BRITAIN

BRITAIN

The Guardian, London, Nov. 4: The dimensions of the unfolding disaster in Afghanistan are becoming bigger and more daunting by the day. Once-staunch defenders of the “good war” are starting to break ranks. Kim Howells, a former Foreign Office minister with responsibility for Afghanistan and current chairman of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, questions in our newspaper today the central tenet of the government’s case for fighting in Afghanistan: that it is the frontline of a war that would otherwise be conducted on British streets. Mr. Howells said counter terrorism would be better served by bringing the majority of servicemen home.

Needless deaths

He is saying publicly what many in government must be thinking privately: that troops are dying needlessly in a war that is unwinnable, with a strategy that is unworkable, and that we should be thinking of the alternative now.

Afghanistan is a political failure, a fact over which the international community continue to be in denial. If they were not, neither America nor Britain would be toying with the notion that they can pressure Mr. Karzai into forming a clean government.

Mr. Obama is now left clinging to one tarnished man not an institution or national assembly of tribal chiefs to deliver the central plank of his fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida. And while he clings to him, any hope of re-centering aid efforts on local communities or on reforming parliament will be subverted just as the election was. Wait for the next announcement on troop levels. It will be groundhog day all over again.

CANADA

The Toronto Star, Nov. 4: Canada should lend Pakistan a helping hand as it struggles to stabilize its chaotic border region with Afghanistan, which is plagued by Taliban militants who threaten the entire region’s stability.

As Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told the Star’s South Asia reporter Rick Westhead last week, “Canada needs to stand up” along with allies who are increasing their aid. We do indeed.

Awash with weapons

But it doesn’t follow that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government needs to send more military aid to a region that is already awash with weapons. Harper has wisely resisted pressure to lift Canada’s 11-year-old arms embargo and supply military equipment, including unmanned surveillance aircraft and night-vision technology.

Instead, Harper has identified non-military aid as a priority. That makes sense in a nation where nearly a third of the people live in dire poverty, and where barely one in two is literate.

By way of helping, Canada will send $25 million this year in humanitarian assistance for food, water and shelter for those displaced by the fighting. We’ll also provide $34 million in bilateral aid. And we will plow an average of $25 million a year over five years into the public schools to help them compete with those run by militants.

To undercut the extremists’ appeal, the people of Pakistan need community infrastructure in the form of schools, health care and reliable power. That is where Canada’s efforts should remain focused.