“OTTAWA - Former Liberal leader Stephane Dion on Wednesday (Nov 24, 2010) questioned why Canadian Armed Forces need to train Afghan military to fight the Taliban, when the Afghans were strong enough to defeat the forces of the Soviet Union in the 1980s.” The Vancouver Sun
It makes sense that if Afghans can defeat former Soviet Union and so far U.S, Canada and other NATO forces have made not much of headway then who is the better trained to fight in Afghanistan? Who is in need of training?
Does this also mean that there is a revolt within the Liberal caucus over Afghanistan? It looks war hawk Michael Ignatieff is in further trouble.
Read the Vancouver Sun story here. Recommend this post
The questions no one are asking: how many Afghan soldiers have we trained since we began? How many of those remain? In September the current American commander in Afghanistan put the desertion rate at 23% annually. If Karzai can't or won't staunch the desertion problem, training more deserters accomplishes nothing.
ReplyDeleteBear in mind that these desertions are occurring while the ANA is doing very little of the heavy lifting. When we actually pass that burden onto their shoulders how many do you think will hang around?
We have caved in on tribalism and warlordism in Afghanistan and that rules out an effective national army.
When we go the civil war will resume and those army units will reconstitute their former ethnic militias. Some may actually wind up fighting alongside the rebels.
I can see Harper wanting to bury this desertion issue but there's no excuse for Ignatieff to play along.
sorry, that should have been "no one IS asking"
ReplyDeleteMoS, I agree with you. After all U.S trained the Taliban-to-be during USSR invasion and Osama bin Laden was one of their favourite Jihadists. What does that tell you? Once all this current and ongoing training is done then U.S and NATO will be fighting the fighters they trained. Western public is being fed a lot of bull.
ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost the Afghanis are loyal to their own tribal heads and war-lords. For the time being many tribal leaders and war-lords (including Karzai and friends) are enjoying the bounty provided through funding from the US, Canada and other NATO countries.