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Topic: Manley Report. (Read 2484 times)
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Mike Blais
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A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
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Canada urged to double troop strength
In absence of NATO reinforcements, Canadian commander seeks brigade of 5,000 to keep Taliban at bay in Kandahar province
GRAEME SMITH
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
February 23, 2008 at 12:00 AM EST
KHAKREZ, Afghanistan — Canada needs as many as 5,000 professional NATO soldiers — double its current force — to hold Kandahar's key districts, a senior commander says, suggesting that previous demands for extra troops are not enough for basic security in the province.
"If countries like Germany and France were not so afraid of committing forces, this problem would be solved readily," Major Richard Moffet, deputy commander of Canada's battle group, said in an interview.
He listed five Kandahar districts and suggested Canada needs to double its current troop strength of 2,500 to keep the Taliban away from those important areas.
"Easily you could have a brigade of 5,000 Canadians here just for Zhari, Panjwai, Arghandab, Shah Wali Kot and Khakrez, because to be honest, we haven't been to a few places in Panjwai yet," he said.
Military officials have spoken more bluntly about their lack of numbers recently, in private conversations and even publicly at meetings with Afghans.
Tribal elders from the mountainous district of Khakrez complained last week that NATO has failed to prevent the Taliban from running amok in the northern part of the province.
Nodding his head gravely, a Canadian officer told the elders they're right.
"We don't have enough troops," Colonel Christian Juneau said.
The frustration among elders in Khakrez district is only the latest symptom of what appears to be a sharp deterioration in security in the outlying parts of the province in the past year, as the overstretched Canadian forces have drawn back into core districts.
The military says Taliban ambushes have decreased in four of 17 districts in Kandahar city, the key zone where the Canadians focused their operations during the latest rotation of troops. But the military has so far refused to give statistics for all types of insurgent activity, including ambushes, and has kept the numbers for the entire province a secret.
A hint of the military's view of the province came during an interview this week with Lieutenant-Colonel Gilles Linteau, commander of the Joint Provincial Co-ordination Centre, a liaison hub between security forces.
"The number of incidents has doubled, if not more, in Kandahar," he told The Globe and Mail, suggesting that this estimate applies to the period since September of 2006.
Asked for clarification of the figures, however, Lt.-Col. Linteau later sent an e-mail saying the military cannot give details.
An average increase in attacks across the province would suggest a markedly worse situation in the villages and suburbs, because most analysts agree that downtown Kandahar enjoyed some relief in 2007 from the onslaught of insurgent strikes that terrorized urban areas in the previous year.
Anecdotes from beyond the city limits seem to confirm the trend; soon after Canadian and Afghan officials climbed out of their helicopters and crunched across the snow to the chilly cement building that serves as the Khakrez administrative centre, they heard a litany of bad news.
"As soon as the snow leaves the ground, the Taliban will come and force people to join them," said Shah Wali, a member of the Achakzai tribe, which usually supports the government. "What should we do?"
The 45-year-old with deep creases in his face said he took a risk by travelling from his village to meet the Canadian delegation, and he will be forced to invent a story to conceal the reason for his visit to the district centre. The Taliban might kill him for merely speaking with representatives of the Kabul government, he said.
The district has also grown dangerous for Malim Akbar Khan Khakrezwal, a former intelligence chief for Kandahar and now a leading tribal elder. His connections with the government have marked him, he said, and it's been impossible to visit the district for the past eight months.
"Six years ago we had only a few Taliban supporters in Khakrez," the retired major-general said. "Now we have a great number of them."
Pointing to white-capped mountains northeast of the town, he declared that the Taliban have camps in that direction where they're preparing insurgents for the next fighting season.
In the same direction, amid the same mountains about 70 kilometres north of Kandahar city, the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry established an outpost known as the Gumbad Platoon House in the spring of 2006. They spent several months patrolling the craggy northern reaches of the province, but Canada's regular forces abandoned the place later that summer as all available troops returned to the heart of the province for a battle with Taliban on the outskirts of Kandahar city.
No regular troops have returned to set up outposts in the area. In the meantime, the Taliban are believed to have gained stronger influence in the district, and the local inhabitants seem to have grown deeply skeptical about the government. When the provincial police chief stood in front of the assembled elders and declared they should support the "free and independent Muslim government," there was an uneasy rustling in the crowd, as people coughed and spit, and several men sitting near the front murmured, "No, no, no."
After the police chief's speech, Col. Juneau took the microphone and tried to explain why the district hasn't seen many troops for the past two years.
"The province of Kandahar is very big," the deputy commander of all Canadian forces in Afghanistan said. "We cannot provide security over the whole province at once."
But expanding the NATO presence into districts such as Khakrez will require a dramatic increase in the number of troops, military officials say.
Even more than 5,000 NATO troops may be required for the province, Major Moffet said, because beyond the troops needed for the core districts, NATO would also require forces to intercept the Taliban's supply routes in outlying areas.
Emphasizing that the assessment was only his personal opinion, Major Moffet said he would prefer to see the extra soldiers come from a single major country, rather than piecemeal from several contributors.
Continued increases in Afghan troops levels are also important, he added.
The problem with contributions from smaller NATO countries is that each group of soldiers would come with its own logistics personnel, the deputy commander said.
"If any country says, 'Okay we're going to provide 300 soldiers,' well, okay, how many fighters? A hundred and fifty? No, no, no. Send a battle group."
Germany has thousands of troops in northern Afghanistan but so far refuses to send them into the southern war. France is reportedly considering a major contribution of troops to Kandahar, however, and in recent weeks French soldiers have been increasingly conspicuous at Kandahar Air Field.
Canada has demanded an extra 1,000 NATO soldiers in Kandahar as the price for the extension of the Canadian operation, but the need for additional forces described by Major Moffet and other military officials goes far beyond that request.
More soldiers would mean fewer NATO casualties and less reliance on air strikes, Major Moffet said; air power can help the foreign troops when they're outnumbered by insurgents, but aerial bombings are frequently blamed for civilian casualties.
Having led some of Canada's biggest operations against the Taliban over the past six months, Major Moffet said he's convinced that his call for more troops does not resemble the ill-fated demands for troop increases of the Vietnam War.
"Honestly, I don't have the feeling that we're losing," he said. "All we need is a bit more cohesion at the NATO level and this problem would be solved."
The Department of National Defence was unavailable for comment.
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1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
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Mike Blais
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A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
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Just watched General Lew on the telly, was hoping he'd take a hard line, use his experience in Sarejevo to shame NATO... still do not have that 1000 troops, btw. let alone the numbers General Lew quoted last week. This is what I don't get. on one hand, he quotes the bible, FM whatever) then, one the other, says wellll, one thousand is a start... It would be good to see a little bit of backbone instead of theis never ending compromising at the expense of the troops.
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1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
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ranrad
Ron [Andy] Andrews
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Hmmm. me thinks it is the unpaid , and they dont need it, unelected politicians, and i call them that because they are the ones that REALLY make all the decisions, that are behind the real politicians that the real voters of the world actually DO elect...it has to be.. for there is no cohesion whatever about what they say and do...and yes, it is at the xpense of soldiers...sad , really sad...ranrad
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RCAF,CAF, converted RCR?,1RCR 74-77 CD: SSM (Nato);CPSM,;UN-Cyp.; UN- Golan
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Mike Blais
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A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
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France to send troops into Afghan combat: Le Monde
Reuters
February 26, 2008 at 9:13 AM EST
PARIS — France may send hundreds of ground troops to eastern Afghanistan where NATO-led forces are fighting al-Qaeda-backed insurgents, Le Monde newspaper reported on Tuesday.
It said the move would be part of a new Afghan policy being worked out by President Nicolas Sarkozy and his advisers.
France has about 1,900 soldiers under NATO's Afghan command, most of them based in relatively calm Kabul, and Le Monde said the fresh troops would be deployed outside the capital.
"Their destination would be zones of potentially fierce fighting, preferably the eastern region of Afghanistan close to the tribal areas of Pakistan," it said.
A policy now being worked out by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his advisors would see hundreds of ground troops sent to eastern Afghanistan.
Enlarge Image
A policy now being worked out by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his advisors would see hundreds of ground troops sent to eastern Afghanistan. (Reuters)
Early last year, France withdrew 200 special forces soldiers who had been operating under U.S. command in Afghanistan, but Le Monde said Paris was now expected to sanction the return of the special forces. About 50 remained to train Afghan commandos.
A presidential spokesman declined to confirm or deny the newspaper report. "The president has not made a decision. We are in discussion with our partners, inside NATO but not exclusively," he said.
Washington is heading a campaign for what it calls a fairer sharing of the burden in the fight against Taliban insurgents. Britain, Canada, Poland and others have backed the U.S. demand.
Germany, Italy and Spain have troops in relatively secure areas and have refused to send troops to southern and eastern provinces where the militants are most active.
At a meeting in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius earlier this month, NATO defence ministers with troops fighting the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan backed calls by the United States for more countries to send forces there.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said last week the alliance's future rested on its mission in Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, senior Canadian officials had talks in Paris on a possible offer of French support for 2,500 Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan.
Le Monde said Mr. Sarkozy would announce France's extended military commitment at a NATO summit in Bucharest in April.
Since his election in May, he has sent more combat aircraft to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and beefed up French efforts to train the Afghan army.
Recommend this article? 19 votes
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1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
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Mike Blais
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Another illusion of force...
FRANCE: TROOP DEPLOYMENT
Sarkozy wants troops deployed with U.S. in Afghanistan
France suggests sending forces to the east, not the south with Canadians
DOUG SAUNDERS
February 27, 2008
LONDON -- As Canadian soldiers prepare for three more years in the deadly south of Afghanistan, signs are emerging that they won't be joined by a hoped-for contingent of French troops.
Earlier this month, France suggested that it might send soldiers southward to answer Canada's demand for 1,000 more NATO troops if it is to continue its mission there.
But aides to President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested yesterday that while France is serious about increasing its commitment to the Afghan war and playing a larger combat role, he is likely more interested in deploying troops to the east of Afghanistan, to fight alongside U.S. soldiers.
France has about 2,000 troops in Afghanistan - most of them stationed around Kabul and not engaged in active combat.
The handful of NATO countries that are directly fighting the Taliban insurgency in the south, including Canada, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands, have encountered stiff Taliban resistance, with Canada suffering the highest casualty rate, and have been imploring other NATO countries for assistance.
Mr. Sarkozy's inclination now, leaked to the Paris newspaper Le Monde yesterday in what defence officials called a "policy trial balloon," is to play a stronger and more visible role in international military affairs, particularly in collaboration with the United States.
French defence experts familiar with Mr. Sarkozy's advisers confirmed that the Élysée Palace, Mr. Sarkozy's office, is considering this eastward option, but that there are dissenting views and that the President has not yet made up his mind. However, the "plan Canadien" seems increasingly unlikely.
"I doubt that the new, strengthened French force will go in the south; it will be in the east, close to Waziristan and the Pakistani border area," said Yves Boyer, director of the French Society for Military Studies. "I doubt the Élysée will want troops to go to the south. To go to the south is just to act as a fill-in, a stopgap, which is not a role the French want to play."
However, the eastern plan, if adopted by Mr. Sarkozy, could still aid the Canadians. According to French reports, his staff is discussing a plan whereby perhaps 1,000 French troops would go to eastern Afghanistan to replace U.S. forces there, who in turn would be moved to Kandahar to fight alongside the Canadians, thus fulfilling Prime Minster Stephen Harper's demand for more NATO forces there.
Mr. Sarkozy wants to use the Afghan war to make a dramatic display of France's muscular new military role in the world, French officials said, and he had hoped to use a key NATO conference in Bucharest in April to make a splash.
But France has committed troops to assist in bringing peace to the Darfur region of Sudan and Chad, and Kosovo's declaration of independence has required thousands more NATO troops to be stationed in the former Serbian province. That, along with the almost 14,000 troops France currently has deployed in world conflicts, has severely limited his ability to do anything dramatic in Afghanistan, a situation faced by several other European states.
"He has to balance things. There are French troops going to Kosovo, to Darfur and Chad, to the Ivory Coast," Mr. Boyer said.
"So the number of forces that France can deploy will remain limited, and it will have to be more in terms of special forces and airpower than having a huge number of people on the ground."
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1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
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ranrad
Ron [Andy] Andrews
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Well, to me all this talk ,talk ,talk is nothing but delay , hoping the dumb Cdns gov will just deploy there for ever.. and that could well happen.. the deal that is still being debated calls for a measly1000 more combat troops and some equipment, there is more than plenty of all of it within the Nato alliance.. either they do it, or we pull out, no more haggling no yakking, no notice...someone needs to send Nato a message they will , MAYBE , understand...and yes i realize , it is forces, powerful forces outside ANY governmemnt who are pulling the strings..regardless we cannot be their pawns forever, our people deserve better, they have and do give their best, the same inreturn is required , not just requested. There is no debate on that...ranrad
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RCAF,CAF, converted RCR?,1RCR 74-77 CD: SSM (Nato);CPSM,;UN-Cyp.; UN- Golan
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Mike Blais
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A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
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Yep, turning into a real cluster...k.
The ugly truth in Afghanistan
GRAEME SMITH AND PAUL KORING
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
March 1, 2008 at 12:28 AM EST
KABUL AND WASHINGTON — When managers from all the major humanitarian agencies in Kandahar gathered in a high-walled compound to swap war stories last month, it wasn't the tales of kidnappings and suicide bombs that caused the most worry. Nor was it the reports of insurgents enforcing their own brutal laws and executing aid workers.
"The scary thing was, no foreigners attended the meeting," a participant said. "Everybody had evacuated."
Most aid organizations quietly withdrew their international staff from Kandahar in recent weeks, the latest sign that the situation here is getting worse. It's now almost impossible to spot a foreigner on the city streets, except for the occasional glimpse of a pale face in a troop carrier or a United Nations armoured vehicle.
At least the foreigners can escape. For many ordinary people the ramshackle city now feels like a prison, with the highways out of town regularly blocked by Taliban or bandits. Residents have even started avoiding their own city streets after dark, as formerly bustling shops switch off their colourful neon lights and pull down the shutters. There is rarely any electricity for the lights anyway, partly because the roads are too dangerous for contractors to risk bringing in a new turbine for a nearby hydroelectric generator.
Corrupt police prowl the intersections, enforcing a curfew for anybody without that night's password, or bribe money. The officers seem especially nervous these days, because the Taliban hit them almost every night with ambushes, rocket-propelled grenades or just a deceptively friendly man who walks up to a police checkpoint with an automatic rifle hidden under a shawl.
Insurgent attacks have climbed sharply in Kandahar and across the country. But some analysts believe the numbers don't capture the full horror of what's happening in Afghanistan's south and east. When a girl in a school uniform is stopped in downtown Kandahar by a man who asks frightening questions about why she's attending classes, that small act of intimidation does not appear in any statistics.
Even so, the statistics are bad. The United Nations's count of security incidents in Afghanistan last year climbed to 13 times the number recorded in 2003, and the UN forecasts even worse this year. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization says insurgent attacks increased 64 per cent from 2006 to 2007. In the first two months of this year, some analysts have noticed a 15- to 20-per-cent rise in insurgent activity compared with the same period last year, raising alarm about whether the traditional spring fighting season has started early.
The prospect of another year of rising bloodshed has forced a moment of reckoning. Almost everybody involved with Afghanistan is taking a hard look at the country's future, even as Canada's Parliament takes stock of its role in the war. The Liberals nearly forced an election this spring over a government motion to extend the mission to 2011 — and although the extension now seems likely to pass when it comes to a vote next month, the mission is increasingly a source of raucous debate in Canada and among its NATO allies.
"Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan," concluded the Atlantic Council of the United States, a prestigious American think tank that deals with international affairs. "Unless this reality is understood and action is taken promptly, the future of Afghanistan is bleak, with regional and global impact."
The toughest parts of the south, such as Kandahar, were considered lawless but not extremely dangerous after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Foreign aid workers drove in unarmoured vehicles along the dirt roads of every district in the province, often with no armed guards. No districts of the province — in fact, no districts in the country — were labelled "extreme risk" on the UN's threat assessment maps in May of 2005.
Despite the relative calm of those years, many aid groups were calling for international forces to bring order in the wild countryside and extend the influence of President Hamid Karzai, who was jokingly called the "Mayor of Kabul" because of his government's limited reach.
Kabul was roaring with activity as foreign aid poured into the capital, and the international community wanted to spread the prosperity into rural areas. It was widely believed that a few thousand troops could stabilize a province such as Kandahar.
"In retrospect, it was naive," said a Western security official in Kabul. "It was a mistake."
By the time Canada's battle group arrived at the beginning of 2006, warning signs were already emerging that the project would not go as planned. The killing of a Canadian diplomat in January of that year prompted Ottawa to cut its provincial reconstruction team from 250 to 120 people early in the year, including a temporary evacuation of all civilian staff, and the Canadians found themselves locked in major clashes with the largest groups of Taliban ever seen in the country since their regime had collapsed.
An updated version of the United Nations threat map was published in June of 2006, showing rising danger levels for humanitarian workers in many parts of Afghanistan, including two of Kandahar's 17 districts, which were coloured solidly pink, indicating "extreme risk."
Like a cancer, those pink splotches on the UN maps have spread until they now dominate the country's south and east. The latest map, updated in December, shows 14 of 17 districts in Kandahar are entirely designated as extreme risk.
Military commanders often sneer at the United Nations threat maps, saying that civilian analysts exaggerate the risks, but security officials say the UN mapping generally reflects the military's own classified analysis, and it's far from the only measure by which Afghanistan's security has worsened in the past two years.
In a blunt assessment this week, Vice-Admiral Michael McConnell, the U.S. intelligence czar, admitted that the Karzai government controls less than one-third of the country. The Taliban hold 10 per cent on a more-or-less permanent basis while the rest is run by local warlords, he said, describing the situation as deteriorating.
Even that gloomy picture may represent an airbrushed version of events, some analysts say, because increasing collusion between Taliban and local powerbrokers — criminal groups, warlords, drug barons, ordinary farmers and even government authorities — allows the insurgents to operate freely in districts without exerting visible control.
A rising campaign of intimidation in recent months also seems aimed at persuading those still undecided about the Taliban. Police officers' bodies, shot or beheaded, have been dumped in public places. Other corpses hang from trees, dangling from nooses with the word "spy" scrawled on a note attached to the body. More detailed notes are posted at night on the front doors of anybody suspected of having sympathies for the Kabul government, warning of deadly consequences for anybody who helps what the Taliban call a "puppet regime." It's well known that the insurgents rarely make empty threats.
Even if villagers aren't afraid of the Taliban, many join up because they find the new government unpalatable. No regime has ever been overthrown at the ballot box in Afghanistan, so political opposition often becomes part of the insurgency.
Many Afghans view the government as a family business, reaping the spoils from foreign donors at the expense of those who don't belong to the well-connected tribes or family networks.
They watch government officials profit from the drug trade, and grow angry when eradicators destroy their small field of poppies. And in the battle-scarred landscape where Canadians operate, many people nurse deep grudges against the foreign troops after having their relatives detained or killed in the years of fighting.
"That's where we're seeing the growth in this insurgency, from the local grievances," Joanna Nathan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said.
The increases in bloodshed have been dramatic: Last year, more than 6,500 people, most of them ordinary Afghans, were killed in the violence, as compared with roughly 4,000 in 2006, and 1,000 in 2005. More than 220 foreign soldiers, most of them Americans but also dozens of Canadian and British troops, were also killed in 2007, by far the deadliest year since the United States invaded. Those early years of fighting, in 2001 and 2002, caused 80 deaths among the U.S. troops and their foreign allies.
ď Canada's 2,500 troops are deployed in a rugged province of blistering deserts, snowy mountains and lush valleys roughly the size of Nova Scotia. With a desperately poor population of more than one million people and a long, porous border with the hotbed of Islamic extremism in neighbouring Pakistan's tribal lands, bringing security to Kandahar would be a challenge even without the Taliban.
On most days, fewer than 600 Canadian soldiers are "outside the wire" of NATO's sprawling base at Kandahar Airport, a number that everyone concedes is far too few to conduct a classic counterinsurgency campaign.
For rough comparison, NATO sent 40,000 troops into Kosovo — a place roughly one-quarter the size of Kandahar and with no active insurgency in 1999. More than one-third of them are still there eight years later. In fact, NATO has five times as many troops deployed in Kosovo as Canada has in Kandahar.
Comparisons with other insurgencies show a similar shortfall of soldiers in the Afghan war: Conflicts in Somalia, Malaysia, Sierra Leone, East Timor and Iraq all required far more troops per capita than NATO has devoted to Afghanistan.
But finding another country to replace Canada, or even provide the additional 1,000 soldiers the Harper government is demanding as a price for staying in Kandahar until 2011, won't be easy. Few NATO members are in a position to help.
A simpler, more effective, solution exists: The number of boots on the ground, outside the wire, could be doubled if deployments were increased to a year from the current six months.
It's unpopular with those in uniform and politically difficult, but even the huge U.S. military has turned to longer deployments as an effective force multiplier.
U.S. army units now deploy for 15 months. Canadian troops spend barely one-third that length of time in Afghanistan, once a mid-deployment vacation is included. The relatively short deployments also means that the two- or three-week overlap required to get the incoming unit familiar with the people and terrain they will occupy and fight cuts more deeply into their effective time on the ground than if rotations were longer.
Longer rotations would also reduce the problems that happen every time a fresh group of Canadians arrives in Kandahar. There is usually a spike in civilian shootings as the nervous new troops settle into their roles, and Afghan politicians complain that every new group of soldiers seems to forget what the previous rotation learned. Every newly arrived soldier is forced to start anew with the slow process of building the personal relationships that form the critical basis of all dealings in a traditional, largely illiterate society.
While the Canadian army is probably too small to send two 1,000-soldier battle groups to Afghanistan simultaneously on six-month deployments, doubling deployment lengths to a year and adding another 400 or 500 soldiers would come close to doubling the available boots on the ground.
The other serious shortfalls that plague the war in Kandahar may be harder to solve. The desperate shortage of medium- and heavy-lift helicopters is so serious, and European allies so unwilling to help, that NATO is chartering Russian commercial helicopters to move food, fuel and munitions. While that reduces the exposure of resupply convoys to the deadly roadside bombs, the civilian-flown choppers aren't cleared to carry troops.
At least temporarily, hard-pressed Canadian troops in Kandahar will get help when more than 2,000 battle-hardened U.S. Marines and their helicopters land this spring in southern Afghanistan.
"My hope is that the addition of the Marines will provide the kind of help that will reduce the levels of casualties," U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said when asked about the disproportionate number of Canadians killed battling the Taliban.
The Marines, sent in to reinforce NATO forces for this summer's fighting season, will add massive punching strength to the thinly stretched Canadians in Kandahar. The influx of Americans may also bring a shift in strategy: U.S. commanders have been saying that Canada and other NATO countries have been too "soft," too hesitant to pursue the Taliban into their rural strongholds.
The Canadians, by contrast, have often quietly denigrated the American forces from whom they inherited Kandahar in 2006, saying the U.S. soldiers were more interested in "search-and-destroy" operations than holding key zones and trying to bring development in limited areas.
Canadian and Dutch forces in the south have pointedly avoided major sweeps through far-flung Taliban enclaves in the past year, and even avoided patrolling some Taliban-held villages just 15 kilometres outside of Kandahar city, saying they don't have the necessary troops.
That cautious approach will likely end with the arrival of the Marines.
The American presence may continue to grow, too. Shifting political priorities in the United States are bringing new attention to Afghanistan.
Iraq "distracted us from the fight that needed to be fought in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda," said Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic front-runner, who has promised to both pull all of his country's 160,000 soldiers out of Iraq and send tens of thousands to Afghanistan.
Recent developments in another country, Pakistan, may also affect Afghanistan. The defeat of religious parties in a recent election; a recent spate of insurgent attacks on Pakistani military and intelligence targets; and the rise of the so-called Pakistani Taliban whose declared goal is waging holy war against Islamabad, have raised hopes among an optimistic few observers that Pakistan's authorities might finally take action against the Taliban's havens in that country. Others see the turmoil in Pakistan as a grim sign.
Nearly everyone agrees, however, that Afghanistan will likely see rising violence in 2008. Two Western security analysts predicted that the year will bring increased sophistication in the Taliban's technology; they're likely to use so-called explosively formed penetrators„© for the first time, adopting a technique often used in Iraq to puncture even the most heavily armoured vehicle with a specially shaped explosive.
Afghanistan's economic growth is also expected to continue slowing. Private investment was cut in half in 2007 compared with a year earlier, to about $500-million, and trade within the country will be hampered by Taliban and criminal roadblocks on the main highways.
The insurgency is showing signs of increased radicalization, too, and analysts expect this will continue with spectacularly vicious attacks in the coming year, as the most extreme insurgent leaders try to wrestle control away from more moderate Taliban who may consider the government's offer of negotiations.
It's unclear whether a political settlement can be reached with the Taliban, or what that might resemble if it happens, but the difficult process of talking with the insurgents won't likely bear fruit in the coming year. Even the most optimistic NATO officials say they cannot expect to reduce the levels of violence in 2008, and the Taliban claim they have momentum, meaning they're unlikely to give Kabul favourable terms.
"Existing measures to promote peace in Afghanistan are not succeeding," said a report published this week by Oxfam International.
But if the tough situation in Afghanistan does not inspire hope in the short term, many observers still believe success is possible, eventually. The insurgency does not yet appear to be spreading beyond the ethnic Pashtun areas of Afghanistan's south and east. Ms. Nathan of the International Crisis Group said the international community can prevail by digging in for the long term and making the Afghan government into something palatable for ordinary people.
The author of the latest Oxfam report, Matt Waldman, said the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan has inspired other creative ideas about what should happen next.
"We need to think hard about the entire international approach to Afghanistan," Mr. Waldman said.
In an interview at his Kabul office, the respected analyst said he has grown enthusiastic about an approach called "community peace-building," which envisions local meetings to solve the squabbles over land, water or patronage that often simmer underneath the broader reasons for conflict. The solutions may not resemble the kind of Afghanistan that outsiders want, he said, but in some places they may bring peace.
"The secret to success will be not imposing Western ideas and values," he said.
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1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
Pro Patria
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Christian Carter
Sr. Member
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Posts: 23
Pro Patria
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Maybe it has been said in the overall report and I have missed it but after doing some research on the NATO website some of the facts that jump out at me as part of the root problems associated with this mission is the contribution levels given by NATO member countries. With Canada contributing by scale 2500 troops in comparison to our population and size of our military it is a sizable committment actually. Expecting more would essentially mean increasing our levels of overall military personnel, specifically in the combat arms elements. That is something I think the politicians would be hesitant to do.
But looking at the rough numbers in Afganistan as of February 2008 some NATO members could be pulling up their socks definately more than what they already have. From a deployment perspective they are certainly closer in region than Canada and the US.
Belgium has 370 troops on the ground. That is not even a Battalion strength unit and I am sure the Beligum military could pony up at least 1000 troops if they had to, or really wanted to.
Greece - 150 troops. In terms of a NATO contribution it is somewhat pathetic actually. The offering is like saying "we don't really want to be here." If this is the case, then why bother showing up. It is like marrying a multi-millionaire and one of the spouses works at McDonalds and comes home saying, "honey, now we have $10 million and $350 bucks. Its peanuts in comparison to what truly can be committed.
Norway - 495 troops. As with Belgium I am sure Norway can do better.
Portugal - 160 troops - same boat as Greece.
Spain - 740 troops - Think they can do better.
Turkey - 675 troops - Same as above.
Clearly and I am sure it has been said, NATO as an organization is somewhat fractured in its member committments to NATO sanctioned operations. As countries governments sure you want to get on board to the "feel good" operations like bringing food and medical aid in deserving countries and that is certainly needed and required. However with Afghanistan there is a great identified need for rooting out Taliban and other insurgents, stabilizing areas and regions and once secure bringing in the associated aid and hearts and minds operations that reinforces previous combat operations. NATO in my belief is trying to do all at once and while there is successes; I think its hampered to greater successes by doing or trying to do it all at once. You can't hold ground or secure ground unless there is boots on the ground.
I don't perceive it as a military problem either, clearly it is the associated governments of NATO countries that deal with it in this day and age or military operations at somewhat arms length. That unfortunately is a problem we can all truly agree to and know it won't be solved in a short time, long time or if at all.
NATO however as an organization does need to contribute more as a whole and member nations that are not bucking up to their responsibilities and committments to NATO as an organization need to step up to the plate more. I doubt however it will happen en-masse if at all.
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2 RCR CFB Gagetown J Coy, K Coy - Intelligence Section 1985-88
3 RCR CFB Baden , O Coy, R Coy- Intelligence Section, N Coy - 1988-1992
1 RCR CFB Petawawa - Dukes Coy, Bravo (Welfare Cell), Signals Platoon 1992-1994
SSFHQ - 1995 - 1997
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Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
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