John Stall

Until now, I’ve always believed Canada was doing the right thing by contributing to the coalition war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.  As the interdependant neighbour of the America that came under attack on 9/11, I felt we had a joint responsibility to protect the North American continent from further terrorism and to be part of the coalition that goes after it.  But like so many others this week , I was deeply offended (as I’m sure the loved ones of the 77 Canadian soldiers who have so far sacrificed their lives for Canada and the U.S. are)  by the  recent comments of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates who told the Los Angeles Times that NATO forces were not doing a good enough job against the Taliban and may not be as well trained in “counter insurgency” as the Americans are. 

He has since tried to clarify his point , backtrack and even called Canadian Minister of Defence Minister Peter MacKay (the day after the latest Canadian Soldier was killed) to make the point that he wasn’t pointing fingers at Canada and was embarrassed over the report. But for many in Canada the clarification is too little too late.  I suspect public opinion polls will find that opposition to the Canadian mission climbs higher  in the weeks ahead that the close to 50 per cent who oppose it now and would like to see Canadian troops return as soon as possible.

Canadian Forces have been doing most of the heavy lifting in Kandahar, have lost more soldiers, more equipment and more nights of sleep than the forces of any other NATO country and without a lot of whining, despite the lack of support from other NATO countries. 

Don’t know if Gates was aware when he made his diplomatically reckless comments that a panel appointed by Prime Minister is about to recommend a new role for Canada after the scheduled commitment ends around this time next year. But if he thinks Americans can do a better job on the front lines, then he will be happy to learn that the John Manley report is expected to recommend that Canadian soldiers make room for others on the front by beginning to withdraw. 

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.