The rest of the reporting

The Kingston Whig-Standard has started running Afghanistan stories from Ian Elliot, one of the reporters I traveled with to Kandahar. His first piece is well worth a read:

Troops believe in the mission, and they believe the way out was not to kill Taliban, but to reconstruct the country and its institutions as much as they can, work they effusively praise the provincial reconstruction teams and the operational liaison teams for leading. They are the teams of Canadian soldiers, diplomats, prison guards, police officers and others who are training the Afghans to do the work themselves -to use the shovels, the rifles and even the ballot boxes.

Never before has there been this much civilian-military co-operation on any mission, and to my surprise, rather than being suspicious rivals, each recognizes that they need the other, and had broken down the institutional barriers that make them so much at odds in Ottawa but surprisingly effective allies in a place like this.

They genuinely want Canadians to understand what they are doing there, the sort of things that don't involve improvised explosive devices and ramp ceremonies. They are proud of what they do and want to show it, not in briefings and PowerPoint slides, but on the ground where they can show you the bricks and the mortar that weren't there a year ago.

I get accused of being a "homer," rather than a dispassionate observer of the military and the Afghan mission, and it's true: I'm unabashedly, unapologetically for both. But Ian's a cynical ink-stained wretch, a card-carrying member of the cut-throat mainstream media that lives and dies by scoops and scandals.

And even he was won over by the professionalism, the dedication, and the sincerity of the Canadian men and women - civilian and military alike - who are executing the Canadian mission in Afghanistan.

Take that for what it's worth...