Canadian help for the mission in Afghanistan is down. A current Canadian Press-Decima survey located that 67% of respondents think the quantity of Canadian casualties is unacceptable. Only 25% of those interviewed mentioned they believed the casualty figures had been acceptable.
Far more Canadians believe that this is a war that can’t be won. Little wonder, when you contemplate the techniques that the Taliban have been employing of late. Canadian forces abide by international law and make the effort to conduct themselves accordingly, nonetheless the identical cannot be stated of their adversaries.
The Taliban owe most of their successes against the Canadian military to bombs planted on the nations dusty highways. When a passing armored automobile is hit, the Taliban notch it up as a victory. This tactic might add to their kill rate, but it definitely doesn’t add to their prestige as a fighting force, or to their image as heroic fighters.
It seems there is no limit to how far they are prepared to go in taking on American and NATO forces.
A latest tactic has been to use young children to carry out suicide missions.
Taliban ‘recruiters’ have been showing up in madrassas in Pakistan and educating children in the arts of terrorism. This includes showing the kids videos of suicide attacks and teaching them how to drive vehicles and motorcycles.
Lately they gave a fourteen year old boy named Rafiqullah a mission. He was chosen to go to Afghanistan and stage a suicide attack with an Afghan governor as his target.
The boy crossed the border and created it to the Afghan city of Khost, were he linked up with his handler, a single Abdul Aziz. When Aziz fitted Rafiqullah with a specific vest rigged with explosives, it all became a little too real for the boy and he balked.
He told Aziz that he was afraid and couldn’t carry out the order. Aziz then threatened the boy with death and pointed a gun at him. Thankfully the police got wind of what was going on and took Rafiqullah into custody. Shortly afterwards he was released on the orders of President Hamid Karzai, who described him as an “innocent pawn”.
This is not a a single-off case. Final month the Taliban utilized a six year old kid in Ghazni province in an try to stage a suicide attack on the Americans. The boy asked for aid from Afghan soldiers who found that he had been rigged with a suicide vest.
In April a video was released that showed Taliban militants instructing a 12 year old boy as he beheaded an alleged traitor. The boy was taped holding aloft the severed head while his Taliban audience looked on with approval.
The Taliban claim to be representatives of sharia law – a law they regard as morally superior to something the West has to provide, and but their remedy of young children is an offense to the teachings of the Qu’ran and to fundamental human decency. It seems they location no moral limit on what they are prepared to do in order to achieve their objectives.
Subsequent month, Canada’s famed Royal 22nd Regiment, the Van Doos, will take over the battle group in Kandahar. Many Canadians are dubious although that the nation’s confidence level can be restored.
PM Harper has been feeling the heat and has backed off his “no cut-and-run” rhetoric. Depending upon the will of Parliament, he may take into account ending Canada’s combat role when the present mission expires in February 2009.