Afstan: will Canada be a weak link?
A senior prosecutor in Afghanistan's anti-terrorism courts seems to think so.
As NATO troops replace U.S. forces on southern Afghanistan's battlefields, insurgents are waging a suicide bombing campaign that appears aimed at shaking the alliance's public support in Europe and Canada...
The mission is expected to draw NATO into the first ground combat in its 57-year history. Fighting Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in rugged, often mountainous terrain would be a major step beyond NATO's previous peacekeeping missions or the alliance's 78-day air war against Serbia in 1999 to end atrocities in Kosovo...
"I think the rise of attacks in Afghanistan nowadays is aimed at the weak forces, such as Canada and others, and that is because these countries can easily be threatened," Ansari [the senior prosecutor] said...
"It is impossible to get into the heads of the insurgents, but it sure looks like they've developed a conscious strategy of deterring those countries that are in the NATO mission," Gordon [senior fellow at the Brookings Institution] said. He was part of a team of experts who assessed the alliance's operations on a NATO-sponsored trip to Afghanistan in December.
That strategy threatens to undermine the counterinsurgency effort because some NATO governments are reluctant to get into a war with the rebels, Gordon said...
At least the Canadian commitment in Afstan is getting some attention in the international media. And our government, both Liberal and now Conservative, has so far--unlike our NATO partners to be at Kandahar, the British and Dutch--not been reluctant to take on a combat role. But one wonders how long that resolve may hold.
Update: The Washington Post (more international media!) reports from Toronto that the link will be indeed be tested:
...
Military and political leaders here worry the Canadian public, already sour on America and the Bush administration's "war on terror," is not psychologically ready for news of casualties.
And some predict that Canada's higher profile in Afghanistan may bring attacks home, as in London and Madrid...
Cross-posted to Daimnation!
As NATO troops replace U.S. forces on southern Afghanistan's battlefields, insurgents are waging a suicide bombing campaign that appears aimed at shaking the alliance's public support in Europe and Canada...
The mission is expected to draw NATO into the first ground combat in its 57-year history. Fighting Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in rugged, often mountainous terrain would be a major step beyond NATO's previous peacekeeping missions or the alliance's 78-day air war against Serbia in 1999 to end atrocities in Kosovo...
"I think the rise of attacks in Afghanistan nowadays is aimed at the weak forces, such as Canada and others, and that is because these countries can easily be threatened," Ansari [the senior prosecutor] said...
"It is impossible to get into the heads of the insurgents, but it sure looks like they've developed a conscious strategy of deterring those countries that are in the NATO mission," Gordon [senior fellow at the Brookings Institution] said. He was part of a team of experts who assessed the alliance's operations on a NATO-sponsored trip to Afghanistan in December.
That strategy threatens to undermine the counterinsurgency effort because some NATO governments are reluctant to get into a war with the rebels, Gordon said...
At least the Canadian commitment in Afstan is getting some attention in the international media. And our government, both Liberal and now Conservative, has so far--unlike our NATO partners to be at Kandahar, the British and Dutch--not been reluctant to take on a combat role. But one wonders how long that resolve may hold.
Update: The Washington Post (more international media!) reports from Toronto that the link will be indeed be tested:
...
Military and political leaders here worry the Canadian public, already sour on America and the Bush administration's "war on terror," is not psychologically ready for news of casualties.
And some predict that Canada's higher profile in Afghanistan may bring attacks home, as in London and Madrid...
Cross-posted to Daimnation!
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 12:27 p.m.
1 Comments:
Here is a tibute file I found over at Kates SDA's
http://media.putfile.com/a-soldiers-tribute
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