What it's like outside the wire in Afstan
Don Martin of the National Post seems rather taken aback by reality.
Update: Mr Martin can't quite seem to make his mind up. He sure tries to be hard-boiled---but can he reason clearly in light of his final paragraph?
Update: A vivid description of Canadians in combat by Reuters photographer Finbarr O'Reilly--an action the day before six Canadians were killed.
Uppestdate: CP story about a firefight July 17. The reporter does not seem to have gone outside the wire.
I hadn't noticed that F-15s are now deployed in Afstan:
Update: Mr Martin can't quite seem to make his mind up. He sure tries to be hard-boiled---but can he reason clearly in light of his final paragraph?
Canadian forces will leave this isolated outpost -- hopefully today, because there are a lot of filthy bodies screaming for a shower, and none more than a smelly yours truly -- but they'll leave behind a defensive barrier designed to fend off the barbarians, and let a more civilized culture take root.Maybe, Mr Martin, the right thing to do is fight, and help the Afghan forces to fight themselves, until the barbarians are repelled from the gates. Unless it becomes clear the mission is truly hopeless--certainly not the case now.
Update: A vivid description of Canadians in combat by Reuters photographer Finbarr O'Reilly--an action the day before six Canadians were killed.
Uppestdate: CP story about a firefight July 17. The reporter does not seem to have gone outside the wire.
I hadn't noticed that F-15s are now deployed in Afstan:
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 10:13 a.m.
3 Comments:
That's some really good writing right there...
What are you objecting to in Martin's writing?
Cameron: These two sets of sentences, which are self-contradictory in my view:
1) "It would be easy to denounce this particular mission as a waste of military manpower, after more than 100 bored soldiers lounged around with little to do for 10 days while headquarters slowly dispatched another convoy loaded with barbed wire, sand bags and barriers to fortify the outpost.
As this three-day mission rolls into its 11th day, it seems to me that brass at the Kandahar Air Field deserve a slap on the head for organizational ineptitude and, frankly, dispatching an overkill of firepower, given that locals report only a dozen or so insurgents in the area."
2 "Read Prime Minister Stephen Harper's words on Afghanistan carefully and, while he talks of letting Parliament decide on ending the military mission in February, 2009, that's not the same thing as ending the humanitarian or reconstruction responsibilities of the deployment.
Canada may well keep soldiers here indefinitely to escort and protect ventures like these -- albeit hopefully more efficiently staged in the future -- that are designed to support Afghans trying to rebuild a society safe from the Taliban's terror."
Plus 2) suggests that all one needs to do is some vague sort of "protection" rather than from time to time taking the initiative against the enemy (but more and more, under the plan, in support of the ANA rather than in the lead).
Mark
Ottawa
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