Similar tactics were used against British & Soviets-- after initial successful assaults the Soviets & Brits camped in massive cantoments and bunkers declaring victory--the Afghans ran and cameback another day. Sigh why does nobody learn from history, expect NATO to get hurt really hard soon--Taleban may win this.

i see in the paper that the canadians are about twice as likely to die in 'stan as an american soldier would be in iraq.

 

 

in a way the change from outright military style opposition of the nato
troops in the south to a suicide bombing campaign is a tribute to the
nato troops who have demonstrated time and again that a standup fight
is almost hopeless for the taliban goons.

the canadians in particular have acquired a reputation locally for
being very reluctant to let the taliban break contact and for being
very aggressive in making contact in the first place.

Yeah, you guys are doing a great job.  My guess, though, is now you realize just how huge and long this war will be in Afghanistan.  Nothing wrong with your troops, or ours.  This war, more than Iraq, will be a true and accurate test of our respective nations' determination.

 

For every American, it should be no contest.  Sadly, the memory of what 9/11 means is fading in some of my citizens.  Regardless of Iraq, though, I think we see clear on this matter.

 

Canada, of course, was also impacted by 9/11, has commonwealth ties to terror events in Bali and Britain, and possessing it's own close understanding of events in Madrid and throughout France.  Yet, it's even more possible that Canadian citizens will become disheartened by the length of this war, and the commitment it shall require, don't you suspect?  Particularly, given the disproportionate commitment that Canadian forces face daily compared to, say, the Germans or the Spanish?

 

We're there, and shall be for some time.  Regardless of Iraq, I'm generally confident of this.  I suspect that, as we see our forces drawn down in Iraq, it will be a natural assumption that U.S. force size will increase in Afghanistan.  I certainly expect so.

 

I just hope that it doesn't have to offset a Canadian departure.

we have pol's up here playing politics over the commitment to 'stan.  i wish i could say that it comes as a surprise but anyone with a pulse could see it coming.  there has been a fair bit of progress on the aid and construction fronts though the media seems to largely ignore that sort of thing which hopefully is showing the locals we are there to help. 

 

what really bites though is the non support of most of our nato allies in this.  if it's just resolution on the part of the armed forces we are golden but it's going to be up to the pols so it's a tough one to call.  the "conservatives" are sliding in the polls now and the liberals are rising again.  i think the liberals would meet the agreed upon tour of duty but i really doubt they would consider extending it especially given the lacklustre support given.  the sooner an election is called the better the odds of the conservatives being re-elected but they keep hoping to bump the polls in their favour despite the slow falling away of the public from their party.

Lost my beautiful series of questions in a power-outage.  Big wind storm along the east slope of the Oregon Cascades this afternoon.  Anyway-I always thought last winter/spring in the debates at the British, Dutch, and Canadian Parliaments that the case for deployment was soft-pedaled by the various MoDs under the guise of re-construction.   OOOOOR there existed a collectively and immensely naive assumption by the various national constituencies that the taliban weren't afoot in Helmand in large and vigorous numbers.  Michael Yon's blog was FULL of evidence to the contrary.  Equally, Christina Lamb, foreign correspondent for the London Sunday Times did a harrowing series of articles just from the Helmand region while the various debates ensued.  So I'm not certain who was fooling who, given the info floating about freely in the public domain. 

 

In all three cases, I personally thought that the situation in Helmand was deliberately mis-represented by the Dutch, British, and Canadian MoDs.  I don't believe that the U.S. government, in making it's request for N.A.T.O. assistance, made any such assertions about a benign state of affairs in Helmand.  As we'd only recently been there with our forces, and still retain significant spec ops and Log assets there, we'd been long aware of that region's general rep for trouble.  One of the worst, clearly.  In short, I

 

My overwhelming sense then was this uniform hope in all three nations that, so long as you were engaged in positive ventures like re-construction, you'd neatly side-step the taliban beef with the Kabul gov't., Karzai, and the Americans.  In fact, it's probably clear to most of your public now that any PRT type project outside of the Kandahar city limits (and quite possibly within) is a massive undertaking of coordinated reconnaissance, combat, and (finally) security ops in conjunction with the proposed engineering project.  Ya just ain't sendin' road crews out to fill pot-holes on the ol' highway without a whole lot of planning, coordination, and support.  Not if you expect to return in one piece.

 

As you can tell by the stress on the Australians, Dutch, British, Danes, American, and your forces, the fighting is being borne disproportionate to our more reluctant allies.  And, for the vast majority of the time in Afghanistan, it's very much fighting, not building.  Between the taliban, gangs, opium warlords, and corrupt police/army, we're not close to having a security environment that will permit the type of constructive engagement which we all, under better circumstances, would desire.  So we fight.  We do so because none of our forces seem to lack for targets of men shooting at us-eagerly.

 

Like I said earlier, most Americans believe we've no choice.  3,000 citizens dead because of the Afghan Taliban's sponsorship of al-Qaeda makes it a bit easier for us to pull triggers.  Perhaps stoically, in recognition that there's plenty more in dem dar hills over yonder and they just keep acomin'.  We'll accomodate their ambitions for martyrdom knowing it may be awhile before we do any serious nail-driving, road-building, re-construction stuff.  So far, you guys have as well.

 

But we've never really seen Afghanistan otherwise, despite how "softly-softly" (for us anyway) we're approaching this conflict.  If, however, your public feels mis-lead about the nature of the threat, then and now, wellllll...it calls to question whether you really, really have a dog in this fight, NATO obligations or otherwise.  Somehow, you bear a different and better sense of responsibility about the nature of those obligations than our Norwegian, German, Spanish, and French partners.

 

Afghanistan is different, whether those other nations choose to recognize this, or not.  It really is the "heart of the darkness" for mankind.  No place that's simultaneously more abjectly poor and virulently dangerous at once.

 

Oh well.  Hope y'all hang around.

i think the canadian military had a pretty good idea of what they were getting into when they asked for that province.  it wasn't the luck of the draw after all we went out of our way to get one of the most "active" areas in 'stan.  i really doubt the pols understood what the army was getting into and god knows i never anticipated as many casualties as we've had.  still from what i've read we are making some progress in that province and i would hate to see that abandoned to the taliban.  they owe us a blood debt yet for the dozens of canadians who died that day and we're not done collecting on it yet.

Lost my beautiful series of questions in a power-outage.  Big wind storm along the east slope of the Oregon Cascades this afternoon. 

 

yeah i am up in the fraser valley and that windstorm raised a fair bit of hell up here too.  got 90 kph gusts in vancouver and trees down all over with something like 60000 households in the dark.