Graeme Smith’s
informative book The
Dogs are Eating them Now: Our War in
Afghanistan Knopf Canada, 2013, is
perhaps more shocking when the concerned
citizen in Canada during the middle
years of the war looks back having
finished reading the book.
Smith’s book
documents our worst fears and suspicions
about “our war in Afghanistan.”It
is a good read, competently written,
well assembled and interesting. Perhaps
the most interesting part is learning
how an isolated young Canadian reporter
sets about getting information and
insights in a very different and
increasingly inhospitable place. The
place obviously intrigued him and it may
well be that his interest in concern for
the world he entered touched those he
met and interviewed allowing. He
certainly seemed have a special touch
for pulling politically significant
insights out of his encounters.
Early on in his assignment, Smith
discovered after an informal discussion
with an Afghani that the Taliban leaders
had contact phone numbers in Pakistan.
The Pakistan link did not reach my
Canadian consciousness until some years
later. Then I recall sometime around
2007 Jack Layton, who was then leading
the NDP in Canada, suggested talking to
the Taliban. It turns out that this
would have been timely, but Layton was
blasted in the media as unpatriotic.
Layton may have gotten hold of some of
the information from Smith reaching the
Globe including damning confirmation of
torture by Afghan authorities of
prisoners handed to them by the Canadian
military. What about the book itself?
The introduction sets the tone and gives
some parameters. It begins declaring “we
lost the war.” The time covered by the
book begins with a 2005 troop surge and
ends in 2009, but it adds a reflective
account on a subsequent 2011 visit. The
focus is the south of Afghanistan. Each
chapter gives an account of Smith’s
experience around an event and location
by year. His experience opens in 2005
with his arrival in Kandahar. There was
already talk of 2002-2004 as the golden
years when freedoms increased. There was
ambiguity about whose interests were
being pushed in the South.
Chapter 2 describes how spring 2006
brought a surge of troops into Kandahar.
Smith describes his travel with a
Canadian convoy, witnessing the
aftermath of a car suicide bomber,
experiencing a sandstorm and asking
questions of the military about the
policy of paying for the destruction of
local farmer heroin crops. Smith notes
this angered the population far more
than anyone anticipated at the time.
Chapter 3 describes a more optimistic
moment for the military effort. Chapter
4 describes the “Medusa” military
campaign and the expulsion of a Taliban
force from bases and tunnels. Chapter 5
presents some reflective follow-on to
that campaign with questions and
analysis. Were those fighters the
military faced at Medusa Taliban or were
they disgruntled locals or were they
both? An interview with a local farmer
indicated that the locals were being
well treated by the Taliban and
indicated that the Afghan police
behaviour was much worse. Smith reports
his facts – he avoids putting too much
emphasis on his own conclusions. Medusa
was the biggest gathering of Taliban to
directly confront NATO and American
forces. “But nothing was resolved; this
was only the beginning of a bloodier
phase of the war.”
Chapter 6, Quietta, recounts meetings
with various Taliban in Afghanistan and
in Quietta, Pakistan. He reports on some
aspects of the Pakistan side of the
border with its political dynamism and
Taliban flags. Smith describes in
Chapter 7 the impact on him of a
break-in to the office he rented in
Downtown Kandahar. This
was a marker moment in the deteriorating
safety in Kandahar. He gives an account
of his attempt to find out which faction
did the break-in and why. He includes
his visit to the Iranian border and a
phone discussion there with some
intelligence service. He gives the
description of his daily routine which
he prepared and sent to his editor at
that time. After the break in and lack
of certainty of who was behind it, he
took to spending overnight in the
military base.
The somewhat longer Chapter 8 describes
his investigation into prisoners passed
over to the Afghan authorities and the
torture. His questioning of the Canadian
military was unsatisfactory and he notes
the usual pressure to maintain goodwill
in order to keep reporting. His editor
subsequently told him to find victims of
the Afghani treatment. He describes how
he negotiated a way of getting into
Sarpoza prison where he was able to
interview thirty men who had survived
earlier harsher captivity in holding
cells. He was able to determine that a
majority of those he interviewed had
been captured by Canadian troops. Smith
published only what he could
corroborate. There were not just stories
of torture, but accounts of extortion
and bribery. The impact of the published
accounts was considerable. Smith hopes
some marginal better treatment by Afghan
authorities might have resulted, but he
fears that some who helped him may have
paid a heavy price – perhaps with their
lives.
Chapter 9 describes renewed fighting in
spring 2007 and Smith’s trip out with
troops runs into an unexpected insurgent
offensive. Chapter 10 on the Karzai
regime begins describing the training of
Afghan police and ends with President
Karzai’s gathering in Kabul of all
Canadian journalists in Afghanistan.
Smith passes on several views of Karzai
he hears. He ends giving us a report on
a discussion in which the Karzai regime
is branded simply as corrupt. Chapter 11
has Smith talking about his experiences
with War Lords in the area – whom he got
to be acquainted with. But his chapter
also manages to convey the steady
deterioration of security in Kandahar
and the increasing presence of
insurgents in the surrounding areas.
It is early 2008 and Smith gives lessons
learned from the Taliban survey. He
marvels how truths about the Taliban
which he and others on the ground took
for granted were not widely understood
by generals and politicians: the war is
a family feud; air strikes pushed people
to join the insurgency; destroying poppy
fields makes things worse; Taliban
nationalism leaves room to negotiate.
Chapter 13 talks about jailbreak – or
rather several jail breaks – and
thoughtfully notes how these are
inevitable in a context where insurgents
abound and the Taliban can warn the
local population with little fear that
the authorities will hear from them.
Chapter 14 moves to Kabul, Fall 2008,
and describes the ex-pat scene. He also
describes the increased dangers and the
difficulties about supplies given roads
not fully controlled by the government.
By Chapter 15 we have reached early 2009
and Smith documents the smuggling, the
corruption and the poppy fields. As he
notes at the outset, it was a story that
forced him to leave the country for a
couple of years. Chapter 16 finds Smith
back in June 2011 following the death of
General Daud. He documents another
“surge” which he notes is a surge in
violence.
An “Afterword” in January 2013 finds
Smith returning to Afghanistan. He has
quit his job and signed on for a
research job with the International
Crisis Monitoring Group under Louise
Arbour. At best we are leaving behind an
on-going war, at worst a disaster.
