The timeline to the real progress being made at Kandahar

Read this excellent article, "Reflections on Canada’s first 18 Months in Kandahar and Prospects for the Future" (p.10 at link), in the Autumn 2007 issue of On Track, published by the Conference of Defence Associations Institute. Some excerpts:

Most importantly, my [Dr. Lee Windsor, Deputy Director, Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society, University of New Brunswick] research involved a three week stay in Kandahar in April 2007 to experience the challenges Canadian soldiers face on the ground. There I spoke to Canadian soldiers and government officials, NATO partners, leaders from the aid agency community, and Afghans. I also had the unfortunate opportunity to witness the daily threats and strain endured by our soldiers when one convoy I hitched a ride with was ambushed and another struck by a suicide car bomb that killed eight Afghan civilians.

One of the most obvious preliminary findings is that public discussion over the mission is based on little hard and timely information about what is happening
on the ground, especially because the situation is both complex and rapidly evolving. Debate in Canada is based on a perception of life in Kandahar that is out of date.
What is needed is a historical timeline of the past 18 months and of what has been accomplished to date...

On the matter of expanding ISAF throughout Afghanistan, evidence suggests that NATO nations decided together that the best combination of forces for the difficult Kandahar job was the old Dutch-British-Canadian team that worked so well as Multi-National Division South West in Bosnia [emphasis added]. Having the most modern and robust vehicle fleet and being highly interoperable with US forces, Canada was a natural choice to deploy first.

The story of the first Canadian rotation into Kandahar is one of managing a demanding handover from American forces as Operation Enduring Freedom ramped down, paving the way for Dutch and British contingents to flow into Helmund and Uruzgan Provinces. The Canadian Provincial Reconstruction Team started in Kandahar City in 2005, taking steps to replicate the nation-building effort that worked in northern Afghanistan...

...When aid and reconstruction did appear on the horizon on a large scale in 2006, it posed a massive threat to the dominance of the Taliban in their heartland. It offered people hopes of stability and thus threatened absentee landlords and drug gangs who controlled them; these power brokers thrived in the lawless south and provided the Taliban with most of their operations budget. Reconstruction, especially of the road network and water management system, provided an end to a dependence on poppy growing by tenant farmers and threatened the power of feudal drug lords over their serfs, thereby threatening Taliban funding. As a result, it appears the reconstruction effort was directly targeted by militants.

After the much revered Foreign Service Officer Glyn Berry was killed in those early attacks, CIDA and Foreign Affairs pulled out of the city. The PRT ceased to function for a few months in early 2006 as the nonuniformed Canadian departments scrambled to reassess their prospects. By summer 2006 the Canadian Battlegroup returned to the Kandahar city area to restore security; CIDA returned, a new and highly capable Foreign Service officer was assigned, and the PRT was poised to restart operations. Before it did, and much to everyone’s surprise, a new and greater threat appeared.

A large Taliban force massed west of the city, apparently preparing for a major offensive and testing international resolve. The goal, it seemed, was to prove to Kandaharis that Canada and NATO was unwilling to fight to protect them and that the only future possible was under Taliban rule. The result was Operation Medusa, the systematic effort to defeat the Taliban force in Zhari and Panjwai Districts and prevent it from interfering with the restoration of civil society and reconstruction. No one anticipated that Canada’s reconstruction effort would require a conventional battle to launch it...

...had the 1RCR [1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment] not defeated the Taliban in Pashmul, reconstruction efforts under the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan would have ended permanently.

The defeat of the main Taliban force at Pashmul altered the political and social landscape in Kandahar by dramatically improving the credibility of the international
community among locals. As a result Canada’s third rotation to Kandahar that arrived in February 2007 could finally proceed as planned, with all mission components carrying out their assigned tasks. This fundamental timeline is apparently not understood in Canada, where impatience is rife at the perceived slow progress of the mission [emphasis added].

Only in the past six months was the Battlegroup, based on 2nd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment, able to push presence and security patrols outward into the most important agricultural and population areas around the river-centered ancient irrigation system. In effect, they have created a security bubble outside Kandahar City. Currently, the latest Battlegroup, based on 3rd Battalion of the Royal 22é Régiment, continues to protect and expand that bubble.

This security bubble was greatly enhanced in the past months with the arrival of soldiers and aid workers from a number of NATO and UN members in all provinces in the south. Growing international presence and improved professionalism and capability among the Afghan National Army is driving the Taliban into increasingly remote areas. In their absence aid and reconstruction work has increased...

Small numbers of hardcore Taliban and foreign fighters still try to disrupt NATO efforts. However, for the most part, calm and prosperity is returning inside the Kandahar Afghan Development Zone. So too are the aid agencies. In addition to Canadian, American and British government aid agencies, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, the Red Cross, a variety of UN elements, the World Food Program, and even Sarah Chayes’ Arghand Cooperative are all delivering short-term aid and long-term development projects throughout the area [emphasis added]...

The operational concept behind the Canadian security and reconstruction mission achieved traction in February 2007. Since then, NATO and the UN have made monumental strides forward as additional forces and development resources pour into the south, multiplying security and assistance capacity threefold from where it was but a year ago.

The debate over whether Canada should continue its role in Afghanistan is critical to the functioning of our democracy. The picture painted by the popular press and many critics, of a high blood price paid for minimal signs of progress, is misleading. Those weighing the merits of the mission must do so with a clear understanding that the sacrifices to date have borne significant fruit.