvia
Latvia
meanwhile the discussions went and as
diplomats as future diplomats I hope you
understand that it's very hard to take
on a armed movement and and transfer it
into a political party how would you
take an armed movement and finally I
think it's really important to talk
about women's right because women rights
women's rights were supposed to be
protected by NATO over 18 20 years they
really tried and especially women's
rights and constitutional rights and so
the NATO officials and Canadian
officials felt there could be no
compromise let's talk about Afghanistan
at least we forget a little bit more I'm
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