.... It may surprise many Canadians to learn that in the fall of 2004, NATO was urgently trying to persuade Canada's then Liberal government to send its force to join the Italian contingent in Herat, in western Afghanistan, then and now a far less dangerous part of the country. At that same time, our Canadian military was advising the government to stay put in the relatively safe capital, Kabul. It seemed to our generals to be a natural fit. We Canadians had a good reputation in the capital and were heavily involved in building local infrastructure. They saw an important and highly visible role for us running Afghanistan's national airport. How very different our whole Afghanistan history would have been had these other options been chosen. We will never know for sure but perhaps there would have been a hundred fewer soldiers killed and many hundred fewer injured .... Just a few years ago the accepted wisdom laid the blame at the feet of the high-powered former chief of the defence staff, Rick Hillier. Maclean's magazine even went so far as to headline the conflict "Hillier's War." But I don't believe that is accurate. In the history of our involvement in Afghanistan, Foreign Affairs's role has largely escaped scrutiny. Yet it provided some of the most vocal advocates for a more high-risk mission like Kandahar. From what I have learned, our top civilian officials were more pro-Kandahar than the professional soldiers ....
