September 23, 2009 — Afghanistan Ambassador to the United States, Said T. Jawad speaks during Afghan Forum Luncheon (photo: Francesca Lanata)

Canadian Embassy in D.C. highlights Afghan mission

By Carl Mercer

Canada’s work in Afghanistan took centre stage in Washington this September when the Canadian Defence Liaison Staff at the Canadian Embassy hosted “A Forum on Afghanistan”.

Dozens of officials, diplomats, and media representatives descended on the embassy for an event designed to highlight Canadian and US challenges in Afghanistan.

During a session about hyper-realistic combat simulation, panellists presented extremely graphic pre-deployment training videos of IED blast and insurgent attack scenarios. In the videos, Afghan role-players and actual amputees with realistic fake blood served as severely injured civilians and soldiers, allowing troops to experience the devastating reality of what can happen on the ground.

The forum spotlighted the increasing concern over psychological injuries via a special panel on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dr. Sonya Norman, from the PTSD clinic in San Diego, maintained that psychological trauma is a normal human response to such experiences, as it poses the question, “What do you do with your view of the world after you’ve experienced something so terrible?”

By way of highlighting Canada’s whole-of-government approach in Afghanistan, two panel discussions focussed on Afghan reconstruction, specifically, the training of Afghan police forces and the work of provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs). Superintendent Paul Young, from the RCMP’s international peace operations branch, spoke about the amazing work of hundreds of Canadian police officers in zones of conflict such as Afghanistan. He noted that police training and capacity-building is complementary to the work of the CF, and what we will leave in Afghanistan will be a “strong and public-supported Afghan police force.”

Lucas Robinson, who recently returned from a posting with the Canadian International Development Agency in Kandahar, highlighted Canada’s signature projects – Canadians working to improve lives through reconstruction. It and social development constitute lengthy process, and Development Alternative International’s Karen Walsh indicated that “you need to slowly build success for them to see what it looks like. They need to own it, see it, smell it.”

One of the most-anticipated events of the forum was an Afghan-style luncheon with Afghanistan Ambassador to the U.S. Said T. Jawad. He reminded Canada and the US that their presence in Afghanistan is at the request of the Afghan people and government, and that both countries were given a mandate to protect. He thanked both countries for their costly support, saying, “It is dangerous to be in Afghanistan; it is more dangerous not to be there.”

At a time when the war in Afghanistan is being heavily debated by governments and defence officials in both Canada and the US, the forum provided an opportunity both to discuss and debate the challenges and to highlight the scope and probity of Canada–US partnership.