[CaptainCrunch]

I might go long here and I apologize for that but I don't think that the Afghanistan situation, the liberal position and some of the loose accusations here can be summed up in a paragraph or two, so feel free to stop reading at any time.

First of all, Dion, the Liberal position, and the effects on the next election.

Dion first and foremost has put himself into a extremely bad position. At first glance his vote is pandering to a Quebec position that might not be there in a few months, Currently the Canadian contingent is comprised of the Van Doos or the royal 22nd regiment, one of Canada's most famous francophone formations. The big concern with rotating the Van Doo's into Afghanistan was that there would be a massive backlash in Quebec against the current government in Ottawa as casualties started to mount. To Dion it would make sense to support what is a silly position under the guise of gaining support in Quebec for the Liberal's. However by all reports the Van Doo's have done an exceptional job so far, exceeding past deployed groups in terms of humanitarian assistance support, combat operations and training with the Afghan army. Because of this we aren't seeing the massive negative downturn that was expected in Quebec.

Dion recently went to Afghanistan didn't learn anything, didn't listen and didn't do his homework. Instead he talked about changing the mission unrealistically and setting a deadline for a Canadian battlegroup withdrawl, none of which are realistic.

Frankly if Dion pushes this and forces an election on this issue he is in a terrible position, especially if he has to debate his reasoning in a public forum. The only way that he can defend his actions is to basically attack the military's effectiveness over there, in other words he's going to have to say that Canada's troops are not getting the job done, Humanitarian projects are not having the desired results etc. In terms of public sentiment Canadians for the most part seem to have a higher then normal feeling of pride in the job that the military is doing, Harper can put Hillier one of the more popular CDS' in history in front of the media and cut Dion to pieces.

It almost makes me wonder if Dion's handlers are pushing this agenda on him to force an ill timed election which will lead to a defeat and resignation of Dion while maintaining the status quo in the house of commons, which leaves the Liberal's four more years of opposition status and allows them to continue to rebuild their party.

Canada's Mission in Afghanistan

Right now Canada's mission is three fold.

First the prosecution of the Taliban. Right at the moment its essential for any of the forces in the south to continue to punish, demoralize, and force the Taliban into constant movement so that they can be bled dry, not have a chance to re-organize and not hamper the humanitarian effort.

Second the rebuilding of Afghanistan's infrastructure and civilian services. This is not a task thats going to take one or two or 25 years, it is a generational task and can not happen without the above mentioned first action. If the Taliban can continue to attack and destroy construction efforts, demoralize humanitarian efforts, and scare civilians into accepting Taliban rule. you cannot fight defensive wars against a small mobile enemy, especially one that can resupply across the Pakistan border. You have to make the Taliban membership die in a horrific and bloody action while attempting to destroy their competent field level and political leadership. This is a job that will take a exceedingly long time and will cost lives by the bushel full. The biggest issue is the support of the UN nations outside of Canada, the Dutch, the American's and the Brits. Canada cannot rotate out until a significant replacement force can be bought in from a nation other then the ones mentioned above. If France or Germany or some of the other nations were willing to rotate their combat units from the relatively safe areas around Khandahr into the more dangerous areas, Canada could rotate their units to safe areas and focus on Dion's concepts for a short time. Canada, the U.S., the Dutch and Great Britain need to find a way to pressure Nato to support this kind of rotation, if they leave before a proper rotation plan is put into place they leave the wild lands relatively open to re-occupation by the Taliban against the will of the Civilians who are finally starting to see some positive change and traction in their lives.

Someone said it above, The Taliban will probably never be defeated, only contained and marginalized, and if that happens then you can rotate a different army group in there comprised of

The Afghan Army

Have you ever seen how long it takes to build and train an army. Its longer then 6 years. First and foremost you have to train an army by changing its message. Canada and the other nato nations trying to build an army there are trying to build a small professional army that can hold its own against the insurgents there. In order to do that, you can't give them uniforms and guns and set them lose, you'll lose half of them to the battle hardened Taliban on the first day, and on the second day the rest will desert. You have to give them discipline, unit identity and pride, teach them to fight like a modern army, and then teach them to communicate and work effectively with NATO troops. Training will be ongoing and while troop levels provided by NATO should be able to be reduced as new Afghan units come on line, there will always be a advisers cadre provided by NATO.

Based on the above, Dion is completely wrong.

If Canada pulls out without a suitable replacement, we will gain resentment from NATO who right now is depending on Canada, we will be resented by the Afghanistani who have began to trust the maple leaf, we will be resented by the American's because we'll effectively be bailing out on them in the South, we will be viewed as weak and indecisive by the rest of the world.

Look, I fully expect that at some point in the next 5 years Canada's contingent will come home, our military is spending a lot of money over there, and we don't have the combat capability to support a generational war. realistically we have two full brigades of actual combat troops which equates to about 6000 combat ready infantry troops. fine you say, we have roughly 2300 over there not all of whom are infantry members, however the ones that are over here are getting trained, rearmed, losing experienced members and recruiting new ones. Frankly Canada's military has been on a war footing for 4 years now, and an army of our size can't sustain that. Canada needs to rest and rearm its troops, not commit them to UN missions, and not even think about deployment to other worldly hotspots.

Canada's next step is to work with the American's to force Nato formation rotations, and force NATO to get other units into Afghanistan to replace Canada's battlegroup. But if Dion thinks thats going to happen because Canada sets a short term deadline he's deluded and dumb.

Anyways, I don't know if this makes any sense, but its long enough for me.