Afstan in US press/CF plan

A major story in the LA Times:

In the wind-scoured high desert that was once the heartland of the Taliban movement, the will and determination of a little-heralded American ally have been undergoing a harsh test.

For the last six months, the task of confronting insurgents in volatile Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan has largely fallen to Canada, whose troops have participated in myriad peacekeeping missions in recent years but had not seen high-intensity combat since the Korean War.

Although its nearly 3,000 troops account for less than 10% of the allied forces in Afghanistan, Canada absorbed nearly 20% of the coalition's combat deaths last year, losing 36 soldiers.

A Canadian diplomat also was killed, by a suicide bomber.

The disproportionate casualty count in a region that Taliban commanders have pledged to seize this spring has triggered debate at home about whether Canada is finding itself in a quagmire of American making.

The deployment is a strain for military families. Moreover, the Canadian mission points up the stresses and strains caused by unequal burden-sharing within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Already, alliance unity has been frayed by what commanders describe as an insufficient overall troop commitment and rules that sharply limit the combat capabilities of some participants.

"Would I be happy if there were more nations in the south? Yes," said Lt. Gen. Michel Gauthier, commander of Canada's expeditionary forces, who toured Canadian outposts in Afghanistan in mid-January.

"Would I be happy if there were fewer caveats?" he added, referring to rules that limited the combat missions of many NATO troops to emergency sorties to aid other alliance forces. "Yes."

A NATO meeting in Brussels on Friday brought a pledge from the U.S. for more troops and an additional $10 billion over two years, but only vague promises from other alliance members.

Canadian military officers in Afghanistan sidestep questions about the safer tasks given to French troops in the capital, Kabul, or to the German deployment in the relatively calm north.

They point instead to others in the line of fire: American troops' front-line engagement with insurgents in the east, the battles that British forces have waged to the west in Helmand province, or other contingents serving alongside Canadians in Kandahar, including Dutch troops.

Even so, Canadian forces who arrived in August were stunned by their initial encounter, a full-blown battle with thousands of insurgents.

Canadian troops took the lead in NATO's Operation Medusa, a September confrontation with Taliban fighters who had entrenched themselves in and around the Panjwayi district, southwest of the city of Kandahar.

"Everyone here has seen someone die," said Cpl. Luke Winnicki, a 26-year-old combat engineer in the Royal Canadian Regiment, gesturing toward dozens of troops in a drafty tent at Masumghar, a hillside outpost about 15 miles southwest of Kandahar...

But the Conservative government is not, as the article later says, a "coalition".

Meanwhile, the CBC uncovers the Canadian Forces' very reasonable plan for Afstan--a document dated, I think, May 2006 from what I saw in the television story but the date is not mentioned in the online version.

The document — authored by Gen. Rick Hillier and obtained recently by CBC News —stated that the military's job in Afghanistan is considered successful and completed:

* when new Afghan security forces "are established" and "fully controlled" by the Afghan government.
* when those forces are trained and can conduct their own "counter-insurgency operations."
* when the forces can defend against foreign fighters and "effectively control borders."
* and when "terrorist groups are denied sanctuary within Afghanistan."