Support for Afghanistan wanes as father ponders son’s future

Afghanistan is a long way away. Back in the hippie era there was ‘black Afghani hash.’ I remember being dismayed when I heard that the words hashish and assassin had the same root because Afghani fighters would eat it just before they went out to slaughter their enemies. Being a peace-and-love hippie myself, I thought it was a peaceful drug and if everyone smoked it, there would be, like, no more wars, man. Of course I don’t think that any more.

I supported Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan. It is a United Nations approved, NATO-backed coalition of forces dedicated to rebuilding the country and giving the battered Afghan people a chance to enjoy the fruits of the modern world, like democracy, literacy and sanitation. Secondly, to let it slide back into its Taliban past — think Middle Ages — is to risk it becoming a training ground for hordes of religious psychopaths once again.

But recently I changed my mind. It was after I attended an information session at the high school where my son is graduating. We had to choose a CEGEP and each one had an exhibit. But in a corner of the same room was a display of pictures and brochures manned by two smart looking soldiers. They presented another option for a young man of his age: The Canadian Armed Forces.

I didn’t want my son to go to that table. I didn’t even want him to see it. He might fancy himself as the guy in the poster wearing a flak jacket and a helmet, and armed with an automatic rifle just like he fancies himself in his football helmet and shoulder pads and his “under armour.�

The poster made me sad. Like whenever I have seen pictures of our fallen soldiers, I imagine how much has been put into those kids: how much school, how much love, how much care, how much hope; all to teach them how to live in our brave new civilized world. How can it make sense to then send them to a time-warped wasteland where they walk around as targets? We might as well paint a bull’s eye on each one of them. In that twisted, sick, black hole of barbarism they can be blown up while they are handing candies out to children.

We’ve had 50 casualties and now Canadians are already talking about backing out. I think we all know that we lack the national will to see it through. We are not a warrior nation. So how could I send my child, nurtured with my love and full of the ideals and energy of youth into that death trap? And the final tragedy would be when I am told that my leaders have changed their minds in mid-stream and decided that it wasn’t really worth it after all. It is a truly horrible thought, isn’t it? I don’t want any part of it, do you?

Yes, if we withdraw we will be abandoning our allies and the people of Afghanistan whose future will probably be very bleak. And possibly, we would be allowing our enemies to declare victory and regroup and plan another attack to make us pay for it in the long run. But, speaking for myself, the simple truth is this: if I am not prepared to send my son there how can I expect any other Canadian parent to do the same?