A small truth about Afghanistan

The next time I hear a colonel, or a general, or even Steve Harper telling us about the "progress" being made in Afghanistan, I'm going to see what other countries are saying before I even come close to believing.

The international community has failed to deliver on its promise to rehabilitate the Afghan army which is still far from able to secure the country, Germany's foreign minister has said.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier told foreign reporters that a commitment made during an international conference in London last year to equip and train 85,000 Afghan soldiers remained unfulfilled.

"Today, we are at a training level of 30,000 men, meaning more than 50,000 short of the objective," he said.

It would have been better if he'd said, "We're achieving our goals."

But he didn't. Funny how we never hear that from Harper and crew.

To the credit of forces on the ground, the police training system is going "better".

As a means to measure security however, the ability to get workers into the Kajaki Dam to get another turbine functioning is a critical benchmark. I wonder how that's going?

(4 July 2007) F-15Es provided a show of force to get insurgents to give up their position near Kajaki Dam. The show of force was reported as successful.

Success can mean many different things. Complete success would mean unfettered access.

Do they have that?

Ask Harper.