A sense of horror seems to prevail over NATO’s incoming secretary-general, Anders Rasmussen, wishing out loud that Canada would reverse its decision to pull combat troops out of Afghanistan in 2011.
This has caused some dismay among people who should know better.
For starters, there’s no likelihood that Canada will reverse its 2008 decision to pull back, if not out of, Afghanistan.
The Liberals who committed our troops to combat in Kandahar when they formed the government, want us out; the Tories who kept our troops in a fighting (as well as reconstructive) role, also want us out.
So out we’re going.
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We should tell Danish Rasmussen that we have to bring our troops home to defend Hans Island from the Danes.
More seriously, the former conservative PM 2001 to 2008 is very sharp, he basically turned Denmark back from a socialist abyss. Perhaps his rhetoric is leading up to embarrassing the Euroweenies to stepping to the plate and doing their share in Afghanistan .. “wait and see”.
The real question is “can” we stay in our current role in Afghanistan. Make no mistake we will still be there after 2012. Possibly as many as 1000 or so troops in a variety of roles, we will not be hunting Taliban but we may be offering fire support with the M-777′s or we may be ferrying troops in helicopters and at the very least we will be manning reconstruction and CIMIC teams, and of course JTF2 and CSAUR will be there as well.
The reality is the Army is broken. It cannot keep 2000+ combat troops fighting any longer.(2000 troops in theatre, 2000 more in work up training to go on the next roto, 2000 that have just returned and 2000 being drawn up to start the next work up training for the roto to follow.- we simply do not have that many reg force combat troops and the Reserves are already maxed out in their support, simply put the troops are worn out.
To make matters worse, retention of experienced NCO’s and officers is a crisis because the operational tempo is destroying families.
The relatively minor issue is the equipment which must all be replaced. Yes ALL. It is broken. There is a graveyard in Kandahar of LAVS and assorted vehicles. The vehicles on the road will not be worth bringing home as they are worn out from the conditions there. Equipment can be replaced much quicker than personnel so it is a minor problem by comparison to the manpower issues.
By 2014-15 it may be possible to re-enter the fray, but that will depend on how much pressure the USA puts on Canada and how much the politicians want to risk alienating the big boss to the south.
Apparently many of the Canadian contingent have recently moved their main residence in among the civilian population in and around Khandahar. Hopefully, they have as a main assist whole packs of trained bomb sniffing dogs. I’d hate to think our group have been placed in a ‘guinea pig’ situatiion after they’ve more than adequately held the fort and taken the most casualties. The U.S. forces are on a current anti-Taliban mission that seems somewhat serious in application, relieving the Candian forces. Gates is now talking more years there in terms of presence on the ground, when other global hotspots are compiling for radical jihad exercises — Sudan, Nigeria, et. al And Europe’s NATO forces continue to ‘wing it’ avoiding needed input. The growing ranks of the unemployed should seriously consider signing up for active service. Toward expediting the job being done once and for all. The ‘jihadist agenda’ is seriously holding up ground and water chemical cleanups in the Western world and elsewhere. Not to mention dire need for serious attention required by the agricultural sector — projected food shortages (loss of Fraser salmon stock, being a prime example).
Re: #2 — Thanks for adding your thoughts, Rob. They are good ones and everyone needs to pick up and pay attention. The broken marriages really bother me and that’s truth because family always comes first with me.
My vew is that Canada needs to triple the size of our armed forces because they are all going to be needed in the years ahead. They have far to much on their plate at the moment and a time out of a few years is required to get them up to speed in my view.
We’ve done enough for now.