So Long, It's Been Good to Know You...
Well, that line won't be spoken or longingly sung yet, not for a little while longer. Say another two years. At the very least. It won't be until at least 2009, perhaps later, that Canada will be able to pull her troops out of Kandahar Province in Afghanistan.Unless they're re-assigned by NATO and end up somewhere else within Afghanistan, handing Kandahar over to some other determinedly-doughty troops, themselves taking up deployment in less hazard-prone areas of the country.
Meanwhile, that's where Canada's 2,500-strong troops are stationed. Doing the best of a bad job. Mourning their dead when the sad occasion arises. We're getting stories back in Canada from embedded reporters giving us the sorry and difficult details.
Everything from the boredom, the heat, the dirt, the endemic poverty, the corrupt police, the eagerly-helpful Afghanistan conscripts, the trusting faces of children newly in possession of pencils, notebooks. The farmers' angst over choices; poppy earnings as opposed to scant recompense for grains.
And meanwhile, too, the Canadian Armed Services' branch of the Operational Mentor Liaison Team is busy with the need to accelerate training of the Afghan National Army, the success of which will, in the final analysis, be the determining factor in just exactly when it will be considered timely and 'safe' for Canada to withdraw her presence from the country.
But once the Afghan National Army becomes a true reality, a confident and well trained, reliable force for the purpose of protecting their country and assisting in the establishment of law and order, everything will begin to fall into place.
Of the current 50,000 troops, a mere 500 are considered to be prepared and adequately trained to fight in Kandahar province. Self-sufficiency is, obviously, a long way off yet.
But we're getting there, slowly but surely.
Labels: Troublespots, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, August 07, 2007
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