Afghanistan: Why we should be there (or not), how to conduct the mission (or not) & when to leave

[MarkOttawa]

A post at The Torch:

Why I say "no" to Byers
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-say-no-to-byers.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Okay, why are we piling on TacW?  Sure, there is a bit of naive in there, but I would like to think that helping people isn't TOTALLY out of the realm of possibility? 
Perhaps our cynicism filters are getting a bit clogged.

 

[TacticalW]

Yes, sorry for the typo. I'm well aware that we went in for reasons other than for the cause of the citizens and that we are there because we had obligations with NATO, but what we're "doing there now" is the right thing. To stop it, would be a damn fine crime and especially with no one being able to replace us as of yet. Right now we have small progress, but we have "some" progress. It'll take some more years for the ANA to be a big enough force to take care of itself and as for all of the details and stability - that'll take even longer let alone putting standards up to what people have in strong developed countries. But hey, progress is being done and this kind of war has been won and been succesfull before - so of course it is possible with plenty of effort.

I may have had a few beers before I made that post but yeah, admittedly we "didn't" come there for the best of reasons and yes our history with foreign affairs often-times wasn't pretty but of course now, us being there is the what's best for the Afghan people and leaving would have disastrous consequences for everyone.

Well anyways, you know my opinion and why. Well, I'm hoping we take a more aggressive stance when it comes to some of the situations certain countries find themselves in. At least now our military capabilities are better and we in fact "have" the resources to be more involved. There's plenty of disappointment to go around, but I'm hoping for a change of habit when it comes to our decisions when countries in need of help are involved.

 

[a_majoor]

Helping the Afghans is part of the "3D" strategy, and certainly required to prevent the Taliban and AQ fron re establishing themselves, regardless of what initially impelled us into Afghanistan in the first place.


http://cjunk.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-to-fix-city.html

How to Fix a City

... in Afghanistan:

    Khost province is one of the few bright spots in a country increasingly plagued by suicide bombings, insurgent attacks, lagging redevelopment and a lack of faith in the Afghan government’s ability to lead.

    Conventional wisdom says that if something is working in Afghanistan, it shouldn’t be here. A case could be made that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have roots in Khost province: This is one of the places where the hijackers who crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon trained.

    As recently as two years ago, the province’s main city — Khost — was a dreary place with crumbling Soviet-era concrete office buildings, garbage-strewn streets and only a few paved roads. The smell of raw sewage hung in the air.

    Last year, Khost was plagued by suicide bombers and attacks by insurgents. Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters were constantly in the province, slipping easily in and out of neighboring Pakistan.

    [...]

    At night, Adams likes to sit on the roof of his headquarters smoking a cigar and listening to James Taylor on his iPod. He can see the city only a few miles away, down a newly paved road that will be clogged with people headed to jobs or school in the morning.

    The improvements are readily apparent. But he worries.

    “Khost is fragile,” he warns. “We’ve improved this place in six months, but don’t think that can’t change.”

    Khost may be a glimpse of the best the U.S. and its allies can hope for in Afghanistan. The province is more peaceful than those around it. American money is producing real results that make people’s lives better. But the threat of the Taliban isn’t over, and it is doubtful that the Afghan forces are ready to keep the peace if the U.S. soldiers leave.

    “It is Afghanistan,” Custer said. “But we are going to hand off Khost a lot better than we received it.”

    A simple ride into the city illustrates his point. Two years ago, the chief thing a traveler noticed along the main road in Khost was the garbage that lined it. The trash is gone. In its place are newly planted saplings.

    Cities without hope don’t waste money on trees.

 

[Edward Campbell]

A post at The Torch:

Why I say "no" to Byers
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-say-no-to-byers.html

Mark
Ottawa

Henry Kissinger famously asked if we understood why academic disputes are so bitter. The answer he said is because the stakes are so low.

Here is a rare public glimpse of the bitter debate amongst academics – specifically the esteemed Prof. Byers:

(Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Ottawa Citizen.)
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/letters/story.html?id=a8229693-6a9c-4571-b1fb-07ad6b103c8d

Low standards

The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Monday, December 17, 2007

Re: Why I said no to Manley,
Dec. 13.

Wow. That was close. John Manley and his colleagues on the Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan must have breathed a sigh of relief when Michael Byers declined their invitation to brief them on his views. I certainly would have found it hard to spend a half hour listening to the views of such a smug academic.

I was aware that Mr. Byers had low standards of argumentation, but I was unaware that they needed to be road-tested in so public a way as to slander five of Canada's leading citizens. I can understand why he might not want to share his tender regard for Canada's sensitivities with such solidly credentialed and experienced public servants. There is no way they would have been able to appreciate the workings of so subtle and fine a mind.

Michael Hart, Ottawa
Simon Reisman chair in trade policy
Norman Paterson School of International Affairs
Carleton University

© The Ottawa Citizen 2007​

Link to Michael Hart:  http://www.carleton.ca/ctpl/about/people_hart.html

Link to Michael Byers: http://www.ligi.ubc.ca/?p2=/modules/liu/profiles/profile.jsp&id=8

 

[MarkOttawa]

E.R. Campbell: Thanks for putting up Prof. Hart's letter.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

US reviews Afstan policy--looks like the country is starting to get the high-level (and US media) attention it needs:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/16/AR2007121601823_2.html

With violence on the decline in Iraq but on the upswing in Afghanistan, President Bush is facing new pressure from the U.S. military to accelerate a troop drawdown in Iraq and bulk up force levels in Afghanistan, according to senior U.S. officials.

Administration officials said the White House could start to debate the future of the American military commitment in both Iraq and Afghanistan as early as next month. Some Pentagon officials are urging a further drawdown of forces in Iraq beyond that envisioned by the White House, which is set to reduce the number of combat brigades from 20 to 15 by the end of next summer. At the same time, commanders in Afghanistan are looking for several additional battalions, helicopters and other resources to confront a resurgent Taliban movement.

Bush's decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan could heavily influence his ability to pass on to his successor stable situations in both countries, an objective his advisers describe as one of the president's paramount goals for his final year in office. They say Bush will listen closely to his military commanders on the ground before making any decisions on troops but is unlikely to do anything he believes could jeopardize recent, hard-won security improvements in Iraq.

Administration officials say the White House has become more concerned in recent months about the situation in Afghanistan, where grinding poverty, rampant corruption, poor infrastructure and the growing challenge from the Taliban are hindering U.S. stabilization efforts. Senior administration officials now believe Afghanistan may pose a greater longer-term challenge than Iraq [!?!]...

Administration officials said the White House is considering a range of steps to stem the erosion, including the appointment of a leading international political figure to try to better coordinate efforts in Afghanistan. European newspapers have focused on Paddy Ashdown, a British politician and envoy, but a former senior military officer said his appointment would be considered controversial and seems unlikely.

Bush also plans to step up his personal diplomacy with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and will soon start regular videoconferences with him aimed at more closely monitoring and influencing the situation there, officials said. Bush has long held such videoconferences with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki...

U.S. Army Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, is asking for an additional three battalions of troops from NATO countries -- the equivalent of another brigade combat team -- but colleagues believe that would not be enough. U.S. officials are doubtful that allies will provide all the requested troops, and predict Bush will be faced with a request for even more U.S. troops, possibly after attending a NATO summit in April in Bucharest, Romania.

The United States has about 26,000 troops in Afghanistan. NATO provides most of the additional 28,000 foreign troops in the country. Among NATO-led forces, Britain, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia have assumed the heaviest part of the combat burden alongside U.S. troops...

U.S. officials said Bush may also consider revamping the current military structure in Afghanistan, which has McNeill serving alongside a four-star NATO commander. Restrictions by NATO members on how their troops can be used -- Germany, for instance, limits where its forces can be deployed -- have made it difficult to mount a coherent response to the Taliban resurgence. U.S. forces, which have been largely confined to a small part of the country in the east, have little presence in the south, where much of the insurgency has taken hold...

Meanwhile William Arkin has another provocative piece on the role of air power in Afstan, with lots of statistics and this interesting paragraph:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/12/in_afghanistan_its_about_air_p.html?nav=rss_blog

As A-10 and F-15E air strikes have increased, U.S. forces have undertaken a variety of innovative efforts to reduce collateral damage and civilian casualties. Three less destructive weapons are now regularly being employed by U.S. forces: a new 250-lb. "small diameter bomb," the smallest bomb in the U.S. arsenal in the last three decades; a cleverly designed 500-lb. precision bomb; and a concrete-filled bomb -- called a 500-lb. "rock" -- that does not explode but can destroy structures. Pilots have also learned a variety of techniques for attacks around villages and urban areas, including ways to "fuse" the bombs to detonate inside structures to reduce the radius of blast.

Though I don't think I can agree with his conclusion; someone (the Afghans themselves) has to provide local security once territory is cleared:

In short, the war in Afghanistan has largely returned to its 2001 origins, when a combination of special operations forces on the ground calling in air power quickly defeated the Taliban armies. This doesn't mean ground forces are less important; the most effective combination is to have "eyes on the ground" making U.S. air power more effective. Yet despite the strategic review and the call for more troops, nothing dramatic is likely to happen "on the ground" in Afghanistan before the Bush administration leaves office. That is because the drama is not on the ground. To understand the war in Afghanistan, look up in skies.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

The Aussies weigh in to the debate (usual copyright disclaimer):
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22934596-601,00.html

AUSTRALIA'S NATO partners must lift their game in Afghanistan, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.

"Unless we stabilise Afghanistan we have got problems beyond those that we experience at the moment," Mr Rudd said during a break in his first cabinet meeting today.

Mr Rudd's comments follow remarks by  new Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon yesterday sayiing the war in Afghanistan would be lost unless NATO and its close allies changed tactics, overhauling military and civil programs designed to bring stability to the country.

Mr Fitzgibbon's blunt warning was delivered to a closed-door meeting in Scotland of eight defence ministers, from the US, Australia and six other NATO nations with military forces in Afghanistan.

"We're there for the long haul. And we made that very plain to our American ally and to our NATO partners," Mr Rudd said [emphasis added].

"The defence minister was also underlining the point, which is necessary to make publicly, and that is to encourage our NATO partners to do more when it comes to Afghanistan.

"This is quite critical, particularly given the further resurgence of the opium crop, the illicit economy, the amount of narco-finance which is rolling out of that part of the world."

The defence minister's comments reflect the classified intelligence assessments presented to the former Howard government in recent months, which have painted a bleak picture of the military situation facing NATO and its allies as they battle Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

"The previous government would have us believe that good progress is being made in Afghanistan. The reality is quite a different one," Mr Fitzgibbon told The Australian last night soon after returning from the meeting in Edinburgh.

"We are winning the battles and not the war, in my view. We have been very successful in clearing areas of the Taliban but it's having no real strategic effect."

Labor came to power with a promise to withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq but to continue the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan...

Mr Fitzgibbon has ruled out lifting Australia's military commitment in the absence of a greater contribution from NATO member countries to the International Security Force in Afghanistan.

But he also signalled that Australia would be prepared to consider a larger military commitment if NATO members bolstered their own forces [emphasis added].

At Friday's talks with defence ministers representing countries with military forces in southern Afghanistan, Mr Fitzgibbon also expressed frustration at the lack of a coherent strategy that could underpin the successful rehabilitation of Afghanistan as a nation state.

"You will struggle to get unanimity on what the objectives are in Afghanistan at the present time," he told The Australian.

At Mr Fitzgibbon's urging, NATO, led by the US with input from Australia, will now draw up a new military blueprint for the next 12 months of the campaign. It will have a sharp focus on southern Afghanistan, where the hardest fighting is taking place.

The US will also take the lead in devising a broader strategy for co-ordination of foreign military and civil aid agencies in Afghanistan over the next three to five years. This will include the appointment of a civilian special envoy to co-ordinate the work of the UN, the European Union and other civil agencies.

Defence ministers representing the eight nations with military forces stationed in the south will meet in Canada late next month to review progress on the new military strategy.

"We are lacking in Afghanistan a coherent plan for the country," a senior defence source told The Australian. "The command chain is confused. We (ISAF) don't have enough troops on the ground. We don't have proper co-ordination between our military and civilian goals and actions."

He said Australian and NATO troops had been doing good work in clearing out insurgents but did not have the overall capacity to hold ground in key areas of southern Afghanistan...

Mr Fitzgibbon told his colleagues that the Australian Defence Force had half of its infantry and cavalry committed to overseas deployments, including Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor. Australia's 1000 troops in Afghanistan makes it the biggest non-NATO contributor to the military campaign in the country, and the 10th-biggest contributor overall.

"We are just so frustrated that so many other NATO countries are not making a contribution," Mr Fitzgibbon told The Australian last night [emphasis added].

Mr Fitzgibbon also told his colleagues in Edinburgh, including US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, that while NATO and its allies had been successfully "stomping on lots of ants, we have not been dealing with the ants' nest".

"We need much more than a military response," he said. "This is largely about winning the hearts and minds of the more moderate of the Taliban and other sections of the Afghan community.

"We need more political advisers in the civil service. There is no administrative infrastructure.

"We need more training for the Afghan army and the Afghan police. We need someone there as a senior envoy co-ordinating this overall strategy."

Mr Fitzgibbon said until now, NATO and its allies had been providing a military and reconstruction response but had failed to successfully deal with the "big picture" in Afghanistan.

He said nations with military forces in southern Afghanistan had to deal with significant domestic political pressures.

"We have to hold the will of our constituencies. If we don't do that we will all be packing up and leaving," he said [emphasis added].

Mr Fitzgibbon stressed a new military plan for ISAF operations in southern Afghanistan would endeavour to measure just how much larger the ISAF force should be to hold the ground they were gaining in recent military operations.

Wish we had such governmental frankness and clarity here.  Compare with this "frankness":
http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/defencewatch/archive/2007/12/17/harper-government-s-shame-game-on-nato-allies-backfires.aspx

HARPER GOVERNMENT’S ‘SHAME GAME’ ON NATO ALLIES BACKFIRES

...
Here are the behind-the-scenes details as they were explained to me by NATO officers. This year and last year the Harper government went into overtime crapping on its NATO allies for not providing additional soldiers to the Afghan mission. Gordon O’Connor, Mr. MacKay and Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier were high profile in the media dumping on various countries for not pulling their weight.

It is true that some in the alliance were shunning combat, but publicly slamming your allies is not how diplomacy works.

You don’t label contributing nations to the Afghanistan mission as ‘cowards’ and then expect they’ll help you by sending their soldiers into your sector. Canada’s allies were, and are, still mighty pissed off. (It’s interesting to note that retired navy officer and Dalhousie University defence analyst Eric Lerhe warned about this very thing in December 2006 and faced a few barbs from other military analysts for raising the issue)...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[observor 69]

As an aside in the last few days I have seen the term "stalemate" used to describe the present state of ISAF operations in Afghanistan.
Primarily in the context of the US military's growing belief that there are not enough personnel ISAF/US in country to gain the upper hand in this insurgency war.
Unfortunately in spite of our good works and efforts my fear is that a stalemate is occurring and if ya ain't winning then your loosing.
The bad guys have time on their side and it looks like that is an issue for the ISAF member countries.

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

HARPER GOVERNMENT’S ‘SHAME GAME’ ON NATO ALLIES BACKFIRES
Mark
Ottawa

Yes it never worked on the Trudeau and Chretien government during the years when their defence spending was  a joke compared to other NATO countries either. It didn't stop them from crapping on Canada at every opportunity they could. I wouldn't sweat it too much...it's all political bluster from a bunch of politicians who are refusing to step up. I don't think the sugar coated version would have worked either. at least a spade has been called a spade.

 

[Edward Campbell]

At a recent University of Ottawa symposium, upon which I commented, at length, the subject of the unbearably low quality of policy advice being proffered to ministers was raised.

I discussed this with a couple of chaps who know, intimately, how it was done for Trudeau, Mulroney and Chrétien. Both agreed that policy advice has been going downhill, steadily, since the golden days of the ‘50s and ‘60s and both agreed that Harper has good reason to mistrust the quality of the advice he is getting.

But: both were horrified at Harper’s idea that the advice was politically partisan. Trudeau had a very similar thought,* by the way, and that’s one of the reasons he gutted the External Affairs department. Mulroney had exactly the same thought – so he continued to gut the department – undoing some of Trudeau’s worst excesses but not making anything any better. Ditto Chrétien, who appeared to believe that the Oxbridge crowd (which he hated as much as Trudeau did) had returned. The end result is that we appear to have managed to transform one of the world’s best foreign services into one of the worst in one generation – that sort of policy vandalism ought to be recognized as the bipartisan effort it was, and is, still.

Anyway, I stand by my “NATO was the cornerstone of our foreign policy, but now it’s a stumbling block” thesis. But: NATO IS the key player in Afghanistan and we have to find ways to make it effective – or else we will suffer a humiliating and quite unnecessary defeat – a 3D defeat, at that. If that happens you can rest 99.9% assured that DND will get most of the blame.

----------
* Trudeau’s problem was that External was, in his view, a nest of Anglophilic, pro-American cold warriors who would try to sabotage the policy he planned to implement. He was right – at least he was within his (distorted) world view.

 

[Edward Campbell]

A post at The Torch:

Why I say "no" to Byers
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-say-no-to-byers.html

Mark
Ottawa

Another respected and respectable academic slags Michael Byers in this opinion piece reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s National Post:

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=ad844111-2f84-459d-86f2-2eba2a11a736

Elinor Sloan . A better Afghanistan policy

Elinor Sloan
Citizen Special

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

In an article that appeared last week in this newspaper, political scientist Michael Byers argued that the Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan is a sham. The panel, he alleged, is made up of people who are likely to recommend an extension of Canada's military mission there, and the outcome is predetermined because all of the panel's options have some sort of a military role. Mr. Byers seems to suggest that Canada is in Afghanistan mainly to follow America's bidding.

Mr. Byers' effort to delegitimize the Manley panel does not stand up to scrutiny. For example, part of his case against John Manley, the panel's chair, is that last fall Mr. Manley wrote an article in the journal Policy Options stating that we should not abandon Afghanistan. In fact, Mr. Manley wrote the article in his capacity as a director of CARE Canada. It is based on a May 2007 trip to Afghanistan, and it focuses almost entirely on Canada's humanitarian involvement there. It concludes with observations like the need to build roads and bridges, and to restore electricity.

To any fair-minded reader, the article shows only that Mr. Manley understands the complexities of creating a sustainable society in Afghanistan and, perhaps more importantly, that he cares about what happens there. (Full disclosure: In 2005 Mr. Manley wrote a statement praising my book Security and Defence in the Terrorist Era.)

Mr. Manley's knowledge of Afghanistan - he served as Canada's foreign minister - was likely a big part of why he was asked to chair this panel and why he accepted. Mr. Byers suggests that Mr. Manley, a Liberal, agreed to chair a panel for the Conservative government not because he has real expertise and interest in the future of that country, but simply because he felt duty bound to answer a prime minister's call. Yet as Janice Stein, a University of Toronto academic who accompanied Mr. Manley on his trip, notes in her recent book Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar, Mr. Manley felt no such duty to answer former prime minister Paul Martin's call to be ambassador to the United States in 2003, despite the fact that he was from the same party and government.

Mr. Byers also implies that the ties of two other panel members - Derek Burney and Paul Tellier - to the Canadian defence industry would somehow incline them to support the mission in Afghanistan. But Canadians know there is no shortage of work for the Canadian Forces around the world. If the Afghanistan mission were to end tomorrow, there would be plenty of other spots where the military could be asked to go. Already there is considerable pressure for a military role in Sudan.

Mr. Byers invokes the Iraq Study Group as a model of an independent panel with a mandate to look at the full range of issues surrounding a policy decision. Co-chaired as it was by James Baker, secretary of state in the first George Bush's administration and a close Bush family friend, this may not be a good example.

However, the the Iraq Study Group did have the luxury, as Mr. Byers points out, of operating "on its own timetable," which ended up being about nine months. By contrast, Canada's panel has been given only three months.

The short deadline of January 31, 2008 is driven by the fact that Canada is committed to Afghanistan until February 2009. We need to give our allies in NATO about a year's notice about our plans. The United States will be affected by our decision, but so too will be Britain and the Netherlands, among others, with whom the Canadian Forces is working in southern Afghanistan.

The idea that the Manley panel is part of some political plan to win favour with the Americans is absurd if only because the options the panel is considering are very different from the U.S. approach.

As the Washington Post recently reported, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wants to shift alliance strategy in Afghanistan from one of rebuilding to one of waging a "classic counterinsurgency." Of the approaches being considered by the Manley panel, Option 1 provides for the greatest future military role, but it centres on building and training the Afghan army and police. Option 2, on the other hand, focuses on development and governance in Kandahar, while option 3 talks about these same things in some other part of Afghanistan, with the military role being to protect the civilians carrying out these tasks. Option 4 is basically military withdrawal.

None of the Canadian options comes close to what the Americans envision in terms of "counterinsurgency." Canada very clearly is thinking for itself in crafting a policy for Afghanistan.

Mr. Byers was invited to discuss his own ideas with the Manley panel, but he declined. His arguments for doing so were misguided. What Canada needs is not ideological grandstanding, but constructive ideas and recommendations.

Elinor Sloan teaches international security studies at Carleton University, and is a fellow with the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2007​

I think we saw, in Prof. Byers’ little diatribe, the NDP’s strategy: delegitimize (what an awful word!) the Manley Commission because it is bound to recommend that we “stay the course.” I also think Prof. Sloan has debunked that strategy.

Honest men and women can and will disagree about we can, should or should not do about, with, for or to Afghanistan; that’s how things work in a democracy. Dishonest men and women will try to subvert the discussion for their own ideological (anti-capitalist and anti-American) ends; that’s how things are done in socialist “peace-loving peoples’ democratic republics” – the sort of construct the NDP wants to impose on Canada.   

 

[Cheshire]

Mr Campbell...

Trudeau had a very similar thought,* by the way, and that's one of the reasons he gutted the External Affairs department. Mulroney had exactly the same thought – so he continued to gut the department – undoing some of Trudeau's worst excesses but not making anything any better. Ditto Chrétien, who appeared to believe that the Oxbridge crowd (which he hated as much as Trudeau did) had returned. The end result is that we appear to have managed to transform one of the world's best foreign services into one of the worst in one generation

Sounds familiar. Swap External Affairs with Canadian Forces.....One of the worlds best military's into one of the most underfunded, under equipped in a generation. At least Harper is is trying to correct to the one.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Mr Campbell...

Sounds familiar. Swap External Affairs with Canadian Forces.....One of the worlds best military's into one of the most underfunded, under equipped in a generation. At least Harper is is trying to correct to the one.

We hope.

It took about a dozen years to really "do in" the CF (1963± to 1975± in my guesstimation) but it will take more than twice that to repair the damage.

I think we have to give Paul Martin credit for initiating the good things – including appointing Gen. Hillier to be CDS. It remains to be seen if Prime Minister Harper has the political room or, in fact, the will, to carry on the process.

I’ll repeat what Ruxted said: we are going to need a $30+ Billion defence budget in just a very few years – when DND is hoping for $20 Billion. Anything less, I suggest, means that the “decades of darkness” return and we end up disarming by stealth.

I’m not at all sure that Prime Minister Harper is willing to expend much political capital on national defence – it’s not a popular, vote getting issue in Canada (remember, please, that only the CF is at war; the Canadian people are at peace). I am pretty sure that that he will not spend enough political capital to reach what I believe to be the minimally acceptable standards before he has a solid majority government and not, perhaps, until he has a second mandate. 

 

[MarkOttawa]

Byers v. Manley.  Byers wrote in his piece:
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=2d0badd3-a46c-4c97-aea3-5f464f9b6ef9&p=2

And little room has been allowed for serious consideration of whether NATO troops should be replaced with UN peacekeepers.

I wonder if the professor will notice this:

U.N. Finds Fraud, Mismanagement in Peacekeeping
Task Force Says 'Multiple Instances' of Corruption Have a Cost of $610 Million
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/17/AR2007121701914.html

Byers also wrote:

Mr. Tellier headed up Bombardier when it was heavily involved in training pilots for the Canadian Forces and other NATO countries [NFTC].

I'm amazed that Byers missed the fact that Bombardier has sold aircraft to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Office.
http://www.bombardier.com/index.jsp?id=3_0&lang=en&file=/en/3_0/pressrelease.jsp%3Fgroup%3D3_0%26lan%3Den%26action%3Dview%26mode%3Dlist%26year%3Dnull%26id%3D4724%26sCateg%3D3_0

Much more damning I'd say (part of the evil Homeland Security Dept.) than running NFTC.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

What to read about Canada and Afghanistan?  Prof. Barry Cooper prefers, I think, Christie Blatchford to Eugene Lang and Janice Stein (usual copyright disclaimer).
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=78db46fd-799d-4ece-9f55-17e1af2bf8da

...
The first, by University of Toronto professor Janice Stein and the former chief of staff to a couple of Liberal defence ministers, Eugene Lang, is called The Unexpected War. Despite the authors' discretion, this account of defence policy during the past two Liberal governments is hair-raising.

Most Canadians expect defence and foreign policy to promote and defend Canadian national interests. It is as clear as can be from this book the two ministers Lang served, John McCallum and Bill Graham, were more concerned with promoting the interests of the Liberal party than those of the nation, and in deflecting responsibility to senior diplomatic and military leaders when inevitably their ill-considered policies failed.

It started with Iraq. For domestic reasons, namely the endemic pacifism of Quebec, the Liberal government claimed Canada did not assist in the American invasion of Iraq. In fact, Canadian warships, which at the time were alone in being fully interoperable with American ones, patrolled the Gulf as part of Task Force 151. This action freed up several U.S. vessels to take part directly in Iraqi operations. Canadian troops assigned to American and British formations saw some fierce front-line fighting. A senior exchange officer, Maj.-Gen. Walt Natynczuk, commanded American army units in combat operations.

If the Americans were merely surprised by the Chretien government mendacity over Iraq, they seemed flabbergasted by the dithering of the Martin government over ballistic missile defence (BMD). The eventual decision, not to take part in what was said to be the "first priority" of the Bush administration, has been rightly called the greatest strategic blunder in Canadian postwar history.

The upside, however, was that Martin could not then reject a "secondary" priority, namely a request that Canada send troops to Afghanistan.

The conclusion is obvious: the Martin people were entirely outsmarted by the Americans for whom Afghanistan, not BMD, was their real first priority. Amazingly enough, this combination of stupidity, arrogance and cowardice provided Canadian soldiers with the opportunity to redeem 30 years of shameful and supine defence policy.

Christie Blatchford, whose writing tends to be both personal and dramatic, showed in her book, Fifteen Days, how they did it...

...Where Stein and Lang tell the rather abstract story of a policy process as deeply flawed by hypocrisy as by ignorance, Blatchford tells of the personal side of war fighting...

If anyone on your Christmas list wonders what is going on in Afghanistan, get them Blatchford's Fifteen Days.

Cooper is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary

Mark
Ottawa

 

[observor 69]

The two books are quite different. The Stein and Lang book is a description of how we ended up in Kandahar and ISAF.
Whereas Christie is telling us about the experiences of our troops on the ground in Afghanistan.
Both fine books, both having their own purpose and goals.
Buy and enjoy them both. Or visit your local library as I did. 

 

[MarkOttawa]

Strange stuff from the CBC's person in D.C.: Henry Champ today on Newsworld was saying odd things (can't find a video link) about Canada's being critical of the US for slacking off on ground combat in Afstan out of fear of casualties. He never mentioned that the US are doing the great majority of fighting in the east, he just said we are not happy with their "boots on the ground" effort in the south. Especially odd thing to say since this is the final paragraph of the CBC News story on Foreign Minister Bernier's visit to Washington today:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/12/20/bush-afghan.html

An analysis done by ABC News in November showed the death rate for U.S. troops in Afghanistan is now nearly twice the rate for those in Iraq.

What Canadian was Mr Champ talking to and what was Mr Champ smoking?

Note the kind words from the secretary of state and the president:

Rice called Canada an "extraordinary partner" in the NATO-led war in Afghanistan.

While there has been concern about some NATO countries not taking on their fair share of responsibilities in Afghanistan, Rice said this is not the case with Canada.

"Canada is sharing in that responsibility. Canada is pulling its weight," the secretary of state said in Washington, D.C. "The contribution of Canada is both invaluable and effective."..

A few hours before Rice spoke, Bush held a news conference, during which he called Canadians and other allies in Afghanistan "brave souls.

"I would like to praise the Brits, the Canadians, the Dutch, the Danes and other countries for their contribution," Bush said in Washington.

"These are brave souls. They're working side by side with the Afghan forces and the U.S. forces to deal the Taliban a blow, and I've only got praise for them [he also mentioned the Aussies]."..

Pity he didn't mention the Poles, Romanians and Estonians.

M. Bernier was to my mind hopeless. He didn't answer questions, just regurgitated talking points of dubious relevance.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Kirkhill]

Mark, I noticed Champ's "Opinion Piece" as well.  I was making lunch at the time and happened to click on to Newsworld.  After about 42 seconds of that nonsense I chose to find something else to watch.  I didn't wish to upset my digestion on further.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Mr Champ was just on Newsworld's "Politics" and repeated (17:40 Eastern) the claim that Canada thinks the US is not fighting hard enough on the ground. He said he had it from both Canadian and American sources. Weird. The video should be available here fairly soon.
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/index.html#ondemand

Mark
Ottawa