After 9/11, Canada’s military stepped into the global fight on terror as it headed for war in Afghanistan

After 9/11, Canada’s military stepped into the global fight on terror as it headed for war in Afghanistan KYLE DUGGAN OTTAWA THE CANADIAN PRESS PUBLISHED 55 MINUTES AGO Open this photo in gallery: Comrades of fallen Canadian Sgt. Martin Goudreault line up before his casket is carried onto a plane during a ramp ceremony at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, June, 2010. ANJA NIEDRINGHAUS/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER Listen to this article Learn more about audio Log in or create a free account to listen to this article. A quarter of a century ago, the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, forced Canadians to quickly wake up to a world that had changed overnight – and to confront a new war which would change everything for Canada’s military. The Afghanistan war, Canada’s longest armed conflict, taught harsh lessons – some that Canada learned, others it did not. Soon after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, Canada stepped out of the quiet decade after the Cold War into the global fight on terror, and soon found itself at war with a Taliban insurgency halfway around the world. “Who would have dreamt the day before that, Canadian troops in their thousands would be serving in Afghanistan – Afghanistan, for God’s sake, of all places. It was a dramatic change,” said retired general Rick Hillier, who led a multinational force of NATO nations in Kabul and would become Canada’s best-known chief of defence staff. “It was a shift in our understanding of how the world functioned. We no longer operated, if you will, as a country isolated from all that upheaval and turmoil and hatred and violence.” Canada’s ambassador to NATO moved for the alliance to, for the first time ever, invoke Article Five – the clause in the NATO treaty that says an attack on one member country constitutes an attack on all. Canada went to war with its allies to support the United States and overthrow the Taliban regime which was harbouring the terror group led by Osama bin Laden that was behind the 9/11 attacks. That alliance spirit is harder to detect today, with Canada’s relationship with the U.S. tanking over a trade war and President Donald Trump threatening to tear up the NATO alliance and pull more troops out of Europe. Open this photo in gallery: An Afghan boy on a donkey passes a Canadian ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) soldier on patrol in a small village of Char Asyab on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, October, 2003. RICHARD…