Afstan: First get your facts right

Here's a column in the Edmonton Journal that is all too typical of our poor excuse for a punditocracy.

Here's the letter to the editor I just sent:

In her column, "Canadians deserve full and open debate on Afghanistan mission" (July 15), Sheila Pratt refers to Andy Knight, a University of Alberta professor. Ms Pratt writes that, according to the professor, "The Liberals committed Canada to a UN-approved campaign carried out by NATO, to go after al-Qaida and the Taliban."

Not so. The first major Canadian deployment to Afghanistan was a Canadian Army Battle Group of around 750 troops that had a combat role under U.S., not NATO, command in southern Afghanistan for some six months until the end of July 2002 when they were withdrawn.

NATO had no role in Afghanistan until August 2003 when it took charge of the UN Security Council-mandated International Security Assistance Force in Kabul. At that time ISAF had no mission to "to go after al-Qaida and the Taliban"; rather its mission was to maintain and strengthen security in Kabul and environs--close to traditional peacekeeping. About 700 Canadian troops became part of ISAF in Kabul in August 2003. This Canadian presence in Kabul effectively ended in October 2005.

New contingents of Canadian soldiers were then deployed to Kandahar in early 2006 for the combat mission that continues. These forces were under U.S. command from February until the end of July. It was only then that NATO took command of our troops in southern Afghanistan and that ISAF itself assumed a combat role.

The one thing that Prof. Knight gets right is that the Liberals committed the Canadian Forces to all these missions. How can anyone expect an intelligent debate on the Afghan mission when a professor cannot get even basic facts right, and when a journalist--apparently equally ill-informed--repeats the errors in print?

References:

"Deployment of the 3 PPCLI Battle Group" (2002)
http://www.dnd.ca/site/Newsroom/view_news_e.asp?id=490

"The Canadian Commitment" (2003)
http://www.mdn.ca/site/newsroom/view_news_e.asp?id=1228

"Operation ATHENA (2003-2005)"
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/operations/Athena/03-05_e.asp

"Operation ATHENA: The Canadian Forces contribution to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF): approximately 2,500 CF personnel"
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/newsroom/view_news_e.asp?id=1703#athena

And here's a letter sent to the Ottawa Citizen, July 14:

In your story, "Taliban plotting wave of attacks against foreigners" (July 14), one reads that "...the Taliban were pushed from power by U.S. and Afghan forces in early 2002." Then in this Agence France Presse (AFP) story in the paper the same day, "Taliban leader vows he will 'go after Canadians'", one reads that the Taliban were "...ousted from power in Afghanistan by U.S. troops after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks..."

No wonder Canadians are confused about events in Afghanistan if journalists cannot describe accurately what happened just under six years ago. In fact most of Afghanistan fell to troops of the insurgent Afghan Northern Alliance in November 2001. The Taliban abandoned the last major city they held, Kandahar, on December 7. So the Talban were pushed from power in 2001, not 2002 as the Citizen's story states.

There were indeed U.S forces involved, as your story says. They provided considerable air support and there was assistance to the Northern Alliance from a limited number of special forces and intelligence personnel. However it was Afghans themselves who did almost all the fighting against the Taliban on the ground. Significant numbers of American troops did not start arriving until the end of November 2001, after the Taliban had been routed almost everywhere; some American units did take part in actions around Kandahar when it fell. Nonetheless, contrary to the AFP story, U.S. troops did not "oust" the Taliban.

References:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/waronterrorism/story/0,,665189,00.html
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jdw/jdw011112_1_n.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1653137.stm
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/11/26/ret.afghan.konduz/index.html
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/11/26/ret.afghan.marines/index.html
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/12/07/ret.kandahar.surrender/