Monday, January 31, 2022

The War That Was Left Unfinished

 A video display panel shows images of the Afghan War, including a tank, seen here.


More vivid: this artifact. An IED was detonated beneath a G-Wagen in December 2005. It destroyed the front, but the driver and passengers were saved because of the vehicle's armour. The large sign in the background hung above a Canadian camp at Kandahar.


Here we have an example of the standard desert fatigue uniform of the Canadian military in Afghanistan.


I've always found this picture poignant: the interaction of a soldier and an Afghan child.


War: Canadian Soldiers In Afghanistan is painted vividly by Douglas Laing.


A photograph of a Chinook helicopter is seen here with its crew. 


A portion of its fuselage is preserved as an artifact with the distinctive art. A hockey reference, with a double meaning, as the Chinook can ferry equipment with two hooks on its belly.


The Museum's permanent galleries wind down with this display panel. Afghanistan was left unfinished, and the events of the last year have been discouraging: the very same pack of lunatics with a 6th century world view and a skewed interpretation of their own religion who were in power in 2001 have returned to power after the collapse of the country. What was it all for, if not to get rid of them?

30 comments:

  1. It started as a misguided retaliation for 911. Politicians felt they had to attack somebody!

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  2. wars just keep going on don't they?

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  3. War, to be continued? I hope not!
    Have a great day and a happy new week!!

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  4. The photo of the soldier and the child is very emotional. A touching piece.

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  5. La imagen del soldado y el niño, fue muy difundida por todo el mundo.

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  6. Canada was sensible enough to refuse to enter the Iraq war and we should have declined participation in Afghanistan too. Canadians died, it cost the country a fortune, and we handed the country back to the Taliban. Now, that's progress!

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  7. ...do wars ever come to an end?

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  8. Poor Afghanistan’s. I nderstand the country is in a bad way. Aside from the repression, i mean economically.

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  9. @Linda: one can do surgical strikes, to use a term. It wasn't thought out.

    @Amy: so it seems.

    @Italiafinlandia: indeed.

    @Francisco: thank you.

    @Eileen: thanks.

    @Gemel: it is.

    @Ventana: thanks.

    @David: Dubya and the Iraq War was a mistake from day one. I can understand Afghanistan, but it's frustrating to see the end result.

    @Tom: they merely change.

    @Jan: understandable.

    @anvilcloud: very much so.

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  10. I don’t understand why man hasn’t gotten past the need to kill each other.

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  11. We lost too many good people in Afghanistan.

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  12. I'm sorry that we were not able to help the Afghans more. The country fell so quickly into Taliban control. We, especially the Americans, had to be doing a lot wrong or not doing a lot that was too important not to tackle. Whatever, the end was just so very, very sad.

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  13. @Janey: it's in our nature.

    @Sharon: understandable.

    @Marie: we lost many.

    @rockinon: the Afghan people deserve better.

    @RedPat: so it seems.

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  14. And when it finished last summer, it was ugly. Not our finest hour.

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  15. Great post and photos ~ another war the USA should never have gotten into ~ sigh.

    Wishing you laughter in your days,

    A ShutterBug Explores,
    aka (A Creative Harbor)

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    1. It's all complicated, but a better country was not left behind.

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  16. Agree it had to end or not, the Afghanistan end was poorly done.

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  17. Our family has a long history from Afghanistan right back to World War 1. Thank you for these photos. We haven't been able to get to the museum yet to see the displays.

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