Afstan: Now we find out

But a bit late to counteract the widespread perception amongst too many Canadians that the situation is hopeless. This will hardly counterbalance all the damage the Globe and Mail's negative coverage has done--along with the coverage of the rest of our media and the ignorant posturing of opposition parties.

Given the enormity of the task of establishing a civil society in a war-ravaged and impoverished land, progress in Kandahar has been swift and impressive since the long convoys of Canadian troops rolled south 11/2 years ago [emphasis added]. Then, there was a grave threat that the Taliban would seize the city of Kandahar, creating a Islamic statelet that would undermine Afghanistan and re-emerge as a new haven for al-Qaeda.

That threat has gone. The Taliban, as a stand-and-fight force, stood and was defeated last fall in the Panjwai district west of Kandahar.

Canadian troops, on aggressive search-and-destroy missions, regularly rout and kill small groups of Taliban fighters. Equally important, the fledgling Afghan National Army, mentored by embedded Canadian teams and with Canadian artillery and tank support, is increasingly capable of conducting small-scale combat operations [emphasis added].

“That's why I am so optimistic after 10 months,” Brig.-Gen. Grant said.

Kandahar city is bustling. The fertile Panjwai has been mostly repopulated. It's no small measure of progress that small children shyly wave to passing Canadian armoured vehicles. “There are plenty of places where people still don't wave,” one soldier said.

Almost by definition, waging a successful counterinsurgency, especially for a foreign army, consists of barely perceptible progress that rarely warrants headlines back home interrupted with headline-making failures, defeats and mistakes [emphasis added--what "defeats"?]...

The bolded bits basically say it all. Pity it's probably too late for most Canadians to realize the situation. The Conservative government also bears a heavy responsibility for that failure to understand:

"I sense cutting and running," says Canadian military historian and author Jack Granatstein. "We are clearly preparing to end or greatly minimize our combat role. It's obviously too politically damaging.

"I don't think Canadian public opinion can withstand massive coverage of every death."..

If the media focus on combat deaths is bad for the government's political fortunes, the scarcity of information the government is offering to the Canadian public about the mission is also eroding support [emphasis added]. This criticism comes not only from the political opposition, but also from military pundits who have traditionally been supportive of Canada's intervention in Afghanistan.

"What is needed is regular briefings like we had during Kosovo," says Alain Pellerin, head of the Conference of Defence Associations.

Mr. Pellerin says the government tends to restrict communications to news releases issued at the time of a Canadian casualty, typically reaffirming the importance of the mission and the soldier's part in it.

"Between these dates when people get killed there's no flow of information," he says. "Because there is a vacuum, there is a lot of speculation."..

Canada's Commons defence committee commented in its latest Afghanistan report last month that a lack of information about the mission can fuel public intolerance.

"In the end, the committee came to think that uninformed impatience at home might have some adverse impact on our national will and, therefore, have a negative influence on our determination to what is required to achieve strategic objectives set by government [emphasis added--no shoot!]," the committee noted...