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

[PanaEng]

Toronto Star puff piece, disguised as news (usual copyright disclaimer}:

Ignatieff invited to exclusive Afghanistan meeting
Will attend U.S. talks as human rights expert
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/622235

Mark
Ottawa

Well, what do you think?
Other than political posturing, do you think it is helpful or not?

cheers,
Frank

 

[McG]

Punching above Canada's weight
Matthew Fisher
National Post
27 Apr 09

Canada's most influential ambassador does not reside in Washington, New York, London, Tokyo or Beijing.

It is Canada's man in Kabul, Ron Hoffman, …

… [Canada’s] contributions have garnered Hoffman and Canada a privileged place at the same table as U. S. and British ambassadors while the plenipotentiaries of France and Germany have had to watch from a distance.

Douglas Hurd, the former British foreign minister, always liked to boast that the UnitedKingdom "fought above its weight." That is something Ottawa utterly failed to do for decades before Afghanistan although during the long blue beret and blue helmet period in Cyprus, the Balkans and Africa it sometimes deluded itself and its citizens into thinking that its international reputation was much higher than it actually was.

A key difference now is that Canada has soldiers, diplomats and aid works all closely work the Afghan file together. It is not yet a perfect marriage of hard power and soft power, but Canada is a lot closer to getting the military/civil mix right than ever before.

To get to this point the military, which has so many of the necessary logistical tools and leadership skills, has had to become less hidebound. On the civilian side a cadre of smart, dynamic, less traditional, more flexible diplomats and development experts is being assembled who want to be where the action is.

…

Everything is still to be played for in Afghanistan. But the hard-won reputation that Canada has earned as a respected international player by assuming a leadership role here will inevitably disappear if Ottawa decides to cut and run in 2011.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Link to Matthew Fisher's story above:
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=1538021

While I admire Mr Fisher's reporting from Afstan, e.g.,
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/04/afghanistan-isnt-just-canadas-war.html

I remain uncomfortable with reporters' writing news stories that are actually op-ed pieces (or ones fitting an agenda):
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2008/07/afstan-globe-and-mail-manufactures.html
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2008/07/afstan-more-misleading-reporting-from.html

Since Mr Fisher's current tour in Afstan is ending, I suppose he felt the need to get things off his chest.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[McG]

A good reminder that (while much of our current mission peruses the humanitarian objectives of restoring peace, order, safety and functioning governance) we are still fighting to secure both global & our national security objectives.  We are fighting to oppose a military expansionist regime that happily associates with a multitude of terrorist organizations.

This also some raises some interesting concerns about negotiation and appeasement of an enemy that has already demonstrated complete disregard for the agreements that it has signed.

I don’t oppose negotiation, but it must be done under circumstances in which the Afghan government (supported by the coalition) is in the position of power.  Appeasement will prolong the conflict and sacrifice some domestic security.

Taliban Takeover
Wake-up call for the world
The Chronicle-Herald
27 Apr 09

What we have here is a failure to connect the dots.

Many Canadians still wonder what we are doing in Afghanistan, except placating our American allies. Many Canadians scoff at the idea that the Taliban represent a direct threat to our national security. And many Canadians are naïve enough to think that when we leave Afghanistan, we won't be back.

The truth is the Canadian Forces do need a hiatus to replenish materiel and personnel after holding down the fort in Kandahar for several years. But the worrisome developments in Central Asia will continue to command our attention - and NATO's military resources - for years to come.

The resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan is only half the story - and half the battle. In Afghanistan, the insurgency is more or less kept in check by the presence of international troops.

But the speed with which an even more virulent strain of Taliban is infecting neighbouring Pakistan, a nuclear-armed county of 170 million people, is true cause for alarm.

The tribal areas along the rugged Afghan-Pakistani frontier have long served as safe havens for the Taliban and al-Qaida. But these militants are no longer content to use the region as a base from which to attack NATO troops. Slowly but surely, they have created their own fiefdoms in northern Pakistan, consolidating power and imposing Islamic law. And now they are rapidly spilling over into more populated and urbanized areas, virtually unopposed.

Taliban militias' recent incursion into the district of Buner significantly raised the stakes, and not just because it put them within striking distance of the capital of Islamabad. Despite a tactical retreat on Friday, the move put an exclamation mark on the weak central government's policy of appeasement towards the Taliban, who have been allowed to run the show as they see fit in their backyard as long as they stay in their backyard. No sooner had the ink dried on the latest non-aggression pact between the Taliban and the government than the truce was violated.

It bears mention that the majority of Pakistanis don't want to live under Taliban tyranny and that the local people of Buner had formed their own militias to resist the Taliban push. But when the government caved in to Taliban demands in the neighbouring district of Swat, the Buner resistance gave up.

"I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last week.

Indeed it is. It's not just the territorial expansion of the Taliban that is significant, but the alliances they are forging along the way. The Pakistani Taliban are already linked to al-Qaida, but as they descend from the hills and enter the valleys and cities, they are hooking up with other sophisticated urbanized terrorists - for example Kashmiri groups that have been carrying out a proxy war with India.

Unless the powerful Pakistani military can be mobilized to fixate less on the exaggerated external threat posed by India and to focus more on the downplayed domestic threat posed by the Taliban, we will all be dealing with what Mrs. Clinton called "a mortal threat" to the security and safety of the world.

 

[PanaEng]

A good reminder that (while much of our current mission peruses the humanitarian objectives of restoring peace, order, safety and functioning governance) we are still fighting to secure both global & our national security objectives.  We are fighting to oppose a military expansionist regime that happily associates with a multitude of terrorist organizations.

"The Pakistani Taliban are already linked to al-Qaida, but as they descend from the hills and enter the valleys and cities, they are hooking up with other sophisticated urbanized terrorists - for example Kashmiri groups that have been carrying out a proxy war with India.

Unless the powerful Pakistani military can be mobilized to fixate less on the exaggerated external threat posed by India and to focus more on the downplayed domestic threat posed by the Taliban, we will all be dealing with what Mrs. Clinton called "a mortal threat" to the security and safety of the world."

And I think they have, for quite a while, had agreements with the Kashmiri groups to keep attaking India in order to inflame tensions and keep the bulk of  Pak forces facing India and in Kashmire and neglecting the rest of Pakistan.
This is where the Obama admin should put more effort in; specifically, promoting stability and cooperation between India and Pakistan in order to allow for Pak forces to be redeployed.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Excerpt from an excellent post by Brian Platt at his The Canada-Afghanistan Blog--read the whole thing:

Why We're Over There
http://canada-afghanistan.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-were-over-there.html

...
Recently I was at a talk at the Fraser Institute with Brigadier-General Denis Thompson. One of the only pompous, smart-ass questions asked that day came from a smirky guy with a British accent. He said "don't tell me we're there for nation-building, because then why aren't we in Zimbabwe?"

Thompson clearly (and understandably) bristled at this question, responding sharply that we have to choose our fights; just because we can't be everywhere all of the time doesn't mean we can't be somewhere some of the time.

The way I respond to the cynics, who smirk like the British guy did when we speak of the importance of nation-building and human rights, is to give a very frank and direct answer: the reason why we're in Afghanistan is because of September 11. Full stop. If it wasn't for September 11, we wouldn't be there. Of course we wouldn't be.

The direct reason our soldiers are in Afghanistan is not women's rights, but because a religious death cult based in that country and supported by its government murdered thousands of civilians in New York and Washington eight years ago.

BUT...the Canadian response to that attack has been guided by the principles of nation-building and women's rights, make no mistake about it. We are there because of September 11, but we understand that the only responsible and respectable policy is to build up a legitimate democracy that respects the basic rights of its citizens.

This is why I've always argued that Afghanistan is both a left-wing and right-wing war: it's in the security interests of our country and in the humanitarian interests of Afghans. It's both things at the same time, and there is no internal contradiction...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Terry Glavin adds his toonie's worth:

Decide: Sanctimonious drivel or progressive feminism. (You can't have it both ways).
http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/2009/04/decide-sanctimonious-drivel-or.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Torch post:

More details on US forces for RC South/Black Watch at KAF
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-details-on-us-forces-for-rc.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

A post by Bruce Rolston at his blog:

They probably will. Unless they don't.
http://www.snappingturtle.net/flit/archives/2009_04_30.html#006395

From the New York Times' Dexter Filkins,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/world/asia/29afghan.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
an incomprehensible paragraph:

"Like the guerrillas they are, Taliban fighters often fade away when confronted by a conventional army. But in Afghanistan, as they did in Zangabad, the Taliban will probably stand and fight."

Um... what?

"But the prospect of heavy fighting in populated areas could further alienate the Afghan population. In the firefight in Zangabad, the Americans covered their exit with a barrage of 20 155 millimeter high-explosive artillery shells — necessary to shield them from the Taliban, but also enough to inflict serious damage on people and property. A local Afghan interviewed by telephone after the firefight said that four homes had been damaged by the artillery strikes."

For the record, those would have been Canadian shells, given the location.

The American soldiers would be from the 2-2 Ramrods of the CF's Task Force Kandahar:
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-is-task-force-kandahar.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

A post by Michael Petrou at his Maclean's magazine blog:

The Taliban: local or international threat (IV)
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/05/01/the-taliban-local-or-international-threat-iv/#more-54117

The issue of whether the Taliban are insurgents with strictly local grievances or an Islamist movement with international ambitions is one that I’ve addressed frequently in this space.

It’s an important question, because if the Taliban are concerned only with Afghanistan, then Canada, the United States, and other countries with troops and aid workers in the country can pull out without endangering themselves. Abandoning Afghanistan to thugs such as the Taliban, who have recently taken to shooting alleged adulterers in Pakistan,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/5220532/Taliban-gunmen-shooting-couple-dead-for-adultery-caught-on-camera.html
might be cruel it wouldn’t be risky for the West. (Why so many on the left who spent decades trumpeting their supposed internationalism are content with this option is something I’ll never understand, though Terry Glavin has some ideas.) [Well, he would, wouldn't he? - Mark Ottawa]
http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/

If, on the other hand, the Taliban are allied with al-Qaeda as part of an international jihadist movement, we can’t really afford to abandon our fight there. It’s a war of necessity rather than choice.

Afghanistan is a country for which I have deep affection. I was there in the weeks after 9/11 in the company of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. It was dangerous. I got sick, shelled, and shot at. Colleagues were killed. But I still remember my time there with fondness and pine to go back. The memory of my Afghan translator, a man who owned very little, pushing gifts into my hands as I left is one I’ll never forget. Because of these memories, even if I believed the Taliban were strictly an Afghan problem, I couldn’t advocate ceding them the country. I care too much about the people who live there.

But none of this really matters. Countries almost always fight wars because they believe it is in their national interest. And I believe Afghanistan is in ours, precisely because I think the Taliban are an international threat. I’ve outlined some of the reasons why in previous posts: the fact that they hosted Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda when the 9/11 attacks were planned and carried out; recent threats by Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban, to attack Washington;
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6011879.ece
the movement’s violent growth in Pakistan; and its ongoing cooperation with al-Qaeda, according to Ahmed Rashid, arguably the world’s foremost expert on the Taliban.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/03/30/the-taliban-local-or-international-thugs/

I’d be remiss, however, not to present opposing evidence. Senior Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabihollah Mujahid recently gave an interview to Afghan Islamic Press in which he distances his movement from al-Qaeda: “We are not responsible for the affairs of other parties or the world. We are only concerned about Afghanistan. It is up to al-Qaeda and the rest of the world whether they resolve their problems or not. Such issues have nothing to do with the Taliban.” The Jamestown Foundation has a summary of the interview.
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=34924&tx_ttnews[backPid]=26&cHash=9b2f50907e

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

UK Cabinet Office paper (27 pages, good maps at end)--good luck seeing anything like this from our government:

UK policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan: the way forward
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/204173/afghanistan_pakistan.pdf

Note how the paper starts--not the sort of thing our government highlights often:

Part A: Context

Why Afghanistan and Pakistan matter

Afghanistan and Pakistan are of critical strategic importance to the UK and the international community as a whole. Instability and insecurity in both countries have a direct impact on our national security and the safety of our citizens. Of the six major sources of threat set out in the UK’s National Security Strategy, Afghanistan and Pakistan are relevant to at least four:

        • terrorism – Afghanistan was the base for Al Qaida’s terrorist activity, including the largest ever terrorist atrocity of 11 September 2001; Al Qaida’s senior leadership is currently located in the border areas of Pakistan, and three quarters of the most serious plots investigated in the UK have links back to Pakistan;

        • conflict – the insurgency in Afghanistan and insecurity in Pakistan have an impact on regional instability which affects the UK’s interests, not least given our deep connections with the region and the large British Pakistani community;

        • transnational crime – Afghanistan is the source of 90% of the heroin in the UK, and we estimate that roughly half is smuggled via Pakistan;

        • weapons of mass destruction – Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state. Its proper control of its weapons and nuclear material, and the prevention of proliferation to other countries or non-state actors, is vital to our interests.
...

Update: I've just read the whole paper. It is, shockingly, a government document that I would urge you most strongly to take the time to read. It gives a much fuller and detailed overview of things than anything I've seen in the media. It is a paper that, er, respects the reader's intelligence. Amazing. Every bloody Canadian MP and senator, and pundit, should read it. If ten do I shall be gobsmacked. We are, sadly, not a serious country in certain quarters.

I would bet that the Assessments Staff, in the UK Cabinet Office (all source intelligence analysis for government as a whole, see p. 24 here,) drafted Part A;
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/136045/national_intelligence_booklet.pdf
the Canadian equivalent, modelled on the British, is the International Assessment Staff in the Privy Council Office.
http://www.pco-bcp.gc.ca/index.asp?lang=eng&page=secretariats&sub=ias-bei&doc=ias-bei-eng.htm

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

What the Dahla Dam, is all about. Good on Canwest News (for Matthew Fisher's recent reporting too)
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/04/adapting-to-us-surge-at-kandahar.html
--one wishes our media ran more such stories, particularly on television where they might have a real impact on public opinion:

REBUILDING KANDAHAR
Fighting season is fast approaching, but for the time being, Kandahar is preoccupied with water, food and crops
By Brian Hutchinson, National Post

ARGHANDAB VALLEY, Afghanistan — Fighting season is fast approaching, but for the time being, Kandahar is preoccupied with water, food and crops.

All along the Arghandab River valley north of Kandahar city lie fields of wheat. Thousands of pomegranate trees are in blossom; their compact orange flowers scent the air. This is Kandahar at its best, and its most traditional.

Insurgent activity has slowed while young men of fighting age work in orchards and fields.

Further west, in the volatile Panjwaii district, people are consumed with the poppy harvest: Scraping pods that ooze dark opium paste.

The poppy economy remains vexing.

Insurgents will buy the opium paste from farmers, then sell it in underground markets and use the profits to arm themselves and lure the same men who collect it to their fight.

It's a vicious cycle and one that can be broken, people say, if more legal alternatives to the poppy could develop and flourish. Crucial to that solution is the efficient supply and distribution of the world's most precious resource -- water.

That's where Canada comes in.

Canada's civilian component to the large NATO-led mission in Kandahar is often overlooked, thanks in part to the much larger, controversial military deployment here. But it's no less important to solving problems on the ground. And it's ramping up [see end of 1) here].
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/05/us-challenges-in-afpak.html

After two years of planning, Canada's single largest foreign-aid project in a generation is under way in the Arghandab [our big "signature" project].
http://www.afghanistan.gc.ca/canada-afghanistan/projects-projets/dam-barrage.aspx
The $50-million Arghandab Irrigation Rehabilitation Project is revitalizing an ailing, 57-year-old dam and irrigation system that once allowed this desert province to lay claim as Afghanistan's breadbasket.

Kandahar once produced enough wheat to feed the entire country. The Soviet invasion, civil war and drought changed everything.

Rebuilding the agro-economy is an essential but hugely ambitious task. Fixing the water system is key. The 50-metre-high Dahla dam is in relatively stable condition, but its reservoir capacity has shrunk by about 30 per cent from the original 480-million cubic metres, thanks to gradual siltification...

CIDA has hired engineering giant SNC-Lavalin and water consultant Hydrosult Inc., both based in Montreal, to conduct the rehabilitation project. Their contracts are signed; work plans are being refined and civilian employees from Canada will start arriving soon.

"Several thousand" Afghans are expected to be employed along the Arghandab river and canal route, which runs from the dam, down the Arghandab valley, and into Kandahar city itself, a distance of about 40 kilometres.

To demonstrate the seriousness of its intent, CIDA has already funded the construction of a new bridge near the dam site and repairs to the access road.

Afghan crews were busy working on the paved road this week, when a Canadian military convoy travelled through the Arghandab valley and to the top of the dam itself...

More on roads here:
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/04/afstan-roads-dear-boy-roads.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Student activists of another sort--from a post by Brian Platt at The Canada-Afghanistan Blog:
http://canada-afghanistan.blogspot.com/2009/05/creating-safe-haven.html

...I wanted to highlight one particular aspect of the story.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090430/afghan_workers_090430/20090430?hub=Canada

'A Canadian soldier expressed delight at Kenney's announcement.

Cpl. Tim Laidler helped draw awareness to the threats faced by local employees, raising concerns for their safety with superior officers last year when he was in Kandahar.

Laidler, a B.C. reservist who helped train Afghan soldiers, called local employees an integral part of Canada's mission.

"I felt (their situation) was an injustice. They face the same danger that we do and I felt they deserved to be taken care of just like we are," said Laidler, now back in university in B.C.

"We trust them with everything -- with sensitive information. They are essential to our task in Afghanistan."'

I met Tim Laidler yesterday. He is a student at UBC and has joined our merry band of agitators. We've got some big plans over the next year, including organizing a screening of this film.
http://www.3world.ca/Waging_Peace.html
We couldn't be prouder to have Tim on board.

More on the film at this topic:
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/85911.0.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Good to see NATO doing such things (via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs):
http://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca/257-eng.html

JOB IN AFGHANISTAN 'AN INCREDIBLE ADVENTURE'
Trenton native has one-year NATO contract as media team leader, photojournalism teacher
http://www.trentonian.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1538755&auth=Luke%20Hendry%20%96%20Sun%20Media

Like many people, Kim Stinson has relocated for a new job.

The 41-year-old Trenton native left Canada March 6 for Camp Northern Lights in Mazare-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.

She's there on a minimum one-year contract as a media team leader and journalist. It's a civilian job with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's International Security Assistance Force.

Stinson calls the job an "incredible adventure."

She teaches photojournalism at Balkh University and serves as editor for NATO's Sada-e-Azadi (Voice of Freedom) newspaper, a publication intended for locals. But Afghanistan's literacy rate is low, meaning the news is also broadcast on radio and television.

"Our responsibility is to look for the development news, success stories -- essentially the positives," Stinson said via Internet chat. "Part of the reason for this news is also to combat the rumour mill that fills the void of a communications infrastructure."

"I have always wanted to work in developing areas," she added...

Stinson works with one print and one radio journalist, both from Afghanistan.

The job isn't as dangerous as some Westerners might think, she said.

"I'm not embedded or on the front lines."

She said Mazar-e-Sharif is relatively stable, and she's sometimes able to travel outside the base without some of the precautions needed elsewhere [emphasis added].

Stinson has witnessed the sport of camel fighting, attended an Afghan wedding and said she's hoping to experience more of the land and culture...

Stinson has travelled around the immediate region and said she hopes to soon travel more extensively for the job. She teaches two days a week and spends four on the newspaper and radio work.

"The students are wonderful and enthusiastic," Stinson said. "In spite of a ton of obstacles, I really want to do this right for them."

There are no textbooks in the native Dari language or even English, few basic cameras available to her 75 students and limited student access to computers and the Internet. The United States embassy donated a projector, but it's tough to use in a room with no curtains.

There is no structured curriculum for the courses Stinson teaches, meaning she's been creating the program from scratch.

Stinson said she must keep her head, neck and hips covered in public but can otherwise wear western clothes. She's learning Dari and hears little English during the average day.

"I'm living with Swedish and Finnish soldiers [Sweden has the PRT at Mazar, including Finns--there are 290 Swedes and 110 Finns with ISAF] and working with Afghan journalists so basically I don't know what anyone is saying most of the time."..

Mark
Ottawa

 

[leroi]

Generally, I'm averse to criticizing our allies but find this post on Jarret Brachman's blog regarding (some) American Forces attempt to Christianize Muslims in Afghanistan s-o-o-o counter-productive to our allied efforts. I'm inclined to place it here as an example of "how not to conduct the mission:"

So Not Helpful
(scroll down to view the short video clip included in May 4th, 2009 post)
http://jarretbrachman.net/

Jesus wept! I hope these well-meaning, evangelical Christians are not planting translated Bibles in the homes of Muslim Afghans. That could result in getting Afghans killed. This is exactly the kind of propaganda the a-Q is using to turn moderate Muslims against the Western world: i.e. promoting fear by disseminating the idea we're in Afghanistan (and surrounding countries) to convert Muslims to Christianity.

Edit: spelling again

 

[MarkOttawa]

Our growing civilian police presence:

Mountie takes command of Canadian police trainers in Afghanistan
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2009/05/04/mountie-takes-command-of-canadian-police-trainers-in-afghanistan.aspx

An RCMP assistant commissioner was appointed Monday as the first Canadian police commander in Afghanistan.

Graham Muir, who totes a 34-year tenure with the RCMP, will be in charge of all Canadian civilian police in the war-ravaged country. There are currently 30 Canadian officers from seven police agencies deployed in Afghanistan [an Ottawa Police officer is there],
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/04/ottawa-police-officer-in-kandahar.html
with that number expected to jump to 50 [emphasis added] later this year.

Muir will be stationed in Kabul at the Canadian Embassy, where he will also offer advice and expertise to Ron Hoffmann -- Canada’s ambassador to Afghanistan -- on ways to reform the Afghan National Police.

“Enabling the Afghan National Security Forces to establish a more secure environment and promote law and order continues to be a priority for Canada,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, who announced the appointment with RCMP Commissioner William Elliott. “We are helping to develop a team of Afghan professionals that will gradually take over more and more responsibility for security in the country.”

During his police career, Muir has completed a number of international postings.

In 1993, he was a member of the United Nations Police in the former Yugoslavia and also worked as commissioner to the UN mission in Haiti from August 2005 to September 2006.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

A fond farewell to an Afghan ambassador, he will be missed indeed--as good a person for the job as one can imagine. I have personally seen Mr Samad speak at small groups several times and have always been impressed with his forthrightness and gift for clear expression. His ability to put his country's case in television interviews was remarkable (an example here, August 26, 2008).
http://watch.ctv.ca/news/latest/mps-on-mission/#clip85899
He is a superb representative of his country and will serve it well in his new posting to France:

Ottawa says farewell to Afghan envoy
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Somnia/1566256/story.html

As Canadians came to grips with the sacrifice of their soldiers in Afghanistan and their increasingly complicated mission, Omar Samad was both the face and an elegant spokesman for a war-torn country.

After 4 1/2 years as Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada, Samad is leaving Ottawa.

Before the month is out, Samad will begin his new job as Kabul's man in Paris.

Though he impressed Canadians with his fluency in French, Samad's new diplomatic assignment will be a tough one because the Afghanistan war is less popular in France than in Canada.

Jawed Ludin, Afghanistan's current ambassador to Norway and a former chief of staff to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, will take over from Samad in Ottawa.

Samad acknowledged that changes such as these are all part of a diplomat's life. But as Afghanistan's only post-9/11 envoy to Canada, Samad also said the job had cemented deep bonds not only for his immediate family but with his country.

"Canada will be on our minds. We have been able to establish very strong linkages between the two nations, and our histories are now intertwined," said Samad, whose two young sons were born on Canada during his term here.

"There have been some major challenges we have faced over the last few years, some harder than others to tackle, but I think that Canadians can also be very proud for what it has, and continues to do in a very far, remote and poor country such as Afghanistan."

Samad arrived in Canada as the Taliban insurgency gained a new life and eventually pushed the Canadian Forces' death toll to 118. Samad's job was to sell the merits of the mission to the Canadian public, while never forgetting the blood and treasure that their sons and daughters were investing to improve the lives of people ravaged by a generation of violence.

Most recently, Samad had to explain Afghanistan's controversial new bill that was seen as a Taliban-style clampdown on Shia women. The bill, which is under review, sparked outrage in Canada because it would have essentially forced Shia women to bend to the will of their husbands, sexually and financially.

During their time in Ottawa, Samad's wife, Korshied, became an informal ambassador in her own right for Afghan women, as she presented a thoroughly modern face for the women of her country to Canadians.

The two met in Kabul after 9/11, drawn back to their homeland years after their parents had fled Afghanistan and settled in the United States.

Korshied was an American television news producer, about to jump from ABC to Fox News, while Omar went to work in his country's fledgling foreign affairs ministry...

After being posted to Ottawa, the Samads had two sons, now aged 33 months and 13 months.

Both of them managed to earn masters degrees while based in Ottawa: Korshied got her masters in communication from the University of Ottawa, while Omar got his masters in international relations through the "interactive program" of the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Samad said he and his wife leave Ottawa with "very mixed emotions in terms of the intensity of this posting."

Mark
Ottawa

 

[a_majoor]

Gen Hillier weighs in:

http://www.dustmybroom.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11581:general-rick-hillier-kicks-media-in-the-nuts&catid=39:advocacy

General Rick Hillier kicks media in the nuts
Written by Darcey 
Wednesday, 06 May 2009 16:42

Today on CTV News:

    [Sandie] Rinaldo: So, you know, here we have Hamed Karzai in Washington talking about hopeful (sic) of peaceful future---how realistic is that given the threat of escalating attacks by the Taliban?

    Hillier: Well, first of all I go back to the supposed threat of escalating attacks by the Taliban. It's kind of interesting we have a report from a supposed Taliban commander who clearly is not going to be identified. And whatever he spouts, people put it on the front page of the newspaper--- act as his vehicle to deliver it around the world no matter if there's any truth or basis to it whatsoever and put him on TV, in fact, and show...

    I think it's actually appalling. I think if it was a Canadian commander or American saying things the dissection that would go on before that report was put out would be incredible. That has not occurred in this case. So on the case of the Taliban, you know, they can feel free to say what they want. They are unconstrained by the Geneva Concention; they are unconstrained by truth. And as a result they can saw what they want.

    For all we know, the reporters might have been talking to the village idiot.

    Rinaldo: No, I, I take your case in point on, on broadcast but I guess it's out. Other media are broadcasting it so it's available and it's not an issue of censorship at this point. We have to talk about it because other people are certainly talking about it as well.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Security in Kandahar City: Afghan forces improving--A CP story focussing on Afghan security forces (usual copyright disclaimer):

Afghan forces win U.S. kudos
Police, army conduct successful raids on Taliban hideouts in Kandahar city
http://thechronicleherald.ca/World/1120708.html

Afghan police and the Afghan National Army have earned guarded words of praise from their international mentors for a successful series of raids on Taliban hideouts across Kandahar city that netted weapons and insurgents.

But the U.S. military commander who oversees the establishment of Afghan police in the country’s six southern provinces says the encouraging signs don’t mean Afghanistan’s national security forces are quite ready to fly solo.

"This was a surprise to the coalition, which I think was great," said Col. Bill Hix, head of the Afghan Regional Security Integration Command South, who offered his congratulations when he met Wednesday with the architects of the raids.

The operation, which the Afghans conducted under their own power and of their own volition, is a sign of progress in the efforts to bring the country’s police officers and soldiers to the point where they can be left in charge of Afghanistan’s security.

"They are far more capable than we think or allow," Hix said. "That’s not to say that they’re ready to head off on their own [emphasis added]."

Hix, who has been in Afghanistan for 19 months, said the key will be whether the Afghans can maintain security in Kandahar city once they’ve completed their raids.

About 1,000 Afghan soldiers, 500 police and hundreds of members of the Afghan intelligence services have fanned out across the city this week, hitting several districts of Kandahar city where insurgents have been staging suicide bombings and assassinations.

The Afghan police have been designated as the spearhead for the coalition effort to stabilize crime-ridden Kandahar city and beat back the Taliban across the province. This week, they discovered several caches of grenades, detonators, AK-47 assault rifles and vests stuffed with explosives.

A dozen people were arrested, including three key insurgent figures — among them a leader who escaped from Sarposa prison during a spectacular and bloody Taliban raid last year.

Brig.-Gen. Shir Mohammed Zazai, commander of the Afghan 205th Hero Corps, was cautious about heaping too much praise on the operation as he attended a meeting to plan the second phase.

"I think the jury’s still out on this," he said. "I’m not going to make any predictions. We’ll see how the population responds."

While he considers the operation so far to be a success, Zazai said the outcome of the ongoing effort will be affected by the limited number of security forces available.

"Kandahar in the past was the capital of Taliban forces and there’s a very large-scale influence still existing here," he said. "Mainly, the terrorists are terrifying the local people."

And a good piece from Jessica Leeder of the Globe and Mail:

Mentoring pays off as Afghan forces hit insurgents
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090506.wafghan06/BNStory/International/

On top of a bedsheet-covered table in a guarded compound in central Kandahar lies a city map.

Sheathed in plastic, it has been scribbled over with erasable markers to divide the city into boxes, coloured according to their ripeness for police raids.

Blue is for those that have already yielded rich caches of weapons - raw explosives, AK-47s, suicide vests, rocket launchers, grenades - as well as dozens of insurgents themselves. Areas outlined in red represent even more glowing prospects: known Taliban hideouts that soldiers and police officers have their eye on, biding their time before they attack.

For a high-level coalition of U.S. and Canadian troops given the task of rebuilding Afghanistan's security forces, the map represents something more than an impending blow to the urban insurgency. It is a long overdue sign that years of mentoring senior Afghan officers is starting to pay off.

Afghan security forces - police and army - planned and executed the series of early-morning raids across the city over the past week on their own [emphasis added]. By the time coalition soldiers found out about the raids, the Afghan forces were already in motion. Left waiting in the wings were their bewildered but pleased North American and British advisers.

"It's true mentoring," a grinning U.S. Army Colonel Bill Hix said.

For 19 months, Col. Hix has been at the helm of the Afghan Regional Security Integration Command in the southern quadrant of Afghanistan. His job is to use U.S. and Canadian police mentors to rebuild Afghanistan's police force, which he said was "destroyed by 30 years of war."

During his tour, he has fought constantly to extinguish perceptions - even his own, on occasion - that his Afghan counterparts are corrupt and incapable of self-sufficiency.

So it was with a mix of glee and disbelief that he attended a planning meeting in Kandahar yesterday for the next series of counterinsurgency raids, which Afghan forces unilaterally deemed necessary. Their goal is to flush the insurgents out of the city and destroy their weapons caches before the summer fighting season and the August election. Then they'll choke off entryways into Kandahar city to prevent the Taliban from re-entering, thus achieving - and, ideally, maintaining - some semblance of security.

"This was a surprise to the coalition, which I think was great," Col. Hicks said. "They are far more capable than we think or allow," he said, pausing to add a caveat: "That's not to say that they're ready to be off on their own."

Senior Afghan security officials admit as much. During a three-hour meeting designed to map out the next and most difficult phase of the raids, the dominant subject was the scarcity of police, which threatens to jeopardize not just the operation, but its aftermath.

"They don't have the numbers necessary to sustain security [emphasis added]," Col. Hix explained...

Solving that problem is a dilemma facing both the Afghans and the coalition forces. The current police chief has already hired about 1,000 more officers than he is "allowed" under a cap put in place by a committee of international stakeholders who are financing the police. Some European nations believe that police should be kept at minimal levels.

But General Esmatullah Dawlatzai, a former police official who is now a high-level administrator for the Afghan Ministry of the Interior, said the size of the force has been limited by the amount of funding from donating nations.

"The enemy is equipped better than the Kandahar police," he told NATO soldiers listening in on yesterday's meeting. "They have better weapons. Police weapons, if it is not better than the enemy's, it has to be equal," he said.

If Col. Hix has his way, Kandahar city will soon have 3,000 police officers, about double the number it has now. And against the wishes of his European counterparts, they would all be trained in counterterrorism tactics and carry AK-47s, another bone of contention between U.S. forces and some NATO allies.

"They want them to be normal policemen," said Col. Hix, shaking his head and citing examples from a few years ago, when poorly armed police were routinely slaughtered by insurgents.

"Now when the Taliban come after these guys, they can give it back to 'em," he said, adding: "That's progress. It's ugly progress. But it's progress."..

Those Euros...excerpt from near the end of a July 2008 Torch post:
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2008/07/working-with-and-training-afghan-police.html

*The police need to be paramilitary; in 2007 three times as many were killed as army personnel--but the Europeans are nonetheless uncomfortable with the paramilitary role (and have done nowhere near enough in training police).

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

A Torch post:

Afstan: PM Harper's warm and fuzzy sell/Update: Not quite as generally reported
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/05/afstan-pm-harpers-warm-and-fuzzy-sell.html

Mark
Ottawa