Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of 10-foot-tall marijuana plants.That's a feature, not a bug.Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana...
"We tried burning them with white phosphorus -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.
Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.
"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those (forests) did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hillier said dryly.
In all seriousness, the Canadian mission in Afghanistan has grown increasingly controversial as Canadian troops have begun to suffer casualties disproportionate to the size of the deployment. In a recent poll, 59 percent of Canadians said that the war in Afghanistan could not be won, numbers more or less in line with U.S. popular attitudes on Iraq. The same poll revealed some downright hostile attitudes towards the Bush administration, the war on terror, and the U.S. position in Iraq.
I suspect that the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and the consequent disaster have poisoned international public opinion on the question of intervention in Afghanistan. The operation had deep international public support in 2001, but this seems to have steadily declined. A portion of this decline is undoubtedly in response to the worsening situation on the ground there. However, resentment toward the United States for the invasion of Iraq and perception that the U.S. has failed to properly support the Afghan operation have almost certainly contributed to some disillusionment. I don't think that this is entirely fair. Although the U.S. has neglected Afghanistan in favor of Iraq, the American Afghan contribution continues to be the most extensive of any NATO ally in terms of troops, money, casualties, and infrastructure support. In other words, it's not just the United States that has allowed Afghanistan to wither on the vine; it's the entire Western alliance.
--Robert Farley
