This groundbreaking exhibition presents Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan. From 9/11 to the evening news, discover personal stories drawn from the chaos of battle and the struggle for peace. This exhibition provides a glimpse of Canada's involvement in the "war on terror," and in helping to rebuild a country shattered by years of war.

The exhibition features a number of important artifacts to convey the human experience of the current struggle. These include wreckage from a Canadian military vehicle destroyed by a roadside bomb, a piece of aircraft wreckage from the World Trade Centre terrorist bombing, and material from the Afghan national elections.

An exhibition developed by the Canadian War Museum,
featuring the images of Stephen Thorne and Garth Pritchard.

AFGHANISTAN: A GLIMPSE OF WAR

The ongoing war in Afghanistan is the largest and among the most significant and dangerous combat operations undertaken by Canada since the Korean War. In October 2001, the Canadian government decided to join a United States-led multinational coalition to overthrow the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which had sheltered and supported Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda terrorist organization that planned and carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks.

After the fall of the Taliban, the Canadian mission in Afghanistan shifted to providing security and support for Afghanistan’s new government through the United Nations-mandated, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Canada has assisted the Afghan government to rebuild Afghanistan’s system of government, education, and security forces. Canada’s commitment to send soldiers to Kandahar in 2005, paired with a renewed Taliban insurgency, has led to heavy fighting and Canadian casualties.

© Photo - Stephen Thorne/Canadian Press

This exhibition provides a glimpse at the unfinished history of this conflict as interpreted by those who have lived it. The exhibition centres on the photographs and film of Canadian journalists Stephen Thorne and Garth Pritchard, who accompanied Canadian soldiers in the field on several visits to Afghanistan from 2002 to 2005. They recorded deeply moving personal stories, from combat operations to the struggle to rebuild Afghanistan, and the difficult, dangerous conditions facing Canadian soldiers and Afghans in Kabul and Kandahar.

These compelling stories speak to the human experience of war, and are accompanied by a selection of powerful and personal artifacts, including a fragment from one of the aircraft used to attack the World Trade Center in New York City, textbooks recovered from a school burned by the Taliban, a ballot from Afghanistan’s 2004 presidential election, and a Canadian military vehicle destroyed by an improvised explosive device that wounded three Canadians in December 2005.

The material displayed in this exhibition is at once Canadian and international, foreign and local, civilian and military. While the complete history of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan cannot yet be told, the glimpses of war selected for this exhibition reveal visual accounts of how Canada’s decision to go to Afghanistan in 2001 have affected both countries, Canadians and Afghans, over the past five years.