The most indiscriminate of weapons

Archie McLean of The Edmonton Journal writes a very good piece on how our soldiers deal with the threat of IED's:

Roadside bombs continue to pose the No. 1 threat to Canadian troops in Afghanistan this winter, but while soldiers are on edge, they say they've learned to live with the randomness that accompanies life here.

"It's the nature of the fight," says Capt. Shawn Bardell, the engineer troop commander, with the 3rd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment battle group. "You could blow up at any time."

Eleven Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan after being victimized by roadside bomb attacks since the beginning of December alone. According to military figures, the number of improvised explosive device attacks was up sharply in 2008 compared to 2007. About 180 attacks were recorded between September and December 2008, compared to 75 over the same period in 2007.

The one additional piece of information I wish he'd put into the piece is the fact that in 2007, only 7% of IED incidents in Kandahar resulted in a Canadian death, while in 2008, that figure dropped to 4%.

As I mentioned in my own post on the subject a couple of weeks ago, that points to two things. First, ISAF and ANSF defeat far, far more IED's than anyone in Canada knows, because of the way the news is covered (both media's fault, and the CF's fault). Second, we need to staunch the cross-border flow of personnel and materiel involved in the building and planting of IED's. Because the problem isn't the Taliban's batting average - we've made sure that's abysmal. The problem is the number of times they get to bat.

More boots on the ground should help that. So should more training of the ANSF. And ISAF is working on both.