The Torch: Afstan, or anti-Wente

Not an Engels' selection but Mark's. Further to this post,

Afstan: The way the Wente blows...

All-Afghanistan, all the time: That's how this week felt to me.

From Senator Colin Kenny, writing last weekend about the mission hurtling to “a Vietnam ending” [more here and here] to my colleague Peggy Wente's Thursday column in which she announced that Canadian soldiers are “trapped behind the wire at the base in Kandahar” to everything in between, the week was filled with doom and gloom...

As for the allegation, outrageous really, in Peggy Wente's column – that Canadian soldiers are hiding – the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Walt Natynczyk, was shocked and frustrated by it. He just got back from Afghanistan last week, where after a concert on the base, he asked for a show of Canadian hands. “Only about 1,000 went up,” he snapped. “The other 1,800 were out at the FOBs [Forward Operating Bases], on patrol and living in villages. We take great pride in getting out and protecting Afghans every day,” he said.

To end the all-Afghan week, let me tell you now about two events worthy of attention.

One is next month – Oct. 4 – in Sudbury, where locals will march to raise money for their Home for a Hero, the fund established by the Irish Regiment of Canada and the Retail, Department Store Union to raise enough money to build a fully accessible home for Corporal William (Billy) Kerr. Cpl. Kerr is Canada's only Afghanistan veteran triple amputee, having lost both legs and his left arm to a bomb blast on Oct. 15 last year. See the homeforahero.ca website for more information.

And tomorrow in Ottawa, other wounded soldiers will take part in the second annual Army Run.

Master Corporal Jody Mitic is one of them. The leader of an elite sniper team, he stepped on a land mine on Jan. 11, 2007, and lost both legs below the knee. In the spring of last year, he ran 5K; now he's running 21K. “I'm trying to show I'm capable of doing what I used to do,” he said this week. “I really want to redeploy to Afghanistan.”

More on Ms Blatchford here, here (Rosie Dimanno also get a mention) and here.

2) Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star:

...my heavens, what a great deal of misinformation and misapplied, disingenuous angst there has been over this country's involvement in that country's evolution.

There was Senator Colin Kenny – who really should know better – hysterically making the hoary comparison between Afghanistan and Vietnam.

The absurd analogy might be forgiven in blogosphere dolts; not in a statesman whose musings might actually carry weight.

Further outrageous commentary was published in The Globe and Mail this week: First Margaret Wente claiming, wrongly, that Canadian troops no longer risk their lives going "outside the wire" in pursuit of insurgents; then, yesterday, Rick Salutin suggesting the Taliban have a justice system that works, compared to Afghans' miserable courts. The Taliban practise summary executions! That's their idea of jurisprudence.

Of course, such babble is merely opinion, if woefully ignorant. But I've had a bellyful of the sophistry that passes for thoughtful analysis, especially when it comes from individuals who have never set foot in Afghanistan.

I recently returned from a non-embedded stint there, my seventh extended trip since 2001. I am well aware of what is not working, what's regressing, the myriad challenges faced by the International Security Assistance Force ( boosted by 21,000 added U.S. troops) and the de-legitimizing fraud in last month's elections.

But I've seen Afghans – the vast majority of them – alarmed about the West abandoning them again and withdrawing troops prematurely, their backbone line of defence against the encroaching Taliban and the only element allowing for any reconstruction to proceed...

More from Ms. DiManno here.

3) Matthew Fisher, Canwest News:

...
With Internet access, and radio and television stations streaming news programs to their forward-operating bases and strongpoints, soldiers are acutely aware that some commentators -- with little or no knowledge of what soldiers confront in Afghanistan -- have given up on them and their mission.

Soldiers say they are more than a little bewildered by all the discussion about "wither Afghanistan" and disappointed that the Liberals and Conservatives -- who ordered them to the far side of the world -- have become so terrified about the Afghan file's potential political consequences that they have fallen silent about the current mission and what Canada may do when Parliament's current mandate expires in 2011.

There could not be two more differing views on what Canada is achieving in Afghanistan than that of the troops and of the mission's critics at home.

Unlike the U.S., where there is a robust, multi-faceted debate about Afghanistan in which senior soldiers can make their views known, all Canadian soldiers are under strict orders to remain silent about the Afghan mission's future and ways that Canada might adapt or change its mission for the better.

However, in stark contrast to the talk at home, there is confidence among Canadian troops and civilians in Kandahar that a tipping point has been reached recently in the province, with the long awaited arrival of the U.S. cavalry.

In this context, the cavalry is an infantry battalion, three Stryker light armoured battalions, a slew of military policemen and scores of helicopters from the 82nd Aviation Brigade [emphasis added, more here on US Army forces].

Among soldiers there is confidence that Canada's task force is finally in a position to focus on what the government has always wanted them to do.

That is, to "clear, hold and build" within their area of operations which, thanks to the Americans, is now about 60 per cent smaller [emphasis added], and to devote more time to mentoring Afghan army and police units who must take over the fight against the Taliban. It's hoped this will deny the Taliban and al-Qaeda safe havens from which they can again use Afghanistan as a kindergarten for global terrorism...

Clear evidence of the high regard the Pentagon has for Canadian military leadership was Washington's unusual decision to place that infantry battalion and, more recently, some U.S. military police, under Canadian command. At the same time, and in a similar situation, U.S. Marines fighting beside the British next door in Helmand have all remained under U.S. command...

For more than three years now, some media have claimed Kandahar City was about to fall to the Taliban. In fact, the Taliban have not once mounted a serious attack to gain control of even one part of Afghanistan's second largest city. What several deadly attacks on Afghan civilians in the provincial capital have demonstrated is that suicide bombers and IEDs have become the only way for insurgents to fight.

It is impossible for the Taliban to win a war with such tactics unless the coalition countries succumb to the propaganda that such terrorist attacks generate, and fold up their tents.

Although badly battered, the Taliban remains resilient because there still is a steady stream of religious fanatics being recruited from across the border in Pakistan and wealthy donors in the Gulf continue to provide strong financial support.

Despite the Taliban's abiding strength, Kandaharis remain overwhelmingly united about two things. Thanks in part to the huge number of Taliban attacks on civilians, the general population still wants nothing to do with leader Mullah Omar and his Arab friends. What they want is for Canadian and coalition forces to stay until their own forces are strong enough to confront the insurgents...

More from Mr Fisher here (second part) and here. And a comment on our media's dismal approach to Afstan at Milnet.ca.

Meanwhile the Globeites are as hard as ever at their agenda (which certainly has influence both elite and public opinion in this country):