The categorizing as people as a relgion and nothing more is dehumanizing and unhelpful. They have political movements in Afghanistan, they have schools of thought, they have culture, they aren't just "Islam".
But there is a human side to religion too. Just to take the simplest of examples. THough I do not profess the Muslim Faith, I've often had very warm conversations with complete strangers simply because I was familiar with their Muslim religion. I've read the Qur'an I don't know how many times. So even though I don't profess the Muslim Faith myself, and even though I was honest about that with them, the simple fact that I knew their religion broght us closer as friends very quickly even before we knew each others' names. Now compare that to an invading armed force whose soldiers know dick all of the local religion. Has the average Canadian soldier even bothered to crack the binder of a Qur'an open, let alone read it? At least soldiers from neighbouring states are likley to be more familiar with it, thus building a bond with the locals. Again, they don't need to be Muslim, but they should be familiar with it. Canadian soldiers, perhaps with some exceptions aside, are likely relatively clueless about it, and so can cause offense in their actions without even being aware of why.
Now I'd say language is even more important. Even if he's unfamiliar with the local religion, he can at least communicate with the locals to find out why they're reacting a certain way to him, so that he can correct himself. Most Canadian soldiers are simply not qualified to function in that environment as an occupation force. As a support force, sure, but certainly not on the front lines. Imagine, would you hire a person who can't speak a word of English to flip burgers at a McDonald's in Ottawa? You'd certainly deem him unqualified for the job. So how can we expec the same incompetence of a man wielding an automatic weapon with orders to shoot people in a foreing country? Don't you think our standards are a little skewed. I'd think we should expect an at least equal standard of communicative ability among soldiers as we'd expect of a worker at McDonald's... or am I missing something here? What is it, if you have a rifle in hand, you needn't be able to communicate to solve problems because you can solve it quite easily in a single shot anyway?
