As one who has actually been to Afghanistan and seen how the military cares for and treats detainees, it’s a little difficult to swallow the news that the International Criminal Court could investigate Canada for so-called war crimes. I’m not sure what that would accomplish, but it certainly would do nothing to help with the main problem in the country: the insurgency.

I’m unsure as to how or why anybody believes that Canada’s role in Afghanistan is anything more than a humanitarian mission buttressed by security. We’re in the country to provide stabilization for the democratically elected (thought admittedly corrupt and fraudulent) government with whom we have specific agreements and rules we must follow.

In providing security to Afghans we are not allowed to hold Afghan nationals for more than 96 hours in our custody, though at the time of the allegations (pre-2007) this was 72 or 48 hours.

It doesn’t seem reasonable to me to expect a foreign military with finite resources to ensure absolute humanitarian oversight of detainees after they’ve been handed over to the Afghan government. That’s like expecting a police officer in Canada to ensure proper oversight of a prisoner he has arrested and brought to justice. Is a police officer morally culpable if a prisoner is raped in prison?

The answer in Afghanistan appears to be yes, but only if the arresting party knew that the prisoner would be likely to be exposed to harm. Well, in Canada we know that many prisoners are likely to be exposed to violence and rape in prison as a matter of routine consequence. So, again, who is responsible in a moral sense? The system allowing the rape and violence? Or the police officer doing his job?

Even worse, most Canadians are not aware that the charges facing us are based upon the 2005 agreement signed by Prime Minister Paul Martin and General Rick Hillier with the Afghan government, which did not include the sort of oversight that exists in the revamped 2007 agreement. The system now is very clean and involves oversight from third party humanitarian agencies, in particular the International Red Cross, who has said it presently has no issues with Canada or any other NATO member.

But what bothers me the most is we are seeing torture through a very narrow prism of self-interest. Canadians only seem to be interested in the kind of torture taking place in which Canada may have had an indirect hand, but not torture in the broader context and problem that it is in Central Asia. The facts remain and are borne out in many studies, that although torture is ubiquitous in Central Asia, it has been significantly reduced since the fall of the Taliban, and detainees captured by NATO enjoy perhaps the highest exemptions from mistreatment of any Afghan citizen.

According to a 2009 International Red Cross Survey, those Afghans who report having been tortured has dropped to 29 per cent from 43 per cent in 1999 during the Taliban rule. That one in three Afghans have still reported being tortured in some manner is disturbing, but it does provide a more contextual analysis than the cherry-picking of detainees who went through Canadian custody.

The Canadian military is also relatively savvy to what irks the population back home, which is why it now usually brings along ANA soldiers or ANP police who can take detainees directly into custody without ever having changed hands from Canadian to Afghan authority. In this manner, because Canadians are only interested in torture if it occurs to detainees who went through our control, our military can never be “complicit” in torture. Never mind if torture occurs independently of Canadian involvement.

What is more perverse than any of this is the fact that Canada would be investigated for third-party complicity in war crimes, when there’s a foe out there that has little qualms about murdering women and children indiscriminately. It’s difficult to bring to trial an insurgent army that has signed no international agreements and abides by no rules of international law.

There’s a reason why Canada has lost its appetite for humanitarian work in Afghanistan and it’s because we have focused so much on how well the Taliban have been treated in Afghan custody that we’ve lost sight of the bigger picture. Public morale has been sapped by such gross distortions of our work over there that at this point it makes little sense to try explaining or justifying it any more.

Our military has a job to do and it will continue to do it in the same professional manner it has since the beginning, until it is called back home. What the International Criminal Court rules is of little consequence to anyone.

I recently read a two-year-old article in The Walrus from a former journalism student at my own college, involving his trip to Afghanistan’s heavily fortified capital city, Kabul. Charles Montgomery describes the city in The Archipelago of Fear, suggesting giant military fortifications and barriers have generated a feeling of colonization and segregation between Afghans and the western aid workers who have come to help them.

In several passages that ring true to my own recent visit of Kabul, he describes the decadence and opulence of western fortresses built right beside gnawing Third World poverty and human filth. “The air is shit,” observes the author’s friend upon arriving in Kabul. It’s not an inaccurate pronouncement. Without wood for fuel, human and animal excrement is burned in great quantities, filling the air with invisible particulates that make breathing difficult.

The Canadian Embassy is housed inside the heart of the city, behind ISAF fortifications and AK-wielding police checkpoints who bar entry to all vehicles without diplomatic plates. Armour-plated cars ferry dignitaries and important business leaders accompanied by Close Protection Teams full of ex-military mercenaries whose job it is to open fire on Taliban ambushes. These vehicular excursions take place at random and secretly arranged times in order to avoid detection by the enemy. Upon my arrival in Kabul, our first briefing involved the discussion of a new magnetic IED placed under the chassis by beggar children who mob western cars stuck in rush hour. One such device had killed two policemen the day before. Police use long handles with mirrors on the end to check the bottom of each car as it passes through the multitude of security blockades.

Outside the embassy is filth, garbage and dust that swirls and covers the scant vegetation that has survived three decades of war. But inside are spacious gardens and flowers, fountains, grass and trees. A dazzling-blue pool sits outside the lounge, which offers a bar stocked with alcoholic beverages, a pool table, leather chairs and a large-screen television. The walls are adorned with autographed hockey sweaters of each Canadian team, folded neatly and presented from the front. It seemed extravagant in comparison to the dry and dusty barracks back in Kandahar, where soldiers were sweating under sixty-pound packs with body Kevlar, not sipping Coronas on air-conditioned leather.

As Montgomery wrote:

It was hard to believe we were in Afghanistan. And really, we weren’t. Kalashnikov-armed guards kept Afghans from approaching the compound gate unless they happened to be employed there as waiters, cleaners, or bartenders. A few years ago, one aid worker felt so comfortable, so fancy free inside the compound, she once opted to swim topless. She was ejected from the country.

And later he wrote “shame pushed me beyond the city’s fortified isles.” The word “shame” isn’t alien to me. At first I was frightened, and then excited about the idea of driving through Kandahar in an armoured vehicle. But as I passed row upon row of shanty dwelling made of corrugated galvanized iron scrap, housing small children without shoes or the slightest of possessions, I grew ashamed. My beard crept out from between the holes in my helmet’s chin strap, a token effort at cultural sensitivity wasted by being strapped into a five-point seat-belt situated behind six inches of IED-resistant steel plating. As we passed Afghans I could see them through the windows, gazing up in awe up at the gunner, this phalanx of wealthy western power needing to train .50 calibre bullets on bearded men car-pooling on tiny motorcycles.

It’s hard to believe I went to Afghanistan. And really, I didn’t. I never got to meet a single Afghan woman that the government hadn’t prearranged for us to meet. I never conversed with any Afghans, save for the desperate translators provided to us at the junior officer college who pleaded with me to ask my government to allow them to immigrate to Canada. And as Montgomery alluded to, the only other ones I met were the servants at Ambassador Bill Crosbie’s mansion, where I dined twice on what I can only speculate would be a King’s banquet for most people in the country.

It isn’t as though I have a right to complain about the situation. I didn’t show up and ask to be pampered. I was invited by the Department of Defence for a familiarization tour, presumably because of my profile in the National Post. As their guest I was subject to their choice of itinerary, under their control and command which included a preposterous level of security. And though I hated the fact I was segregated from Afghanistan, kept inside of military bases and compounds for almost the entirety of my trip, the truth is that it wouldn’t have been a very good idea to simply go for a walk in downtown Kabul either.

That’s the challenge that NATO faces in its battle to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan. As Don Rector, Human Terrain Team Director in Kandahar, told us in a briefing at Canadian HQ, “You can talk about winning hearts and minds, but how do you know what is in those hearts and in those minds unless you talk to the people?” And how can you talk to the people when there is this segregation between western agencies and forces in the country and the ordinary Afghans who are forced to detour around these palatial fortresses?

Perhaps counter-intuitively, these seemingly impervious compounds serve as a more enticing target for the Taliban. Worse still, though the mission in Afghanistan shouldn’t be compared to the Soviet occupation, similar mistakes have been made in setting up conspicuously intrusive bases in the heart of the capital city. It’s difficult not to feel occupied when your city is militarized into checkpoints with razor wire and sand bags. As Montgomery writes, the architectural impediments drive people to sympathy for the Taliban. One old man was quoted on a now-defunct website:

“What have these irreligious Christians come for that they write on their cars, ‘Don’t approach, keep away’?… If these bloody foreigners try to stay away from us, then for what reason have they come to our country?”

In one of the lighter moments of our trip, Andrew Potter noticed a car to our right as we meandered along in the dusk of Kabul’s chaotic traffic. On the rear window was stenciled, “My name is Khan, And I am not a terrorist.” As it turns out this was a Bollywood film, but as we sat in an armoured car hoping a suicide bomber wouldn’t descend upon us the irony was entirely appropriate.

The UFC Fight for the Troops 2 is on tomorrow on Rogers Sportsnet for free, live from Fort Hood, Texas at 9pm EST. Not only is it a good chance to watch Canadian MMA fighters (Tim Hague and Mark Hominick) but it’s a chance to give back to those who have given so much in service of Canada.

All donations during UFC Fight for the Troops go to educational scholarships for the children of fallen Canadian soldiers through the Canadian Hero Fund. This isn’t about the mission in Afghanistan or supporting war. It’s simply about recognizing the needs of military families. The Hero Fund is a charity that was created with a primary mission of providing post-secondary scholarships to the children and spouses of Canadian soldiers who have died.

The first UFC Fight for the Troops was held in 2008 and raised $4 million. This time, Canadian viewers can see special features throughout the broadcast in support of soldiers who served in Afghanistan, as well as the importance of the Hero Fund.

For those readers in British Columbia, I’d also like to share this opportunity to attend an event at UBC entitled “Canada’s Security: A Changing Enemy,” on Thursday, Jan. 27, from 4-6pm. All proceeds will also go directly to the Hero Fund. The speaker for the event will be Lt. Commander Rob Watt, head of training for ISAF.

The recent assassination attempt of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has shocked the North American continent like nothing since the terrorist attacks nearly a decade ago. And rightly so. That sort of prolific violence in America is usually relegated to the drug war or organized crime.

The reaction from media has been predictably voluminous. I don’t mean that in a cynical or disparaging way. The story hits on all points for news interest — timely, significant, proximal, prominent and human interest. The fact a nine-year-old victim was born on 9/11 was one of the more tragic aspects of the affair.

But nearly a world away, this sort of story happens far more frequently. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, political leaders, policemen and tribal elders are targeted and assassinated by the Taliban with little media fanfare in the west.

It’s important that I clarify this isn’t meant to be a scolding of western media’s coverage of Afghan mayhem, though it certainly has its share of shortcomings on that front. I merely want to put into perspective the scope of reality for which an Afghan citizen might consider normalcy.

The truth is that part of the reason it’s been difficult to really keep Afghanistan in the spotlight is that it fails some of the points for newsworthiness listed above. Afghanistan is as far from Canada as can be, taking three days travel by airplane, particularly if the jumping point is the Eastern United States.

Significance and prominence of such events tend to be fairly difficult to judge, given the frequency with which people are killed in Afghanistan. Sadly, a murdered government official over there isn’t very significant in this part of the world.

It’s also no small fact that Afghanistan is a war zone, so our expectation of such events are fairly routine. We’ve become accustomed to reading about large numbers of people being murdered on a daily basis without raising so much as a “what a shame.”

It doesn’t make us heartless. But it does explain why sustaining interest in Afghanistan has been so difficult. Could it be that if the country were as near as the United States that events would have as much resonance as the Arizona murders? It’s certainly plausible.

Though by now everybody is probably aware of a heretofore relatively obscure congresswoman, there are a lot of people who would have no idea who Salman Taseer is. If you’re one of those people, don’t feel bad. He was the Pakistani governor of Punjab, gunned down in a market in Islamabad on Jan. 4.

Canada’s large Sikh community has contributed to the increased awareness of this assassination, but news articles bearing mention of it pale in comparison to the Arizona shootings.

Though the definition of targeted assassination and random suicide bombing seem blurred in the violence of Afghanistan’s troubled southern provinces and Pakistan’s western frontier, the bloodshed has been significantly greater than anything we’re likely to see on this side of the world.

On Christmas day, a suicide bomber murdered 46 people in a United Nations food center in the Bajaur region of Pakistan. On Nov. 11 while people in the west were remembering the fallen of past wars, a truck bomb killed 18 and wounded hundreds in Karachi, Pakistan. Those are only a couple of what the military refers to as “spectaculars”, large explosions designed to maximize casualties and cow political leaders into acquiescing to extremist demands.

But a simple google search involving the terms “Afghanistan” or “Pakistan” and “bomb” reveals a near daily toll of Arizona-shooting-sized casualties.

It isn’t that we should weigh tragedy with artificial equality; proximity will always be the prism through which events affect us. But it does offer a clue as to our fatigue in the Afghan war.

I suppose I haven’t really spent any time to sit down and write what I’ve been doing for the past couple of months, although casual and regular readers will probably know I’m in journalism school.

I finished my first term back in early December, and since then I’ve been interning at the Langley Advance and Coquitlam Now newspapers. This hasn’t given me a lot of time to really write or respond to comments.

I also visited Afghanistan in late September, early October, and I never got a chance to really share more than a few thoughts and impressions of the trip. I did want to take this opportunity to thank those who helped me with that experience. I don’t want to embarrass anybody by calling out their full name, but I’m sure you’ll recognize yours when you see it.

Dave, thanks for helping me when you heard about my opportunity. Tony, I appreciate your ongoing attention to the mission in Afghanistan and supporting my visit there. John, you’ve helped me to get through some of the self-doubt and fears about tackling this new occupation. And thanks to Mark for the assistance and the phone call before leaving to Afghanistan. I also appreciated the advice from those who had already been there.

Finally, thanks to Roy and Fred who really stepped up and made the trip possible.

Anyway, back to the headline of this blog entry, my newest National Post article is rather related to the Afghan story.

While Canadians were concerned about jobs, health care and the lagging economy, the opposition parties were busy pressing the federal government on the subject of Afghan detainee documents, according to an Ottawa Citizen analysis of question period transcripts from 2010.

The analysis shows the opposition asked more about Afghanistan, specifically about detainees, than any other subject in 2010. Although the Liberals also hounded the Tories on questions about the G8 and G20 summits and Rahim Jaffer, the NDP and Bloc Quebecois were absolutely overflowing with questions about Afghanistan.

This flies in the face of what public opinion polls say are the true concerns of Canadians, which relate mainly to the economy. Read More »

…

It’s always fun to play soothsayer, and then look back and see how utterly wrong you were. I thought I’d compile a list of predictions for the new year, in no particular order, and see what comes of it.

1. MSM Election-Watch
Rife with endless speculation, but I don’t see the opposition parties pulling the trigger in 2011, which means the Harper government goes four years. Whenever the Liberals begin softening their stance, the NDP start voting against the government, and vice versa. Even if both begin voting against the government, the Bloc Quebecois will probably vote with the Conservatives just to keep the ball in their court.

2. Ignatieff stays as Liberal leader
We can expect the same-old same-old from the federal polling scene, as Michael Ignatieff continues to struggle as Liberal leader, and his party remains between three and five points back of the Conservative Party. I do believe Ignatieff will be ousted, however, following an election loss in 2012.

3. Detainees and dithering in Afghanistan
At some point the detainees spinning wheel will overshadow the mission in Afghanistan again, and will dominate the news even as the countdown to the end of our military mission there reaches zero. When Canada is left struggling to find a post-combat training mission in the country, the opposition will point their fingers at the government, even as they distracted it with the detainee bloviating.

4. Julian Assange self-aggrandizes, media lionizes
In desperation to keep in the spotlight, Assange releases files that slightly embarrass the United States. Meanwhile, public opinion shifts away from the self-promoter as the more neutral Open Leaks launches. Assange martyrs himself again by getting arrested.

5. More global cooling, blamed on global warming
Hurricanes, floods, droughts and fires will all be blamed on global warming, even as the temperatures dip for the third year and record cold and snow sweep across Europe. Desperate alarmists blame it on the “ice cube” effect, whereby they argue the world is temporarily cooling because the polar ice caps have melted large chunks of ice into the oceans, cooling the waters.

6. More dhimmitude, even after another large terrorist attack
A dramatic terrorist attack will take place outside of North America, but will be given only peripheral attention by the western liberals, who will continue to blame the problem on foreign occupation and a few bad apples.

7. Israel ups the ante against Iranian Nukes
With intelligence reports that Iran is on the verge of a breakthrough, Israel is forced to act covertly against Iran, sparking international condemnation for the preemptive strike. Hamas and Hezbollah respond by launching terrorist attacks on Israel, and the responding force is also condemned. A Canadian flotilla to Gaza is turned aside, but not boarded, by the IDF.

8. Pakistan gets worse
It becomes clear that Pakistan is now more deadly than Afghanistan or Iraq, as insurgents launch more terrorist attacks than anywhere else in the world. The Pakistani Army is forced to take action, resulting in insurgents fleeing across the border to hide in Afghanistan. Extremists gain a stronger foothold in surrounding “stans”.

9. United States economy rebounds, but nearly bankrupt
Obama’s $150-billion monthly deficits continue, sending public debt over $14 trillion. The economy rebounds but unemployment gets higher as there’s no money left to pay people to “stimulate”. The United States is forced to contend with an overextended military in multiple conflicts that have drained the treasury. Austerity requires unpopular measures that drive Obama’s approval rating below that of George W Bush’s low water mark. Expect protectionism and more insular policies.

10. The rise of Sarah Palin
The soccer mom populist poises herself to lead the Republicans to a shot at becoming the first female President, riding a cusp of Tea Partyism and anti-Obama sentiment. Liberal heads explode the world over.

11. The European Union cracks
As the European Union invites more Euro-value-dragging partners in from the former Eastern Bloc, this time the Balkan states, a large country (like Germany) throws in the towel and leaves the Euro to save itself.

12. The BC NDP blow it
With Gordon Campbell gone, the Liberals rebound and the BC NDP are unable to find a charismatic leader to take the reigns. Infighting results in fracturing the party among the baker’s dozen dissidents and the James loyalists. The HST survives the referendum.

Hockey Night in Canada star Don Cherry, right, signs heavy artillery during a Christmas Day visit to Canadian troops stationed at outposts in Kandahar, Afghanistan. (Steve Rennie/Canadian Press)

It comes as little surprise that the Toronto Star’s annual year-end darts and laurels take a few cheap shots while elevating others. Let’s look at a few:

Laurel: MUNIR SHEIKH: For integrity. The respected head of Statistics Canada resigned in protest over the census decision after Clement left the false impression that StatsCan agreed with the government’s decision.

Integrity? For what? Quitting a six-figure job during a recession over some ridiculous principle that people in a free society should be forced to hand over personal information to the government? How about a dart, for setting an example that when things don’t go your way, quit.

Dart: DON CHERRY: For lacking a sense of occasion. The hockey commentator used the platform he was given at the inaugural meeting of Toronto’s new city council to deliver an anti-“pinko” screed as tasteless as his jackets.

Dart for Don Cherry? Why, because he made a joke about Toronto’s pervasive socialist climate? Uh, gimme a break. First of all, when Rob Ford was elected there were more than a few people in Toronto calling it the second coming of Hitler. They called him a racist, a fat slob and an idiot. How about a dart for the complainers of Toronto for having so little respect for democratic will?

How about a laurel for Don Cherry, for being one of the few people who puts his money where his mouth is. For all of his promotion of our military in Afghanistan on Coaches Corner (something almost no other media personality will do), he wound up putting himself in harm’s way in Afghanistan to visit the troops. The same couldn’t be said for the Toronto Star’s editorial.

Laurel: PETER MILLIKEN: For affirming Parliament’s ancient rights. The Speaker of the House of Commons gave no ground in a showdown with the government over parliamentary access to secret Afghan detainee files.

Hm. About a dart for the opposition parties, for choosing to focus more on whether murderous barbarians have received an impossible standard of care instead of forcing the government to make a decision on the future of the mission in Afghanistan? Now the choice post-2011 training missions in safer places like Kabul have been snatched up by other countries. It’s 2005 all over again. Thanks to our dithering indigent “parliamentary rights”.

Laurel: JOHN FURLONG: For delivering. The head of the Vancouver Olympic organizing committee delivered an outstanding Games, notwithstanding bad weather and some bad luck in the early going. He also did it on budget.

Let’s not forget the boatload of taxpayer money. Furlong’s delivery notwithstanding, the Star can hardly be blamed for not caring about the Olympic Village boondoggle that is now the bane of Vancouver.

With all the brouhaha about the United Arab Emirates, I’m glad I got to see the city of Dubai before the country slapped visas on Canadians. Although I’m sure it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, I thought it was interesting to be able to see Muslim culture firsthand without actually having to wear body armour (I had just returned from Afghanistan).

The crazy thing about Dubai is that the humidity is on a level beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. And I grew up in Toronto. The place is just 36 degrees of intense humidity, day and night. There is no discernible change in temperature at any time.

Dubai is nothing but a city-shopping mall. Commerce is king, and no matter where you go you get harassed by street vendors running up trying to sell you their wares. Although it’s a novelty for one day, I can imagine it would be frustrating to live there.

Here are some of those unpublished pictures from that trip. All were taken October 6, 2010.

A shuttle bus drops people off from the al-Minhad airbase. It’s supposed to be hush-hush, but all the shops in the area know the Canadian soldiers come in to buy jewellery and fabrics.

These aren’t the iTunes you’re looking for.

Row upon row of shops line the streets of Dubai. The fashion clash between east and west is most apparent here with the tourists and the locals.

The latest fashions can be seen on display on the mannequins on the right.

Dubai is a contrast of extreme riches and extreme poverty. Air-conditioning companies must do well here.

Although some of the city is dirty and ugly, other parts are quite beautiful and colourful.

It’s not unusual to see traffic held up by men pushing carts, though there are no beasts of burden.

Some of the dresses on display are quite pretty and colourful.

It literally cost 30 cents to get on a barge to cross the river.

The night life is a completely different experience than the day, though the heat is the same.

Men having Chai tea at the waterfront after evening prayer.

Photo credit: Master Corporal Pierre Thériault, Canadian Forces Combat Camera

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan are up by 20 per cent from the first 10 months of 2010, compared with the same period in 2009, according to the United Nations. But here’s the important part:

The report concluded that the number of civilian casualties attributable to insurgents increased by 25 percent during the 10-month period. It said insurgent groups were responsible for killing or injuring 4,738 civilians during that period, while 742 were killed or wounded by Afghan and international troops – a drop of 18 percent.

In a statement Thursday on its Web site, the Taliban called the civilian casualty figures in the report “a propaganda stunt aimed at concealing American brutalities.”

U.S. airstrikes, long controversial in Afghanistan because of the high incidence of civilian casualties associated with them, were the leading cause of civilian deaths by NATO forces, the report said. At least 162 civilians were killed in airstrikes and 120 were wounded during the 10-month period.

These figures show the Taliban is responsible for 86.5 per cent of harm that comes to Afghan civilians. Significantly, the 742 casualties caused by NATO represented a drop, consistent with their strategy in 2010 to minimize collateral damages.

Part of the strategy of the insurgents, as I was told when I visited Afghanistan in September, is to stage “spectaculars”, which are large explosions causing heavy civilian casualties in order to cause fear and anger at the presence of foreign troops. These spectaculars, however, have had the opposite effect in generating sympathy for the Taliban.

Unfortunately, as the Afghan war reaches a crescendo during the surge, new statistics show that NATO casualties have reached a record high:

The number of NATO troops killed this year also reached a new high, according to a tally kept by the Web site icasualties.org. At least 705 international troops were killed here this year, far more than the 521 killed in 2009, the previous record.

The 101st Airborne, “Screaming Eagles”, for instance, lost 104 men in 2010, which is one less than the most lost in a single year since the Vietnam war.

Photo: Adrian MacNair, Oct. 2, 2010

When I first got invited to Afghanistan by the DND, I almost didn’t read the email. It was all in capital letters and marked urgent, the modus operandi of the Nigerian banker. After I opened it and read the contents, I almost wanted to pretend I didn’t read the email because the idea was terrifying.

I’d been writing about Afghanistan for a couple of years from the safe confines of my home, a veritable keyboard warrior who could come to no harm beyond the odd coffee spill. When I was actually presented with the opportunity to go and see the place for myself I felt like a barking dog who had suddenly had his leash broken — I stopped barking for a moment and turned around to see whether I could tie the leash back up.

My sense of foreboding was melodramatic. I envisioned bullets and bombs and harrowing moments of duck and cover. I literally had no idea what to expect and the DND wasn’t going to hold my hand and telling me there was absolutely no way I could be harmed.

The truth is that getting harmed was part of the risk of the invitation, and getting past that mental stumbling block was the hardest part of the decision. Only once I had come to peace with the idea of dying could I put it behind me and simply focus on the opportunity.

My fears, while entirely understandable, were disproportionately unfounded in relation to reality. Although Afghanistan is a dangerous place, the truest thing that can be said for reporters (and a little less so for soldiers) is that you’re statistically safe.

I had imagined this place where bullets and rockets flew overhead and the roads were strewn with IEDs. And I suppose that’s what a lot of Canadians probably imagine based on media reports and quick glimpses through the rare footage NATO doesn’t consider a breach of operational security.

The truth is that the military base of Kandahar Airfield is so vast that living there feels a lot like going to summer camp, only the perimeter fencing is kilometres away from the centre, and there are multiple perimeter fences. When we went out in the Cougar AFV, we had been driving for about 10 minutes when a soldier informed me we were still inside the wire.

The (perhaps false) sense of security one gets in KAF is so palpable that within a day my fears had ebbed away and been exchanged with a strong desire to do something that involved being on the other side of that wire. My previous morbidity had been supplanted by a need to get outside of the immediate safety of 40,000 armed soldiers and see what was going on.

DND had scheduled to have us flown in by helicopter to the forward operating base in Kandahar City, Camp Nathan Smith. As the logistical difficulties of securing a helicopter for a VIP tour shifted, we went from being told we were going to fly there in a Black Hawk to the choice of going in LAVs.

The number one killer of NATO forces, by far, has been improvised explosive devices buried under the road by Taliban fighters at three in the morning. The sudden opportunity to jump into an armoured vehicle and face that same risk as the soldiers brought me temporarily to that initial panic I felt when I first received the email from DND.

The panic lasted for a few brief moments and then I turned to the group and said I wanted to do it. One of the other journalists was also quick to sign on, while the other two were mulling it over. The Globe and Mail journalist would need permission from home, since he wasn’t initially authorized to do road travel outside KAF.

When we geared up for the trip, I felt nervous excitement. My military escorts grabbed ammo from the depot and loaded their weapons. When we met up with the convoy there were at least 20 soldiers who would be travelling to the FOB. It was then that I realized this whole squad was going to act as the protective team for the VIPs — us.

This was significantly different than being an embedded journalist observing soldiers going on missions. I didn’t want somebody to get hurt because they had to ferry a bunch of journalists to a powerpoint presentation in CNS. The very thought made me queasy.

But the moment that really changed my perspective on this trip took place while riding in the Cougar. The rear of the AFV was manned by a 23-year-old male soldier and a 20-year-old female reservist from Nova Scotia. She had joined the military at 16 and this was already her fourth year. A 20-year-old woman (with pigtails, when she took off her helmet) whose job was to kill anything that tried to attack this convoy. Her job.

I always felt like I could relate to the soldiers as a working class kind of guy, but I never really put myself in their shoes until that ride. All of the worrying and sleepless nights and fear over a four-day trip to Kandahar, and these kids are putting in six month tours. Some of the older ones are on their third and fourth tour, the most senior guys were even in Kabul in 2002.

The thing is, even though I know the soldiers respected the journalists for going outside the wire, it isn’t possible for us to understand what they do by living one day in their shoes. It isn’t possible to do parachute journalism, interview a few soldiers, ride in an armoured car and then fly back to Canada a week later. The embedded journalists — like Matthew Fisher, Louie Palu, Jake Wright — who actually stay for a while and get a sense of what it’s like are the ones experiencing the real Afghanistan. I saw but a shadow.

But what inspired me was seeing our professional soldiers, some as young as the 20-year-old in our convoy, carrying on inside the military bubble of operational procedure. Despite the bad press at home, the lack of interest from regular Canadians and the difficult working conditions, we have nearly 3,000 Canadian soldiers doing their jobs in an efficient and professional way. Day in and day out, until they’re finally called home.