Afstan: Scott Talyor "exposes" lack of development spending

The iconoclast strikes again:

FROM MID-FEBRUARY until Nov. 1, Brig.-Gen. David Fraser was the NATO coalition force commander in Kandahar...

Brig.-Gen. Fraser himself became virtually a household name as a result of the abundant coverage.
Emulating Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier, Fraser won over reporters with his macho demeanour...

...it is with some dismay that I see Fraser is embarking upon a speaking tour to "sell the war" to Canadians. He says it’s the media’s fault Canadian citizens don’t see all the good work our troops are doing.

"What was reported this past summer was my operations in Sangin and Helmand — what I did to fight the Taliban," said Fraser. "No one reported the fact that I spent $20-million building roads, schools, wells, and training and monitoring an Afghan corps commander."

This statement is, of course, false [another view here].

Canadian journalists have risked their lives to report on the road construction in the Panjwaii district [I suspect most of them were there for "kinetic" action - MC].

After claiming the lives of four Canadian soldiers and wounding a dozen others, construction on this road, at the time of writing, had come to a halt.

The rationale behind building this route was to provide NATO troops with a safer and more direct access into areas controlled by Taliban insurgents. Once the area was secure, the new road would presumably benefit the local villagers, but the impetus behind this project was a tactical solution, not humanitarian aid.

As for the overall figure of $20 million spent on reconstruction projects, this awesome-sounding sum also needs a little perspective.

It is estimated that the incremental cost of our military deployment to Afghanistan is about $4 billion to date and by the time our commitment ends in February 2009, this will have ballooned to more than $9 billion.

According to Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor in November, the cost of sending and equipping the tanks along with engineers and additional artillery assets is $189 million.

As well, Gen. Hillier went out and bought soldiers a Tim Hortons franchise at a cost of $4 million.

The criticism that has been directed at the current mission is that military expenditure far outweighs the money spent on humanitarian aid.

At a current balance of nine parts military to one part civilian aid, this argument appears to have some merit [and it's not new - MC].

Brig.-Gen. Fraser tells his audiences that it would "be nice to have a debate with all the facts on the table."

I couldn’t agree more.