The SAT and the Globe and Mail

Further to Babbling's post today, here's a letter to the paper--Reply #2--from the Conference of Defence Associations (in one of their online forums) that was not published:

15 January 2008

With reference to your editorial on 15 January 2008, “Put real civilians in these positions” –

Your editorial does a disservice to the efforts of the men and women of the Canadian Forces and DND civilian personnel that constitute the Strategic Advisory Team (SAT) in Kabul. Members of the SAT bring organizational skills and capacity-building abilities necessary for failing states and situations where security-provision and governance are intertwined. Furthermore, team members, the majority of them with graduate degrees, bring critical expertise to the fledgling Kabul government (that is by all accounts in dire need of it), including legal, business and project management training.

Furthermore, suggesting that the military’s input constituted the entire “detainee policy” is misleading, given that both departments– Foreign Affairs and National Defence – were involved in formulating the Memorandum of Understanding on the detainee policy and the final document was approved by Ministers Bill Graham and Pierre Pettigrew.

Instead of writing that Canada’s soldiers “are best equipped to soldier” – a circular argument that fails to recognize the evolving role of soldiers in places like Afghanistan – the Government should recognize their positive efforts and build upon them with a greater commitment to improving governance in Afghanistan. Bureaucratic rivalry should be consigned to the pages of a political science textbook.

Alain Pellerin, Colonel (Retired)
Executive Director, Conference of Defence Associations
www.cda-cdai.ca