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Hello from Kandahar

By Kevin Steel ⋅ May 22, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Stephen Harper in Kandahar

Photo credit: Kevin Steel

Here’s a pic of PM Harper getting off the plane in Kandahar. It’s not the best and I apologize for the quality. I was running about trying to get a good shot over the shoulders of the media pool cameras. There’ll be better ones coming in a few moments when my colleagues from CBC, CTV, CP, Globe, etc. manage to get their stuff in. They’re busy working around me in the media tent here at the base.

Mostly they’ll be reporting on the press conference we all attended in Kabul around 1 PM local time at the Afghan palace. There President Hamid Karzai and Harper, after meeting together for about an hour, came out to speak to the local and Canadian media. You’ve no doubt heard the news already because a few members of the Canadian media managed to file from the palace grounds, moments after the media embargo was lifted. No new policy announcements from the PM. We were given a progress report on development in this land torn up by 30 years of war and strife.

I’m not sure how it will all come out. We’ve been up and on the move since 2 AM—it’s now 7:30 PM local—and only moments ago we discovered the coffee in the mess tent. Analysis might be light. After the press conference, I asked one of my colleagues if he noticed much that was new because I didn’t. He said it was significant that Karzai sent his personal guarantee to the Canadian people that there was no torturing of prisoners in his country. Actually, he prefaced that remark by saying he there was some doubt about whether those who were making torture claims were even in the custody of Afghani authorities. He also pointed out that the whole purpose of his government is to eliminate tactics like torture, which have been used by previous Afghani governments to brutalize his people. The issue of torture seemed to be a big one among my colleagues and why not–if it bleeds, it leads, and in the 24 hour news cycle, even if it says it bleeds, it leads. But I must confess it is not that big a deal for me. Just about every terrorism expert will tell you that all terrorist operatives are all taught to claim torture. I don’t believe we should be dismissive of all torture claims, but a high degree of skepticism is in order when dealing with the enemy. As I pointed out in my story about Maher Arar, there are protocols established to investigate torture claims.

A couple of interesting side notes. Mid-day, before we went to the palace, we stopped at the Canadian embassy. Turns out the World Bank is right next door; I mean, right next door—they share a wall. As one embassy official put it, “We can just jump over the fence and go talk to them.” The UN and the IMF are across the street. The American embassy is a few blocks away. I found the proximity of the Canadian Embassy to these international bodies interesting, no doubt more than symbolic.

The other interesting note; an embassy official told me that suicide bombing is a morning phenomenon. It usually occurs between 8 AM and 10 AM, though there haven’t been very many lately. As we drove through Kabul in a motorcade of heavy bullet proof van (borrowed from the Americans, as were the drivers of these vans), the official and the media guys around me were speculating as to why. Probably because it’s a task you don’t want to be thinking about all day—“today I’m going to die.” That’s sounded plausible to me, but I didn’t say what I was thinking, what you no doubt are thinking now; here in Afghanistan we’re eight and a half hours ahead of North America. A morning bombing here will probably make the evening news back in Canada.

I’ll try to get a post in tomorrow. Right now I’m exhausted. Actually, I must commend the members of the Canadian media who go on these grueling junkets to bring you the news and pictures from abroad. It’s difficult work.