Harper’s Afghanistan Panel: Let’s Save Them the Bother of Visiting the Tim Hortons in Kandahar and Ghost Write their Report Now

It’s an old con in Canadian politics. The prime minister names a royal commission, inquiry or panel to write a report on a controversial public question. Then he picks a chair for the panel who agrees with him on the subject, along with panel members who are also on side.

That’s what Stephen Harper did last week when he announced the formation of a five-member panel to recommend a future role for Canada in Afghanistan at the expiration of the current military commitment which is due to expire in February 2009. Chosen to head the panel was Liberal John Manley, a former deputy prime minister. The naming of Manley gave the appearance of non-partisanship. But Manley’s stoutly hawkish views and his active promotion of the deep integration of Canada into an all encompassing North American Union made him a ludicrous choice to head any panel whose views could not be predicted in advance. Manley was co-chair of the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, a big business lobby effort to bind Canada to the U.S. economically, militarily, and in a joint security agenda. If Manley was any more pro-American he’d be an out and out annexationist. The other members named by Harper to the panel were: Derek Burney, former Canadian ambassador in Washington; broadcaster Pamela Wallin, who served as consul-general in New York; Paul Tellier, former clerk of the Privy Council; and Jake Epp, a former cabinet minister in the government of Brian Mulroney. (Wallin is the one member of this panel who is an independent thinker and may not go along with the others.) None of the members of the panel is an expert on Afghanistan, although Manley has visited the country twice.

We know what’s in store for the panel members. They’ll travel to Kabul, where they’ll stay in the Afghan capital’s more informal version of Baghdad’s Green Zone. They’ll be surrounded by soldiers and private security guards, and they’ll meet with members of the Karzai government. (Who knows the Karzai government members may even get briefing notes in advance from Ottawa!) If they want to, the panelists could actually chat with the Taliban’s unofficial representative in Kabul who has the run of the town, and who could let them in on how negotiations are going between the Karzai government and the insurgents. But they’re not likely to do that. They could also speak with university students in the capital who don’t share the misogynist and theocratic views of the Taliban, but who don’t want the West in their country either. I doubt if that will be on their agenda.

Then the panelists will fly to Kandahar, where they’ll watch a little ball hockey, and head over to Tim Hortons for a double-double. If they visit the bazaar in Kandahar, they will find a lot of people who insist that Hamid Karzai’s brother is a kingpin in the opium trade. They could, but are not likely to, chat with him about the problems of one of the world’s leading narco-states.

Then the panelists, in flack jackets, will likely travel to the countryside to see, first hand, evidence of Canadian aid to a local school or some other project. If they could get away from their handlers, they might talk to people in rural Afghanistan about how their quality of life has not been helped much by western aid, a lot of which flows into private pockets, in a country where the corruption involves Afghan authorities, and private western companies. Don’t count on that being in the itinerary.

After the tour, the panelists will come back home and will write their report.

We could save them the bother and ghost-write it for them now. It’s not much of a stretch to figure out what it’s going to say.