Saving Afghanistan is not a 'forever' thing, and the Taliban knows our weak spots

Chris Wattie made just those points in a good interview with Anna Maria Tremonti on The Current yesterday morning. It's worth listening to the whole interview (in Part 3), but I especially liked the part where Tremonti tried to point out that the Canadian troops didn't even hold the ground, and Wattie responded with 'what if they hadn't dispersed the Taliban and won the battle?' as an argument. It's a good line of reasoning: each victory we win simply buys time until the next battle in this long war.

While winning a military confrontation in Afghanistan doesn't guarantee long term victory, losing that particular one would have guaranteed defeat.

And I also liked Chris' point that the battle really is mostly about propaganda for the Taliban at this point: they believe Canadian soldiers are strong, but the politicians and voting populace are weak, and they design their actions around those beliefs. They could well be right.

I'm glad Chris said all that, and I'm particularly glad he said it to a CBC radio audience.

Of course, he was trying to hock his new book - which is well worth the read, if you haven't picked it up already - but I know he believes what he said too.