Up to 750 trainers and at least 200 support staff would work outside the combat zone at a training academy or large training facility for Afghan soldiers and police officers, the CBC's James Cudmore reports. They would remain in Afghanistan until 2014 at the latest.
Where did that come from and who decided it? Why is this information not out there for all of us to digest? And while the loyal opposition hasn't even been given the opportunity to have a look at... whatever this plan is, neither has anyone else. Harper is now using the members of the Canadian Armed Forces as his own world-stage ego brush.
Want to know who else doesn't know? The troops who are going to have to keep going back to Afghanistan. Nobody has a clue and they are none too happy about it.
Here's the prime line of the day from the bazaars neither MacKay nor Harper are allowed to enter:
Oh, isn't that fucking lovely. We'll have more people "training" the Afghan army than we will have training our own. We've got a critical backlog of basic training to the rank of corporal and we're going to train a bunch that has a desertion rate that's right off the scale. Fucking brilliant.
I don't think I even want to add to that.
Want to know who else doesn't know? The troops who are going to have to keep going back to Afghanistan. Nobody has a clue and they are none too happy about it.
Here's the prime line of the day from the bazaars neither MacKay nor Harper are allowed to enter:
Oh, isn't that fucking lovely. We'll have more people "training" the Afghan army than we will have training our own. We've got a critical backlog of basic training to the rank of corporal and we're going to train a bunch that has a desertion rate that's right off the scale. Fucking brilliant.
I don't think I even want to add to that.
Where did that come from and who decided it?
ReplyDeleteOver the weekend at the Halifax International Security Forum with Airshow, Toews, Napolitano, Condi, McCain, Stephen Hadley, John Manley, Natynczyk, Mark Carney, etc, there was a lot of talk about "2014, 2015, the unspoken date for the ending of combat operations by NATO in
Afghanistan" and how this will get nailed down with a new NATO "Strategic Concept" at the NATO meeting in Lisbon.
It just sounded like an eternal NATO flying force of 3D throughout the world to me but what do I know?
Mr. Harper is learning that it is much easier to jump on the war bandwagon than it is to get off.
ReplyDeleteThere was a big meeting in July when Karzai pointed to 2014 as the date when Afghan forces would be able to take the lead. NATO latched on to that and has been promoting that as the timetable ever since. The fact that it's science fiction is entirely beside the point. In about two years, they'll have another meeting and the target date will become 2017.
ReplyDelete