Why We Fight

The memories of a generation are almost dead. Are we lucky to not know the close reality of war or are we in danger of complacency/complicity for our continued safety and comfort?


I come from a Service family. My father and mother were both in the British Royal Navy. My father served for nearly 25 years. Although his exposure to battle was limited to working on a medical ship off the Korean Peninsula in the early 50s, that was by nowhere near his only dance with the devastation of war. He grew up in England during WWII and was a young child who would in the mornings after the blitz be found with his mates playing amongst the ruin of the nights fallen buildings. Some nights were spent hidden in local shelters and schools, the days also spent, when class was not held due to bombing fears, in ration lines. His friends lost parents and older brothers and sisters, and although he rarely spoke of it, sometimes kids he knew were lost as well. My friend's kids today play Call of Duty.


My mother spent 16 years in the service. She was stationed for a great deal of the time in Belfast smack dab in the middle of the 'troubles'. A small Irish Catholic woman working for the enemy on the other side of the battle lines. Ya, she's tough. Young men would come in ravaged by pipe bombs, small artillery fire, tank shells, countless car bombs and bullet wounds. Her next deployment after years of this was essentially to the Cub Med of the British Empire bases at the time, Gibraltar, Spain. I guess the Navy brass figured she'd paid her dues. It's no wonder she decided to work in retirement homes upon moving to Canada. Even the most dangerous inner city ER was nothing compared to the war like insanity of Northern Ireland in the late 60s early 70s, and anyway she'd had enough.



I have a cousin who is currently serving in Afghanistan. He has spent a great deal of career in war zones. Before Afghanistan, he was in Bosnia and Iraq. He is now a Colonel and a little more removed from the battle lines thankfully. Upon a recent visit by my mother to her sister in Bristol, when Darren found out she was there and when he told his officers her service history, the next day my mum found herself on a Lynx (Army Helicopter) being flown in for a visit. My grandmother served as interpreter for the Canadian and Royal Navy. Her brother was in Churchill's War Cabinet. Needless to say, it's in the blood.


When the topic of war and the military comes up, my knee jerk leftist pre-suppositions usually come out. War sucks, its a waste of innocent life, the military industrial complex, it's not about peace it's about money, the poor are always the fighters, the standard opinions. Until recently.

It is believed that we grow more conservative as we get older, (this is backed by stats on our recent election here and from the one just held in the US) and maybe the more hawkish angels are getting the better of me because of some wiring in the brain that makes you want to be more of a protector and defender of your kids and see society as a hopeless cause and war a necessary reality of a cruel and brutal world. But I have always been a little more reserved when it comes to fighting stupid wars not war in and of itself. Iraq Part 1, kinda stupid. Part 2 really stupid. Afghanistan, necessary. On the topic of this war (which somehow the discourse on this conflict has been morphed by the media and messaged by the government-have we really 'declared war'? Who are we fighting? Al Quaeda, insurgents, extremists?) I find myself diverging heavily from my friends on the left. So much so, that it was a reason I didn't support the NDP in the last election and will refuse to while they oppose Canada being there. We NEED to be there. Here's why:

Afghanistan is a test: It can show the Middle East the West cares. That the region isn't just a strategic geo-political tool for oil. The imperative that has driven decades of war in the country can be reversed. Before the Soviet invasion the country was by all rights on a pathway to secularization and growth not far behind that of Turkey. The Russian occupation destroyed the country's culture and infrastructure and forced a generation of educated and committed citizens out leaving it ripe for a sadistic and cruel set of leaders bent on the complete subjugation of a once proud people. The rise of the Taliban was like a cancer. They fed off a state blinded by damage and weakness and quickly proved that they were not brought to the people by God for salvation. I remember the pure revulsion I felt while watching the annihilation of the Bamiyan Buddhas. It was one of the final acts of a decade of systematic cultural and physical torture laid upon the country's citizens. Its was also about 6 months before 9/11 after which the US decided to act toward the Taliban not because of it's record (that was the pretext) but because the country had finally given it a great excuse to go into the country (with Bin Laden being on the lam within it's borders) to claim the oil and natural gas rights it so dearly wanted.

Afghanistan is the real Iraq. It is where the enemy is. It is where Middle East holds its poorest most painful recent history. The country was a pawn of the Cold War, it has been relegated to the sidelines of the war on terror, but it's the place where the West needs to be, not for oil, not for global politics, and not just for terrorism, but for the people. The challenges it faces are unique and immense. According to the UN, the per capita income is estimated to be just $200, the lowest of any country in the world. An estimated 20% of Afghans living in rural areas that is, 3.2 million Afghans do not get enough food to eat and another 18% are vulnerable. As a result, 40% of children under three are underweight and half in this age group are stunted.
From 1990 to 2002 the under-five mortality rate hardly changed and today, Afghanistan is where most developing countries were 40 years ago. High infant and under-five mortality rates are major contributing factors to the low average life expectancy in Afghanistan, estimated at 44.5 years in 2002, which is almost 20 years less than the regional average for South Asian countries. Afghanistan is a potentially high-risk country for the spread of HIV/AIDS. The
high levels of heroin production (with most users injecting drugs through shared needles), lack of systematic screening of blood, and low levels of awareness are a potent combination for the spread of HIV/AIDS. There are about 8,000 heroin addicts in Kabul City, of whom almost 500 are drug injectors. Women are particularly at risk of HIV/AIDS with three-fourths of women under-50 years of age never having heard of any contraceptive method. Malaria is prevalent in more than 60% of the country putting over 13 million people at risk. In 2004, the annual incidence was estimated to be 2-3 million and is increasing every year. Afghanistan is poorly equipped to meet the challenge of malaria.

The list goes on. All the major indices of development in Afghanistan are near the bottom in terms of world rankings. There are reasons why the UN was created. There are reasons why we have peacekeepers and armed forces standing at the ready-Afghanistan stands at the top of the list of those reasons.

Canada was in Cyprus starting from the early 1960s to the mid-90s. To rebuild a country , its state structures, civil society, culture, schools, hospitals, armies, police forces-everything- cannot be contained within the short-term political planning that has dominated our leaders and their agendas for the last decades. It requires a resolve of purpose and a duty to serve over a generation, otherwise we are forfeiting the value of the lives that are given by our soldiers. Iraq had the potential of a country that could have been dealt with over long-term diplomatic processes, Libya and North Korea being continued examples of the progress that can be brought to bare when the world is united. Why we fight is a question unyet solved by civilization. Why we should honour those who do is answered every year by the freedom we so ungraciously enjoy. When we mark Remembrance Day we are reminding ourselves that we are lucky. That we are not climbing over rubble, dying of aids, lost with no future, no drinking water, health, or education. We remember the soldiers, and the people they died for, and the people that are dying everyday. We are reminded why we have to make better choices about, in the words of Mark Kingwell "the world we want".

L.