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For years, Canadians have been puzzled by government statementsabout our real role in the Afghanistan war. So it's no wonder we'restill confused about the nature of our large training mission stillover there. We were shocked last week when a Canadian military trainer waskilled in an ambush in Kabul. There was political and mediaconfusion over whether this job was to have been quite risky, orgenerally low-risk. The larger point, however, seems not yet grasped. For the realityis that while Canada's military pulled out of a costly, directcombat role this summer, it is now plunging even deeper into thereal heart of the war. Still, the confusion over this is understandable, and you will findan excellent explanation for it in a remarkable new book, The Savage War: the Untold Battles of Afghanistan by veteran Canadian Press correspondent Murray Brewster, whocaptures the extraordinary mind-deadening effect on publicconsciousness of years of spin control by Prime Minister StephenHarper and his PMO. "The Harper Government had done everything it could to shoveAfghanistan off the public agenda and it succeeded beyond anyone'swildest dreams," Brewster writes. "A sort of collective amnesiatook hold, a grey, foggy recollection. People knew the war wascoming to an end, they just didn't know how or when." It was in this fog that Harper went to the Lisbon summit onAfghanistan last year to promise a post-combat training mission inas bland a manner as his writers could devise. Senior Canadian officers were astonished to see the next phase ofCanada's military involvement in Afghanistan merely mentioned, asif in passing, within a sentence promising different forms offuture aid. Some officers still think Harper lost an opportunity to win bigkudos within NATO for what Canada was about to do as well as tobrace Canadians for what was to come, including the obvious risks. The result was that the full scope of the training mission wasnever much discussed, let alone debated in Parliament, nor did itfeature in the spring election. The media, and the country, movedon. The pointy end But let's be clear. This training mission is enormously importantto NATO and it is putting Canada in a vital place in the war thereover the next three years. The CBC's Brian Stewart, with Canadian military trainers at afacility near Kabul in 2008. Their role has suddenly become muchmore dangerous. The number one priority for NATO right now is training.Specifically to complete the training of a 350,000-strong Afghanarmy and a large, reformed police force; and to make sure both aregood enough to take over in the battle against insurgents by 2014,when we, along with all the European countries and the U.S., wantout for good. Consider where this puts Canada. Our 1,000 or so military andpolice trainers and their support teams stand in second place inthis priority mission, right behind the Americans. By next year, wewill make up 20 per cent of the entire training mission, maybe moreif our cash-strapped European allies bail out. Canada is highly regarded as a source of military trainers, andthis effort gives us extra heft. It has also helped place CanadianMajor-Gen. Michael Day in overall charge of the army component ofthe training. As he put it recently: "I don't want to diminish for a second whatwe've been doing for 10 years down South" in Kandahar. "It was anincredible accomplishment. But this is where the campaign will bewon or lost." A target for the Taliban Of course, if NATO knows this, all the insurgent leaders know it aswell, which is why no Canadian should take the risks of thismission lightly. Guerrilla commanders, often headquartered in Pakistan, are fullyaware they need to drive out NATO trainers, Canadians certainlyincluded, before Afghan security forces grow any stronger. They don't want to face a resilient national Afghan army after NATOleaves, nor probably do their shadowy Pakistan backers want to seethis either. This explains why insurgents have been launching fierce, oftensuicidal, attacks in recent months against training and commandfacilities, including some right inside Kabul. It is also why NATO troops are increasingly on guard againstguerrilla infiltrators and rogue sympathizers in Afghan uniforms,like the ones behind the killing of three Australian trainers lastweek. In strict tactical terms, the insurgents have little option but totry to damage these training efforts as the pace of their reformspicks up. Still at war The Taliban, for example, cannot like the fact that the Afghan armyis receiving 6,000 to 8,000 recruits a month, enough to more thanmake up for the chronic desertion rates. At the same time, theranks of Afghan army officers and non-commissioned officers hassoared and will soon hit 86,000. Within a year, the Afghan army will reach 352,000, an achievement Inever imagined when I viewed training sites there just a few yearsago. Part of the explanation is much better conditions. In a stilllargely illiterate nation, some 100,000 recruits have now beenthrough literacy training, which, along with better pay, tends toattract a more promising class of soldier. The Canadian effort is emphasizing key support elements that havelong been missing in the past better logistics, communications,medical services and top officer training as well as the creationof the ongoing departments needed to sustain a military. These are all things that are vital for NATO to "train its way out"and, hopefully, our camp defences and the solid professionalism ofour trainers will keep casualties low, as I believe they will. But given that our role is critical to the possible success of theentire NATO engagement, the three years remaining will be highlychallenging and often tense. We are not just at war, we are still on the inside of one and need to remember this far more often than we do. I am an expert from siliconebakingmoulds.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Silicone Heat Resistant Mats Manufacturer , China Silicone Baking Set, Silicone Baking Set,and more.
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