Why are we there? With almost no public debate, Canada has deployed the bulk of its available troops to a dangerous mission in a country with which it has almost no traditional ties.

They know a lot about war in Afghanistan. As far back as 4,000 years ago waves of Indo-Europeans are believed to have invaded what is today known as Afghanistan. In the 6th century BCE, the Persian Empire moved in. Alexander the Great briefly occupied the country In 330 BCE. There were many other invaders before Arabs arrived in the 7th century CE and brought with them the religion of Islam, to which most of the local population converted. In 1219, Genghis Khan arrived with his army from Mongolia.

In Afghanistan, as everywhere else conquered by the Mongols, the land and the people were brutalized and devastated. While all these other conquerors came and went, the people of Afghanistan kept busy by fighting wars among themselves. They also launched attacks on neighbours.

The British set out to bring the country under their control in 1839. After 80 years of on-again, off-again warfare the British gave up trying to subdue the Afghans. The country, within its current boundaries, became independent for the first time in 1919.

Afghanistan was ruled by King Amanullah who tried to modernize the place. But, religious and tribal leaders were offended by the king's reforms. They revolted and Amanuilah fled to save his life in 1929. His successor was bumped off in 1933 and Muhammad Zahir Shah became king.

For the next four decades, Afghanistan experienced a unique period of stability. King Zahir Shah turned to the Soviet Union for economic and military aid. By the 1960s, he was ready to try bringing Afghanistan up to date with the rest of the world. He ushered in a modern democracy, with free elections, a parliament, civil rights, education for women, and a modern university. However, the changes were mostly limited to Kabul.

But, as before, these reforms put him at odds with the religious militants who opposed him. As well, the wrangling among the country's tribal factions remained.

In 1973, the king travelled to Italy for an eye operation and his cousin, Sardar Mohammed Daoud, saw his chance to pounce. He declared Afghanistan a republic, with himself as president in a bloodless coup. Five years later, it was Daoud's turn to be ousted in a coup. This one was not bloodless as Daoud and his entire family was murdered.

The new regime tried another modernization scheme. Once again, tribal and religious leaders objected and took up arms against the government. By late 1979, a civil war was raging across the country and this got the attention of the neighbouring Soviet Union. On Christmas Day, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sent a huge army into the country to settle down the unrest. Mr. Brezhnev discovered what scores of invaders before him had discovered: the people of Afghanistan don't like being invaded and they are very skilled at making life hell for those who try it.

More than 130,000 Afghans took up arms; they called themselves mujahideen. They got support from the civilian population, but more importantly, they got support from outside. China, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia provided weapons, money, and training to the mujahideen. But, the most generous aid came from the United States. The administrations of Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) and Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the war in Afghanistan.

With plenty of money and weapons Muslim fighters from all over the world were attracted to the struggle against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The French diplomat Olivier Roy estimates that after four years of war, there were at least 4,000 mujahideen bases. Most of these were connected to one of seven groups headquartered in Pakistan. Operating largely independently of one another these fighting units used hit-and-run tactics against the Soviet forces.

Officially, the Soviets lost 15,000 troops in Afghanistan, but some Western military analysts say the actual number of dead was three or four times higher. By 1989, the Soviets had had enough and withdrew. The military and financial cost of the defeat was one of the factors leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union two years later.

They left behind a country in chaos. About one million Afghan citizens were dead and five million were refugees. The country's economy was in tatters and the countryside was heavily sprinkled with anti-personnel mines. The support given to the mujahideen from outside dried up after the Soviet withdrawal. The destroyed country was left on its own.

The mujahideen groups continued to fight against the central government the Soviets had left behind them. In 1992, the mujahideen took the capital, Kabul, and the government fell. The main groups joined forces under a couple of warlords, Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek, and Ahmad Shah Massoud, a Tajik, and assumed control of the country. These two squeezed out the Pashtun, the ethnic group that traditionally held all the power in Afghanistan.

As you'd expect, the Pashtun weren't too thrilled about this so they started attacking Kabul. Eventually, the Pashtun fighters joined forces under the leadership of a group of Islamic religious students called the Taliban. They pledged to end the lawlessness into which the country had fallen and to introduce a very conservative form of Islamic government.

By September 1996, the Taliban controlled the western part of the country and then took the capital. They set up the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and started to bring stability to a country drained by almost 20 years of constant warfare.

The Taliban introduced an extreme form of Islamic law. Thieves had their hands cut off. Murderers were beheaded in public. All television, movies, music, and sports were banned. Women were ordered to wear the burqa, a complete head-to-toe coveting, in public. Men had to grow beards of a specific length.

This extreme form of Islam appealed to some, among them a very rich businessman from Saudi Arabia you may have heard of--Osama bin Laden. In 1996, he moved to Afghanistan and formed an alliance with the Taliban. This enabled him to set up training camps for his al-Qaeda terrorists.

Then came the 9/11 suicide attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. U.S. intelligence, sometimes faulty, was tight on the button with this one. They knew who had organized the attacks and where he was; it was Osama bin Laden and he was in Afghanis tan.

With deadly efficiency the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan, ousted the Taliban, and destroyed the al-Qaeda training camps. By December 2001 a new government was installed in Kabul, but Osama bin Laden had vanished into the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

This is where Canada enters the picture. In February 2002, 850 Canadian soldiers arrived in Kandahar and were integrated into the U.S. Army task force. Their job was to help root out remnants of the Taliban and any al-Qaeda terrorists who might be with them.

However, the Canadian government tried to downplay the guns and bullets aspect of the mission. Here's how the Department of Foreign Affairs described it:

"At the same time as Canada was working towards enhancing the security of the Afghan people, it was also responding to the immediate humanitarian needs of those affected by the conflict, including both internal refugees and displaced persons. In addition, Canada began work with the international community on longer term peacebuilding and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, including rebuilding governance structures."

Sally Armstrong sees it differently. A former special representative for Unicef, Ms. Armstrong has studied Afghanistan closely. In March 2006 she wrote: "The assumption that the international community invaded that country in 2001 to rescue the people is wrong. Coalition forces entered Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden and dismantle the Taliban. The cameras that followed happened to trip over burqa-clad women, the highest infant mortality rate in the world, the lowest life expectancy, and a human rights catastrophe. Consequently, in November of 2001, Canada and others agreed ... to repair Afghanistan's infrastructure, reform its judiciary, restore the rights of women and girls, and establish security."

For a while, all went well. An interim government was put in place (December 2001). A new constitution has been written and adopted (January 2004). A fair and open presidential election with high voting rates by both men and women was held (October 2004). A new national assembly has been elected (September 2005).

The country now has the beginnings of a national police force and a national army. Hundreds of schools have been opened and four million children are back in classrooms. More than three million refugees have returned home from camps in Pakistan.

The Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters had vanished. The optimists said they were defeated. The realists thought they might just be licking their wounds and reloading.

By the spring of 2006, Canada had about 2,300 troops in the country, based in the city of Kandahar. The men and women form what is called the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), a name that masks the true nature of their mission. They are in a war zone, they are taking casualues, and their presence in Afghanistan is not supported by all Canadians or by all Afghanis either.

They live inside their razor-wire protected camps and every patrol outside is fraught with danger. That's because the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters have come down from their mountain hideouts. They have been joined by drug traders and outright criminals. They all mingle with the general population making it impossible to identify the bad guys from the good guys. And, since the fall of 2005, the insurgents have ramped up their activity.

One of the most frequent threats Canadian troops face comes from improvised explosive devices, known to the military as IEDs. These are homemade bombs, usually hidden beside a road. When an army convoy goes by the IED is detonated. Our soldiers also have to face the possibility of suicide attacks from cars or trucks loaded with explosives. These are the hazards likely to be faced in the city of Kandahar; on patrols into the villages and rural areas there are added dangers.

Extreme religious leaders, drug dealers, and warlords still control large areas of the country. This is where events that Canadians find horrific occur on a regular basis. According to former Unicef envoy Sally Armstrong, girls' school are being burned by fundamentalists, girls as young as eight are being sold as child brides to settle tribal disputes. Ms. Armstrong wrote in March 2006 that in the past year alone 188 women have committed suicide by setting themselves on fire "to escape the intolerable conditions imposed on them by mullahs (religious leaders) and their own fathers."

A catalog of miseries puts Afghanistan at the top of the list of dreadful places to live:

* The World Food Program estimates that at least 6.5 million people out of a population of between 21 and 26 million are dependent on food aid, and there is a very real risk of famine;

* Poor living conditions and diet mean that Afghanistan has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world--just 44.5 years. A fifth of children die before they reach the age of five;

* Only 40 percent of Afghan children are vaccinated against major diseases, and just 25 percent of the population has access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. There is just one doctor per 6,000 people, and one nurse per 2,500 people;

* Between five and seven million landmines and large quantifies of unexploded weapons exist throughout the countryside. Up to 100 people are killed or wounded by these every month, the United Nations says.

For these reasons aid officials are warning the international community, not to expect a quick fix to Afghanistan's problems. They are saying it will take a generation.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. Canada is employing what it calls a three-D strategy in Afghanistan: defence, diplomacy, and development. Scan media reports of Canadian activity in Afghanistan and decide which category each fits into.

2. Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Atlantic Television in March 2006: 'The entire world signed on to this mission when, because of the former regime in Afghanistan, thousands of people were killed in New York City, including a couple of dozen Canadian citizens. They brought home to us how real the threat of terror is to our own country." However, Kare Nossal, a professor of political studies at Queen's University has a different take: "We are in Kandahar in large measure because the previous (Liberal) government wanted to find a way to improve our relations with U.S. President George W. Bush ... "Discuss.

3. For many years Canada has promoted the ideal of a "responsibility to protect" in its foreign policy. This is the notion that rich slates such as Canada have moral responsibility to help developing countries that are in trouble. A strong case can be made for Canada's involvement in Afghanistan based on this principle. But, the same applies to Sudan, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Haiti. Research these failing states and rank them along with Afghanistan in order of which Canada should be supporting.

DEFINITION

Mujahideen is an Arabic word meaning "struggler." The word is often used in the Western media to describe Islamic warriors who are not organized in a traditional military fashion. Depending on which side you are on they are called freedom fighters or terrorists.

DEFINITION

An insurgency is an organized rebellion aimed at overthrowing a constituted government through terrorism, sabotage, or armed conflict. Those who take part in this activity are not enlisted in regular national military units and are called insurgents.

FACT FILE

Military tacticians call what Canadian troops are doing in Afghanistan a "three-block war;" meaning that from one block to the next Canadian soldiers could be fighting terrorists, keeping civil order, or delivering aid.

FACT FILE

A public opinion poll in early March 2006 found a modest majority of Canadians (55 percent) in favour of the decision to send Canadian troops to Afghanistan. By May, 54 percent were opposed or strongly opposed to Canadian involvement, with 70 percent opposed in Quebec.

Websites

Afghanistan's Website--http://www.afghanistans. com/

CanadianAlly--http://www. canadianally.com/ca/news/ index-en.asp

Department of Foreign Affairs--http: //www.canada-afghanistan.gc.ca/menu-en. asp

RELATED ARTICLE: War criminals?

Canadians are obligated to hand over captured suspects to Afghan authorities. This is part of a pact signed by Canada's top soldier General Rick Hiltier in December 2005.

However, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission recently found that "torture continues to take place as a routine part of [Afghan] police procedures." This seems to be a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions on the humane treatment of prisoners.

Aside from the morality of handing prisoners over to known torturers, does this activity make Canadian soldiers open to prosecution as war criminals? Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, says it does. He told CBC's The Current that the agreement General Hillier signed could put Canadian soldiers on the wrong side of international and Canadian law.

When the Dutch were asked to agree to a similar deal they insisted on safeguards. Dutch officials have the fight to visit prisoners they hand over to Afghan authorities to ensure they are not being abused.

RELATED ARTICLE: Ethnic divisions.

Hamid Karzai is the President of Afghanistan, but in reality his authority does not extend much beyond the capital city of Kabul. That's because Afghanistan is not one country, but many. The south is dominated by Pashtun people who make up 42 percent of the country's total population. But this ethnic group is divided into many tribes, which are further split among clans and families. Even within family groups there might be hostilities. The other main ethnic groups are Tajiks (27 percent), Uzbeks (nine percent], and Hazaras (nine percent). Then there are scores of other smaller groups and few of them get along with each other in a cozy, neighbourly way.

President Karzai is said to be a man with huge political wisdom. However, according to The Christian Science Monitor, he "will need all the skills he can muster to hold together his fragile, war torn, and bankrupt homeland." He has to persuade his people to set aside centuries of traditional loyalties and to think of themselves as Afghanis first.

The country's new constitution creates a powerful presidency and defines Afghanistan as an Islamic republic, where men and women enjoy equal status before the law. That all looks good on paper, but as Jeffrey Simpson pointed out in The Globe and Mail in March 2006, Afghanistan "is essentially a post-medieval society, or rather collection of societies, with cultural habits and religious traditions that go back into the mists o Afghan time.

RELATED ARTICLE: Limits to rights.

Abdul Rahman has to consider himself a lucky man. In February 2006, he was arrested in Kabul because he owned a Bible; Mr. Rahman was born into the Muslim faith and had converted to Christianity. For the conservative Muslim clerics of Afghanistan that is a big no-no.

Abdul Rahman was hauled before the courts, where the prosecution demanded the death penalty for the man who turned his back on Islam. He fell into a legal trap because the Afghan Constitution recognizes both freedom of religion and Islamic sharia law. Under Islamic law someone who deserts the faith can be killed.

According to The Associated Press Islamic cleric Abdul Raoulf--described as a moderate--said the situation was, "Humiliating for Islam. Cut off his head."

When the case received international attention there was a storm of protest presenting President Hamid Karzai with a delicate problem. He had to persuade the Western governments that support him that the country was not as intolerant as it seemed. He also had to keep his Muslim clerics happy.

A compromise was found. Abdul Rahman was declared mentally unfit to stand trial. Then, he was quietly shipped off to Italy, which has given him asylum. Many Canadians expressed concern that some of our soldiers have died in Afghanistan trying to defend a country with laws that are so alien to our values.

RELATED ARTICLE: Narco-economy.

More than three million Afghans, mostly peasant farmers, are involved in the opium trade. Growing the poppies from which the raw material for opium comes is Afghanistan's largest industry; the country is the source of 90 percent of the world's supply. This gives the multinational security forces a problem.

Some of the money from the opium trade finances the insurgents as the Taliban has formed alliances with the drug dealers. However, if the crops are destroyed so is the livelihood of millions of Afghans. Angry peasants, deprived of their only source of income, will be likely to turn to the Taliban for help.