Navigating Canada’s legacy in Kandahar
Unwinnable Peace: Untold Stories of Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan
by Tim Martin
New Westminster: Tidewater Press, 2024
$24.95 / 9781990160349
Reviewed by Matthew Downey
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It has been over a decade since Canadian troops pulled out of Afghanistan, and four years since the United States withdrew completely, giving up the country to the Taliban they had been fighting since 2001. In the wake of that infamously chaotic capitulation, it is easy to ask whether the war, fought after the 9/11 attacks on New York City triggered the first and only invocation of NATO’s collective defence provisions (Article 5), was meaningless. That question is at the heart of Tim Martin’s memoir, Unwinnable Peace: Untold Stories of Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan. Martin, a veteran diplomat and the last serving Representative of Canada in Kandahar (RoCK), was at the centre of Canada’s political presence in the late Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. His term as RoCK oversaw the transfer of Canada’s duties in Kandahar to American forces, and accordingly this book carries a wealth of insight into the waning days of Canada’s longest war. At the same time, Martin’s political analysis is paired with a collection of stories related to both Canadian and Afghan people whom he came to know. In the midst of the tragic outcome of the war, these stories shine a light on the service that gave meaning to the mission while personifying the political realities of the war. The war may have been a strategic failure, embarrassing on the global stage, but Martin injects an infectious sense of pride into his descriptions of the efforts of Canadian forces. His depiction of Canadian honour is a much-needed presence in the record of such a drawn-out and ultimately unsuccessful conflict.
In writing about the personal and political challenges associated with his time in Kandahar, Martin does not shy away from the unsavoury aspects of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. There are glimpses into the toll a posting in Afghanistan took on diplomats’ relationships, giving context to Martin’s motivations for taking up such an uncomfortable role. While some might take such a high-profile role in a combat zone as an exciting adventure if not a strategically career advancing move, Martin notes his reluctance, only overtaken by a strict sense of duty. In touching on the personal strain between himself and his wife, Martin communicates early on that a basic level of sacrifice was unavoidable for those serving in any capacity. With the inference that much more extreme forms of loss would be experienced by many serving in Afghanistan, the reader is familiarized with the empathetic realism that permeates Martin’s recounting.
Martin’s method of framing his writing around the introduction of different personal encounters is an effective way to relate the reader with the Afghan mission. Each individual’s story represents a different address to those readers sceptical of the war’s meaning. For instance, there is the case of Jenny Hill, the economic development lead from the hippie haven of Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. Hardly the sort of person one would expect in a combat zone, Hill’s representation in Martin’s writing is as one of many examples of how Canada was not in Afghanistan simply to wage a war. Indeed, the lofty goals of social, economic, and political development in Afghanistan are embodied in the people who Martin describes – to Martin these are not the personnel of a military occupation, but a team driven by idealistic goals of improvement. The civilian-military synergy of Canada’s efforts in Afghanistan displays a genuine attempt to work with the Afghan people – something seemingly impossible amid a guerilla war.
The Afghan people who served with Canada, or for the burgeoning democratic regime, are well and respectively represented in Martin’s anecdotal narratives. Toor Wesa, a UBC-educated agricultural specialist who was Governor of Kandahar during Martin’s service, is one of the figures who represented the hopeful possibilities of the new Afghanistan. Much respect is garnered through his ability to walk the line between entrenched Afghan cultural assumptions and the democratic values of the Western-allied regime. Likewise, the story of Maryam Sahar, Canada’s only female interpreter – only 17 years old in 2011 – is a powerful reminder of the value of the social change attempted by Canadian forces. Born and raised under Taliban rule, Maryam’s childhood was coloured by casual oppression and underlying violence, featuring the periodical interjection of public stonings held at the football stadium near her family home. The oppressed situation of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban is well-known to most, and the issue underlies Martin’s description of Afghan society. However, the above examples are utilized to show how social change was not simply imposed from above by Western forces – there were many Afghan people who yearned for democratic rights to the degree that it inspired them to courageously risk their own lives and those of their families.
While taking an admiring tone towards his fellow Canadians and Afghanis who served in Kandahar, Martin is upfront about the distasteful political realities in his mission. While simultaneously engaging in optimistic projects of infrastructural development and democratic advancement, the RoCK’s responsibilities inevitably involved associating with figures who fomented and profited off the corruption and violence that weakened the burgeoning Afghan Republic at its core. While there were many inspired Afghan leaders who were motivated to institute real progressive change within a new state, many of the powerbrokers with actual influence were in fact the warlords overseeing the engrained power hierarchies of Afghan society. These figures include the powerful warlord Ahmed Wali Karzai, referred to by the acronym AWK, who utilized his experience as a Chicago-based restaurateur in order to culturally relate to Western diplomats whilst straddling ancient tribal power structures. Though friendly and diplomatic in meetings, Martin notes AWK’s status as a known drug trafficker. Following a description of a meeting with AWK in which assurances of a fair and free election are discussed, Martin comes to a cynical realization that Afghan society valued Canada’s association with established power structures, embodied by AWK, more than its high-minded ambitions of democratic development. While hardly negating those honourable intentions, it demonstrates the seemingly contradictory behaviour associated with the attempt to realize them.
The strength of Martin’s book, and its value as an analysis of the Canadian experience in Afghanistan, is in the way that he personifies the political experience of the Afghan war through his anecdotes. There is a point where he elucidates the three circles of power in Afghanistan – the first being the local power brokers and warlords, the second being the government of the democratic regime, and the third being the international forces. Through his descriptions of his colleagues, the politicians he liaises with, and the warlords he must bargain with, Martin gives the reader a clear look at the persons making up each circle of power. This character-driven approach gives an empathetic and illuminating analysis of what went wrong in Afghanistan – honouring the intentions, acknowledging the value, and inspecting the defeats. There were some seemingly unreconcilable cultural differences – some hurdles that could not be jumped – that were exacerbated by the lacking democratic political culture and the expectations of an eventual end date to Canada’s limited mission. There were sensitivities associated with the imperialistic appearances of the United States’ occupation – Martin notes the crisis of trust that developed out of an American pastor publicly burning the Quran. At the same time, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks that were the catalyst for the NATO toppling of the Taliban, reduced the urgency for democracy-building in Afghanistan and made the justifications for a continuing NATO presence more ambiguous. Looking back from a future in which the Taliban once again rule, and in which the legacy of the two decades NATO spent in Afghanistan is denigrated by politicians and online influencers alike, that ambiguity is even more potent. However, to Martin, the actions of the Canadian military – as J.L Granatstein called it, ‘the best little army in the world’ – in Afghanistan represented something different in the long and ancient history of foreign conflicts in that country. His contribution to the historical record shows how Canadians, motivated by duty rather than power, by responsibility rather than conquest, attempted to develop the ‘graveyard of empires’ into a peaceful democracy. To Martin, that those efforts failed should not denigrate the value of each individual effort.
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Matthew Vernon Downey is an independent writer and researcher based out of Victoria, B.C.. He has degrees from UVic (BA hons) and the London School of Economics (MSc). [Editor’s note: Matthew Downey has also reviewed books by M. Wylie Blanchet, Jonathan Manthorpe, Robert Amos, Alan R. Warren, Gregor Craigie, and Robert Crossland for The British Columbia Review. He has also contributed an essay on the subject of Amor de Cosmos.]
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The British Columbia Review
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Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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