THE DOCUMENTARY THAT EVERY RESPONSIBLE CANADIAN NEEDS TO WATCH. NOW.
TV Guide, March 11, 2008
By Amber Dowling

Twenty-five-year-old Michael Yuki Hayakaze was a good listener. He took solace in children’s smiles and was known for cheering up co-workers on the grumpiest of days. Michael once lived in Japan and loved to travel. His thirst to learn and experience new things pushed him to pursue a career in the military. Last Thursday, Michael’s broken body was brought home to rest in front of thousands of Canadians. The 79th fallen soldier from the Afghanistan war fell victim to a roadside bomb as he was driving supplies to an Afghan army post, just five days before he was to go home.

Out of 39 countries fighting in this foreign country, Canada has one of the greatest fatality rates due to our dangerous location in Kandahar. This Thursday, a week after Michael was brought home to rest, Canadian politicians will gather to debate whether or not to extend Canada’s mission in Afghanistan to the year 2011, after an independent report by John Manley recommended refocusing the mission from combat to the training of local army and police.

In the event the mission is extended, 2011 will mark the 10-year anniversary of Canada’s participation in a war that we originally thought would be a “quick in, quick out” situation.

So why are Canadians apathetic to a monumental war that has no end in sight?

If there was one documentary that could tell us how this all came to be, or if Canadians were prepared to spare one hour of their busy schedules to invest in learning about one of the most historical events to ever touch this nation, tonight’s Revealed: The Path to War is the film that every responsible Canadian should watch.

Based on The Unexpected War, by Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang, The Path to War traces the string of small political decisions that landed us in the debate we’re in today.

Executive producer and 90th Parallel owner Gordon Henderson was interested in the book from the get-go. After hearing about it from his agent/lawyer, he bought the rights and started pitching the idea around. Having spent time in Afghanistan for previous films, he understood the significance of bringing this untold perspective to light. Unfortunately, convincing others was going to be the problem. “I was having trouble selling it,” he explains. “I think I was having trouble selling it because Afghanistan tends to be covered as news. There wasn’t a lot of interest in the idea.”

But Global National news anchor Kevin Newman, who has been covering this war for the past seven years and had also spent time in Afghanistan while Henderson was there, thought this might be just the project for the show Revealed, a group of documentaries that focuses on revealing new information about important events. “I thought [the book] contained a lot of reporting I hadn’t seen before,” Newman said. “If we could get access ahead of time to some of the people they had access to and the reporting they did and then build on that ourselves ...” And so Newman signed on as producer and narrator and the project began.

A simple timeline serves as the backbone for this film, but the meat comes from interviews with the major political players who made seemingly small decisions, incrementally leading up to a full-fledged war that was never officially declared.

Interviews with authors Stein and Lang intertwine with musings from leaders such as Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, who are as much responsible for our present situation as current Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Although Canadians may be aware of the day-to-day events of this war, few have looked at it from a broader, historical context.

“Because the Afghan war by and large hasn’t touched us individually, we don’t necessary understand that we’ve been at war for as long as we’ve been,” explains Newman. “What I was hoping the documentary would do, that at the end of it people would say, wow I’d forgotten all of that. The truth is that we’ve been living through another interesting period of history and may not have been recognizing it because it’s so far away and it’s been happening in incremental periods.”

The media is just as guilty as the politicians making decisions behind closed doors. Who could forget that monumental day when Chrétien announced Canada would not be going to war in Iraq? The thundering applause in the House of Commons that day was overwhelmingly positive.
And when Martin announced that Canada would not participate in the U.S.’s missile defense shield, balking at the idea of “Space Wars,” many Canadians were almost proud of our minority leader.

What was perhaps not so well-known was the fact that with a twice-damaged relationship with our friends to the south, there was little reason to reject sending troops to Kandahar, a mission that our PM knew for certain would cause Canadian casualties.

“Janice Stein says it pretty well in the film,” says Newman. “The Afghan war is a conflict of incremental steps that made sense at the time, but when you look back at it in a historical lens it’s led us into a place in Afghanistan that’s going to be hard to leave. And no one else is so far willing to take our place.”

Director Mike Sheerin, who also spent time in Afghanistan with Newman and Henderson, really wanted Canadians to understand that although these political events have shaped our future in Afghanistan, this is really about the Canadian people who are sacrificing their lives in this war.”

“You’re struck by the sense that in the decision made to send the Canadian troops to Afghanistan, politics did play a role in what was going on,” he says. “The thing I always take away is that there’s nothing more serious a country can do than to ask members of its armed forced to go to a area of the world where they will possibly, if not likely die. Those decisions must be made for the right reasons and it seems that they way we got to Afghanistan wasn’t always that way.”  

As a self-proclaimed supporter of our mission, Sheerin’s statement is not one to be taken lightly. But because an hour is simply not enough time to divulge all of the complex details, some focus needed to be taken. “What we focused on was the people who made such fateful decisions. They were political leaders, largely. In retrospect, how much do they feel they knew when they made the decision? And the answer is, they didn’t know as much as they would have liked to have known for sure.”

Even then, the documentary doesn’t take on a judgmental tone, or even make recommendations. It simply displays the events as they unfolded, and lets viewers decided for themselves. “The film does not judge whether we should be there or not,” shrugs Henderson. “It just shows, here’s the path to this war.”

“This path to war, there are two paths,” adds Sheerin. “There’s the political path that led us to Afghanistan, but there’s also the path the soldiers are marching on every day.”

The story of one of those soldiers, fallen Capt. Matthew Dawe, is one of the ways Sheerin added a human element to the film. “The Dawe family was generous enough with their time and with their emotions that I think that when you do watch the doc you are reminded of the fact that, ‘oh my God they’re talking about human beings here.’ It’s not just policy, it’s not just votes in the House of Commons.” Sheerin reinforces. “It’s about people’s lives. Even with a family like the Dawes, which is a seasoned military family, the father is a retired military man. Three brothers are military. And when one of them dies — there isn’t a family that’s more prepared on this earth for a casualty than a family like that — and it’s still devastating to them. It’s the only thing that the members of the armed forces would ask of their political leaders: to not send them places unless the reasons are absolutely true and well thought-out.”

With the parliamentary debate on the Manley report two days away, this documentary couldn’t come at a better time. “I hope that there is some discussion around the dinner table about whether [extending the mission] is the right thing to do,” Newman says. “We will probably have an opportunity to vote in the next year, and it’s important that we focus on it. People are sending their sons and daughters to these places. It’s at the point now that many Canadians either know somebody who has served in Afghanistan or has possibly died there. It is becoming a more personal war to many Canadians.”

In a country where celebrity culture arguably outweighs nationalistic pride and concern, where debate about the war in Iraq is more salacious than what’s going on in Afghanistan, and where the race for an American democratic leadership sparks more watercooler fodder than the upcoming parliamentary debate over whether or not to extend this mission, every Canadian owes it to themselves to watch The Path to War.

“Will a Canadian sit down and watch a political story of how we got into Afghanistan for an hour?” Sheerin muses. “I hope they do, but we’ll see what sort of celebrity show is on.”


TRACING THE ROOTS OF WAR
Kevin Newman's new documentary is a history lesson on the ground
National Post, Wednesday March 5, 2008
By Maria Kubacki

Early in, early out - that was the plan back in February 2002 when Jean Chretien's Liberal government sent Canadian troops to Afghanistan as part of an international coalition mandated to drive out the Taliban in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

It was supposed to be a short-term mission, but six years later, Canada is still mired in a messy war that's claimed the lives of 79 Canadian soldiers so far.

A new Global Television documentary examines how Canada ended up digging itself in deeper and deeper in Afghanistan.

Revealed: The Path to War airs March 11 in advance of a parliamentary vote on an extension of the mission that would see Canadian troops remain in the volatile province of Kandahar until 2011.

``I'm fascinated by trying to uncover how the decision was made,'' said Global National anchor Kevin Newman, who co-produced, co-wrote and narrated the film.

``It's not always about helping the people of Afghanistan.''

Some of the choices made along the way have been more about pleasing the Americans, the documentary suggests. Having decided against participating in the war in Iraq, Canada felt pressured to continue making a major contribution in Afghanistan.

``People ask why are we in Kandahar,'' said Newman. ``It has less, probably, to do with Afghanistan than it has to do with not going to Iraq.''
Based on the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize-winning book The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar by political scientist Janice Gross Stein and former defence department insider Eugene Lang, the documentary looks at Canada's involvement in Afghanistan from the inside.

It's a chronological account built around interviews with the politicians who made decisions on policy as the conflict developed - including former prime ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, as well as former defence ministers John McCallum and Bill Graham.

The documentary also suggests that our military leaders - especially the current chief of the defence staff, General Rick Hillier - saw Afghanistan as an opportunity to show the world that Canadian forces were capable not only of peacekeeping but of a combat role on the world stage.

Canada was compelled to participate in the initial Afghanistan mission once NATO invoked article 5, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. Beyond our responsibilities as a NATO member, there was also the need to show our loyalty to the U.S.

Still, Canada's part in the war in Afghanistan was never meant to be an open- ended contribution, notes Stein in the film. The original plan was ``Six months in, six months out, tidy, wrap a bow around the package.''

It's turned out to be anything but tidy as Canada's role grew to include leading the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul in 2003 and assuming responsibility for the provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar in 2005 - a combat zone where 2,500 Canadian troops are still deployed.

``This is the story of Canada going to war by incremental steps, without ever fully realizing it,'' says Stein in the documentary.

``We make a small little toe in the water, and then we pull out,'' said Newman. ``Then we go back a little longer, and then we pull out. . . Now we're about to go in the longest with the proviso that we're pulling out in 2011, but as the documentary sort of suggests, sometimes things change in the fullness of time and the 2011 date which seems permanent today may not end up being that at the end.''

Newman says the documentary was inspired in part by The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam's book about how a series of incremental decisions led to the protracted U.S. war in Vietnam.

``Not to say that this is Canada's Vietnam. However, the way that the conflict has progressed, there are similarities in the ways decisions are made that make sense at the moment perhaps but in the long run end up getting you deeper into something. We are now in a position where people are reluctant to come and replace us. We're there and it's difficult for us to leave.''

The current decision makers chose not to participate in the film, despite producers' best efforts to persuade key Tories, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to agree to interviews. Gen. Hillier was also approached.
``Nobody would agree to talk to us,'' said Newman.

The Liberals, on the other hand, were able to speak freely now that they're no longer in power.

Former defence minister John McCallum, in particular, is disarmingly frank, speaking openly about how Canada ended up being stuck with the unenviable job of trying to bring security to the increasingly dangerous province of Kandahar. ``We dithered, and so all the safe places were taken and we were left with Kandahar.''

Newman hopes the film will generate ``a lot of discussion'' in advance of the critical vote that could put more Canadians in harm's way.

``Mostly I hope people start to recognize that we're living through history. This is the kind of film that you might have seen, about a different war, in a classroom. But this is happening to us now.''


RETRACING CANADA'S PATH TO WAR
Ottawa Citizen, Saturday March 8, 2008
By Alex Strachan

The story of Canada's war in Afghanistan has been told before, but only in part.

Revealed: The Path to War, an ambitious, hour-long news program produced and narrated by Global National anchor Kevin Newman, lays out the entire narrative, as recounted by the political leaders and military officials who made the decisions - decisions that, in Newman's words, ``Canadians have died for.''

The program begins with the now-familiar images of hijacked passenger jets crashing into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, but it doesn't dwell. Jean Chretien, prime minister at the time, is shown delivering a post-9/11 eulogy to then-U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci - ``In the end, it is not the words of your enemies that you remember; it is the silence of your friends . . . there will be no silence from Canada'' - and former prime minister Paul Martin's assertion, in a one-on-one interview with Newman, that, ``We share more than just a continent'' with the U.S.

The Path to War provides a straight chronology of steadily escalating events, from the initial agreement in 2002 to a short-term combat role in Kandahar - ``early in and early out,'' in the jargon of the time - to 2003's traditional peacekeeping role in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, to the 2005 decision to commit more than 2,000 troops to a full combat role in Kandahar.

Path to War is more than a straight chronology, though. Newman sits down with a wide range of officials, including Chretien, Martin, former National Defence minister Bill Graham, former Veteran Affairs minister John McCallum, Martin aide Scott Reid and Cellucci himself. He gets them to confide what happened behind closed doors in the chambers of power.

How the key decisions were made, when, and more importantly, why, prove harder to pin down.

Path to War relied on veteran foreign affairs policy analyst Janice Gross Stein and former Defence chief of staff Eugene Lang's book The Unexpected War as a template. Stein and Lang provide frequent testimony throughout the program. That testimony is both illuminating and sobering.

``The problem,'' Stein cautions at the outset, ``is it's easy to get in, but not so easy to get out of a deployment.''

That's easy to say with the clarity of hindsight, but it's an important reminder just the same. Canadian forces have been posted to Bosnia for 15 years, Stein notes; no one anticipated at the time they would be there for so long.

The implication of Bosnia is plain, as Parliament wrestles with the dilemma about what to do in Afghanistan. If the Balkans warrant a 15-year commitment - and Kosovo is still a mess waiting to happen - how long should Canadian lives be on the line in Kandahar?

That is the real reason for Path to War. It's more than a straight history lesson. It sets the groundwork for the national debate: are Canadians prepared to sacrifice for a noble cause, and how long should the country remain committed to the mission if other countries in NATO are reluctant, unable or just plain unwilling to commit their own military forces to a faraway fight in a far-flung region of the world?

Rapidly unfolding events in Afghanistan frequently make it onto the nightly news. Instant satellite communications, 24-hour news channels and a virtual army of experts and foreign policy analysts eager to jump in with their opinions have created the disorienting effect of a faraway combat mission unfolding in real time, before our eyes, in our living rooms. Path to War tries to put those events in a larger context, and to the extent it succeeds, that alone makes it worth seeing.