Afstan roundup

The latest ("time for a decision") from the Conference of Defence Associations is here. Other things:

*Prime minister Harper may be putting the government on the line with a Commons' vote around the end of March (just before NATO's Bucharest summit) while Liberal leader Dion maintains his party's position that our combat mission must end in February, 2009.

*National defence minister MacKay heads to a NATO defence ministers' meeting at Vilnius where he will try and drum up military support for the Canadians at Kandahar (good signs from the French).

Update: No real help here:

Germany to send extra troops to north Afghanistan

But Terry Glavin recruits William Butler Yeats for the fight.

The Second Coming

Upperdate: The senior general with command responsibility for our troops in Afghanistan outlines military developments very clearly:

...
Tracing Canada's path in southern Afghanistan since undertaking combat operations nearly two years ago, the CEFCOM commander [Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, commander of Canadian Expeditionary Force Command] said there was "a sharp kinetic focus on security" during the summer and fall of 2006 and a better balance between security and reconstruction during 2007, when a balance was being found between exclusively Canadian security operations and those that involved Afghanistan's improving military capability.

"Geographically, we made significant gains in the past six months. We have expanded the security bubble and have done it with the help of Afghan infantry battalions," Lt.-Gen. Gauthier said.

"We are now evolving towards 100 per cent training and partnering with Afghans in operational areas. Afghans are assuming a greater share of security operations every day, which is essential in a counter-insurgency. At the same time, reconstruction is being superimposed, which will make a difference in the lives of Afghans. We hope to see a lot more of that in 2008."

Compare that with Don Martin's summary, in the National Post, of Liberal policy which means...

...opting for Canadian troops to down their guns early next year in favor of irrigation ditch-digging shovels and military training manuals even if foreign forces are deployed to the region...

M. Dion is such an inconsequential twit. One hopes madly that the French embarrass him by sending combat troops to join us at Kandahar.