Outside Kandahar with the troops

There should be much more of this sort of real reporting in our media:

1) Richard Johnson in the National Post:

'I can see movement along the treeline'

2) Don Martin in the Ottawa Citizen:

Three days, three bomb attacks
Hotel Company faces an unprecedented string of sneak attacks. So far, only a goat has died.

3) Graeme Smith of the Globe and Mail (he seems to be putting the actions that Mr Martin describes in context):

Taliban shift tactics to lure Canadians out of Kandahar

MASUM GHAR, AFGHANISTAN [a Canadian forward operating base] -- Taliban attacks in a remote district of northern Kandahar have lured Afghan and Canadian forces into a series of bloody rescue missions in recent days as the insurgents increasingly seize upon the political value of far-flung administrative outposts.

The latest drama started Thursday morning in Ghorak district, when insurgents besieged a government centre roughly 85 kilometres northwest of Kandahar city, according to villagers, police and military officials.

Every day since then, convoys have rolled across the barren flatlands in an increasingly costly effort to prop up the detachment of Afghan police trapped in their mud-walled compound, drawing the Canadians and their allies far away from their main goal of protecting Kandahar city [emphasis added]...

That last sentence however is nonsense and Mr Smith should know it. Protecting Kandahar is simply the first, necessary condition for carrying out the mission. The main goal is providing increasing levels of security throughout Kandahar province--in particular by Afghan forces themselves. Hence the sort of operation that Messrs Martin and Smith describe is exactly what our troops should be doing. With all the risks entailed.