Afghan Evacuation

 

There have been a number of articles in the press depicting an expectation that if we had started earlier with an evacuation effort, we could have got all of the people who expected to be evacuated by Canada out of Afghanistan successfully.  There are even others who say we should have evacuated all of these people when the Canadian Forces left the Afghan mission.  But the situation must be looked at more objectively.

Canada had aircraft in Kabul starting on 3 August.  Up until then, even the US had only been flying their own troops out of the country.  No one at that time suspected that the Taliban would move that quickly to take over the country.  Even the day before the Taliban approached Kabul, intelligence sources were reporting that the end would not come for 2 to 4 weeks.  It fell the next day, after the Canadian Forces had started flying people out. 

I challenge any of the critics of the airlift effort to plan and execute a mission of this importance at short notice (hours? days?).  Civilian aircraft could not be used.  Once things got chaotic, no airline would take the risk (not to mention their insurers).  It could only be the military who could plan and execute such a risky operation, which they did.  First find the planes, the C-17s of which we have four, of which three were probably operational at the time (the other in routine maintenance).  Make arrangements for the other missions those aircraft were scheduled for.  Then a staging country had to be found (in this case Qatar) and arrangements made for the necessary support on the ground.  Only then could the mission begin.  Conditions on the ground were acknowledged by all the be chaotic.  Finding slots for aircraft to land and take-off must be very difficult.  It is not as if an aircraft can just show up and be accepted with no notice.  The bombing outside the airport shows that things could and were getting more precarious. The other terrorist organizations also in Kabul such as IS-K, who are being blamed for that bombing, would have loved nothing more than to embarrass and terrify the west by bringing down one of the evacuation aircraft, preferably one full of refugees.  What would be the hue and cry if that aircraft was Canadian.  Once again, the government would have been condemned, probably from the same people who are critical of the current situation. 

The curtailment of Canadian evacuation flights on that Thursday was obviously made for sound reasons, as was the same decision made by almost all other countries taking part by that time. You have to trust the military personnel who are involved in this operation and are constantly monitoring the situation in Afghanistan. 

As for the argument that we should have carried out the evacuation when Canadian troops left, it belies reality.  The Afghan helpers had worked with Canadians to save THEIR country.  At the time, there was still a belief that the Taliban were and could be defeated.  Afghanistan was their home.  Under those circumstances, most of the helpers would probably have refused to be evacuated.  Those who would wish to leave the country had ample opportunity to make such overtures over the intervening years.

You have to put events such as these in the proper historical perspective.  From what I understand, no government has a crystal ball into the future.  Even the Americans were caught a bit off guard.