Afstan: Brits et al. in combat/Canadian complaining

The UK Ministry of Defence story:

Taliban feel the pressure in northern Helmand

The UK-led Operation Lastay Kulang, which has been continuing in northern Helmand Province, has succeeded in squeezing the Taliban in the north and south of the Upper Sangin valley into isolated pockets.

The Daily Telegraph story (a long one with with lots of description of combat; I've included the final paragraph):

Our forgotten war

In one year, the Afghanistan war has claimed the lives of 51 British soldiers - the latest this week. But as our forces secretly begin their biggest ever offensive, morale is at an all-time low. Thomas Harding, the only journalist with the troops [good grief!], delivers an exclusive despatch...

Will such feats defeat the Taliban and create a civil society? Whisper it for now, but this is a war, a necessary war, that the West might just win. It would be an outcome that would change geo-politics. But the war's most shocking feature is that back on the Anglian plains and indeed across Albion, few seem to care. Listen

And some Canadian hand-wringing, Harper and Hillier-hating and Bush-bashing:

ANOTHER Atlantic Canadian casualty in Afghanistan. Master Cpl. Darrell Priede, a military photographer, had a photography business in Oromocto, the community near Base Gagetown that has taken too many of these hits. So has Atlantic Canada, where we supply a disproportionate percentage of Canadian troops, which in turn have been taking a disproportionate percentage of the casualties.

Canada has some five per cent of the NATO contingent, but our 56 fatalities account for about a quarter of the total in the year and a half since we moved into Kandahar.

As such, Atlantic Canada is carrying more of the Afghan burden than anyone in the NATO domain and the questions of what we’re doing there, whether we’re making any kind of progress, and when we’re coming out become more pressing with every fatality.

Straight answers are rare. If anything, the picture becomes more confused...

In the end, one ray of hope for Afghanistan, as for the world, is that the whole Bush government – not just Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz – will eventually be gone and a new start made, assuming that the world isn’t embroiled in a bunch of new wars by then.

Meanwhile, some things have changed. The definition of success in Afghanistan has been quietly transformed. The thumping militarism of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, General Rick Hillier, and the war party intellectuals who were so contemptuous of our peacekeeping tradition and eager to follow George W. Bush anywhere, has gone mute. The Canadian public isn’t buying it.

In his recent trip to Afghanistan, Harper emphasized that "military means alone" wouldn’t do it. Handing out pencil cases to children, he said success depends on "creating the economic, social and governmental infrastructure that ensures lasting peace and prosperity." There’s pressure in the U.S. as well to shift the emphasis to development from an impossible military conquest.

So we wait. If we dare not hope outright for the miracle of peace, at least we’re looking for better news, for no more casualties, and for an outcome that will ensure that those who have died already did not do so in vain.

The rest, alas, is out of our control – except to bring certain politicians up for judgment eventually.