^Europe and Afghanistan are two different ballgames.
I personally know an Afghani-"Canadian" that says the majority of Afghans he knows (both in Canada and in Afghanistan) want the Canadians/NATO out of the country, preferably dead.
We failed in our mission there.
If this article was not submitted two weeks ago, it could just as easily been written in 2003,20004...2009. We're not making the progress in Afghanistan needed for us to ever get out of there.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090127.wafghan27/BNStory/Afghanistan/home
The return of the Taliban
As the insurgents infiltrate the area west of Kandahar, Canadian troops concentrate on holding territory until U.S. forces arrive
Article Comments (154) JANE ARMSTRONG
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
January 27, 2009 at 3:48 AM EST
PASAB, AFGHANISTAN — The foot patrol to Charkuchi, an impoverished rural enclave in western Kandahar province, didn't follow the script. Coalition forces operations in southern Afghanistan rarely do.
The Canadian soldiers, led by Afghan police, were to walk through the mud-walled village, speak to residents, wave at children and inquire about insurgent activity. The goal: to let war-weary Afghan villagers know that Canadian Forces and Afghan police are dug in at a police station a few hundred metres away.
Ten minutes into the patrol, on the outskirts of town, a shot is fired at the troops. The soldiers hit the ground. Crouching in a ditch, Master Corporal Jason Thompson, acting commander of the unit, radios the police station to get a fix on where the shot came from.
It isn't a close call - the gunman is at least 450 metres away - but the patrol is aborted and the soldiers never get a chance to mingle with the Afghans.
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Complete Coverage: Canada's mission in Afghanistan
Two years after the success of Operation Medusa, a Canadian-led routing of Taliban forces from this region of southern Afghanistan, the insurgents have returned, emboldened and newly confident. No longer organized into armies, they have traded the battlefield for guerrilla warfare. They plant roadside bombs, assassinate police officers and, most important, infiltrate villages, compound by family compound, insinuating themselves into the lives of the locals.
"They are everywhere," Corporal Gord Martin, a Canadian Forces mentor for the Afghan police, mused about the insurgents. "They mimic us. Whatever we do, they follow. We've seen them in trees, watching us. They're 300 metres outside these walls."
As Canadian troops wait for an influx of as many as 60,000 U.S. soldiers this year, senior military officials have quietly adjusted their goals. In western Kandahar province's Zhari district, the birthplace of the Taliban movement, the key word is "holding" territory. The now-modest twin goals are to keep the residents safe and prevent insurgents from using the region, as they do in depopulated northern districts, as a freeway into Kandahar city.
Canadian soldiers on their daily foot patrols try to persuade wary Afghans to spurn Taliban incursions into their villages and put their faith in Afghan and coalition forces, an effort that has been met with mixed results.
When a Canadian soldier has tea with a local elder, the Taliban show up five minutes after the Canadian has left, demanding to know what was discussed. When Canadians distribute posters urging locals to call the police with news of insurgent activity, the Taliban distribute their own literature reminding locals that co-operating with foreign forces is un-Islamic. Insurgents have killed civilians for co-operating with security forces; and while many Afghans would like to side with legitimate security forces, they are afraid, hedging their bets to see who comes out on top in southern Afghanistan.
On a recent foot patrol in another Zhari village, Captain Fern Bosse stopped to chat with a bearded elder. The man was familiar with Capt. Bosse's unit, which has been stationed in the region since August. The Afghan was upset about a series of compound searches by coalition and Afghan forces. Villagers have grown to resent these searches, which disrupt their lives but bring no guarantee of security.
Capt. Bosse said the searches must continue. "It's not because I don't trust [the villagers]" he said as he walked through the winding streets of the village. "But the Taliban is just west of here," he added, raising his hand to a row of fields in the direction of the setting sun. "There's nothing to stop them from coming in at night and putting their weapons in a compound."
To a large degree, the insurgency's tactics have worked. Reconstruction and development plans have been delayed or shelved as securing the region becomes the chief priority of stretched coalition forces.
Today, Canadian troops are simply holding on to hard-won territory, trying to secure crucial rural areas west of Kandahar city to prevent insurgents from getting a foothold in the provincial capital. They've already ceded some districts to the north. Ghorak, for example, has fallen to the Taliban and large swaths of territory in western Zhari are no-go zones for Canadian troops.
But the landscape is about to change, as is Canada's role in the Kandahar countryside, with the imminent arrival of U.S. troops. The Americans will be dispatched to the countryside, while Canadian forces will be deployed closer to Kandahar city. Eventually, the provincial capital will become the main focus of Canadian efforts in southern Afghanistan.
Senior military officials say they're confident the new strategy will work.
"What we think is, if we can concentrate security, governance and reconstruction development in certain areas, we will reach a kind of tipping point in which we will see an accelerated progress," said Major-General Mart de Kruif, commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan.
"People will feel safe, reconstruction and redevelopment will gain fruit. We can open schools, open markets. We will have access to markets. ... And once you reach that tipping point, then the whole dynamic changes."
With tens of thousands of new troops expected on the ground, a better-trained Afghan National Army and an improved Canadian-led reconstruction team in Kandahar city, Gen. de Kruif said coalition forces will be in a better position to secure southern Afghanistan.
For now, Canadians hope to hold the fort until more help arrives.
"We're aren't trying to drag [Afghans] into the modern world," an officer said.
"We're not trying to convince them that democracy and TV is the answer to their problems. What we're trying to do is build up government [institutions] to actually provide for them."
