The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread July 2010

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND JULY 13
David Cameron’s signal of a five-year timetable for withdrawing British troops from Afghanistan risks encouraging the Taliban to step up their attacks on Western forces, the head of Nato has said.

Nato chief: Afghanistan timetable puts British troops at risk
Daily Telegraph, July 13
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7886019/Nato-chief-Afghanistan-timetable-puts-British-troops-at-risk.html

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Nato secretary-general, delivered the blunt message after the Prime Minister said he wanted most British troops to leave Afghanistan  by 2015.

He also warned that cuts in defence spending could harm the Transatlantic relationship with the US and leave countries like Britain lacking the cutting-edge military technology needed to work with American forces...

Warning that the Taliban follow political debates in Nato countries “closely”, Mr Rasmussen insisted that Western nations must keep troops in Afghanistan “as long as necessary” and not set clear timelines for withdrawal.

“The Taliban follow the political debate in troop-contributing countries closely. They do believe that if we set artificial timetables for our withdrawal, they can just sit down and wait us out and they will return when we have left,” he told the Daily Telegraph.

“If they discover that through their attacks, they can weaken the support for our presence in Afghanistan, they will just be encouraged to step up their attacks on foreign troops.”

Mr Cameron insists he is not setting a hard timetable for withdrawal, but last week, the Prime Minister told MPs: “The plan that we have envisages our ensuring that we will not be in Afghanistan in 2015.” Barack Obama has said US forces will start withdrawing next July, and other Nato countries have also set out plans to leave...

Despite his warning on timetables, Mr Rasmussen said he hoped that some of Afghanistan’s more peaceful provinces will start the “transition” to Afghan control early next year.

Many of those provinces are currently overseen by countries like Germany and Italy. Liam Fox, the defence secretary, has expressed fears that those countries will withdraw quickly, leaving Britain and the US alone to deal with more violent areas like Helmand.

Mr Rasmussen backed Dr Fox, saying other Nato members must keep their forces in Afghanistan as long as British and American forces are deployed [emphasis added].

“The transition dividend must be invested in other parts of Afghanistan,” he said. “Even when we transition, it will not be withdrawal.”.. 

International forces first entered Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime in 2001, and the alliance chief admitted that they have been there longer than expected [emphasis added]...

Dr Fox is drawing up plans to cut the defence budget by between 10 and 20 per cent over four years, raising doubts about major military projects like new aircraft carriers and fighter jets [emphasis added]...

The US already accounts for almost three-quarters of total Nato defence spending, and Mr Rasmussen said he was “concerned” that European defence cuts will widen that gap...

U.S. and Afghanistan Debate More Village Forces
NY Times, July 12
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/world/asia/13afghan.html?ref=todayspaper

With American commanders pushing to expand the number of armed village forces in areas where their troops and the local police are scarce, the Afghan president is signaling that he has serious concerns that such a program could return the country to warlordism, challenging the power of the central government.

The village forces have been one of the top subjects under discussion in frenetic daily meetings for the past week between Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American military commander in Afghanistan, and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president. The two are scheduled to meet again on Tuesday, according to senior NATO military officials here.

They will discuss a modified version of the plan that tries to assuage Mr. Karzai’s doubts by agreeing to his request that the Afghan government be involved at every stage of the program. Officials close to both the Afghans and the Americans sound cautiously optimistic that they will reach an agreement in the next few days.

“We have to make sure that we don’t develop militias or any other kinds of forces that might undermine the government and become another kind of instability,” said the president’s spokesman, Waheed Omar.

Among Mr. Karzai’s demands are that any local force be under the control of the local Afghan police commander, wear uniforms, be paid through the Ministry of Interior, and be under the ministry’s command, Mr. Omar said.

“Our concern comes from what we experienced in our history where governments in the 1980s developed local militias that then became a source of problems for law and order in the country,” he said, noting that the Soviets, who then ruled Afghanistan through local proxies, created armed local forces that provoked anti-Soviet forces to rebel against them.

For the American military and especially General Petraeus — who witnessed a widespread Sunni insurgency in Iraq rapidly dwindle after the creation of local protection forces, many of whose members had previously been insurgents — it is important to see if there is a way to change the balance of power, especially in remote local communities, where the Taliban might otherwise gain ground.

“It could be a real game changer, but only if done very carefully, correctly and with proper oversight and supervision,” said a senior military official in Kabul.

American military officials say that they are prepared to accede to Mr. Karzai’s demands and that there will be procedures to vet members of the forces and track their weapons...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[George Wallace]

Afghan soldier kills 3 British troops
Last Updated: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 | 8:33 AM ET
CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/07/13/afghanistan-nato-troop-death.html

A rogue Afghan soldier fired a rocket-propelled grenade on NATO troops, killing three British soldiers and wounding at least two others, Afghan officials say.

The NATO-led mission confirmed that three soldiers were killed early Tuesday in southern Afghanistan but not disclose the nationalities of the three soldiers killed attack.

An Afghan army official later said an Afghan soldier killed three British troops. The soldier used a shoulder-mounted launcher to fire a grenade at British soldiers at around 2 a.m. local time, Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zaher Azimi said.

The Afghan soldier escaped and is being sought, he said, adding that the motive of the attack was not yet clear.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has expressed condolences and apologies for the attack.

"I echo the condolences and sentiments offered by President Karzai and the other Afghan officials," U.S. Gen. David Petraeus said in a statement.

"We have sacrificed greatly together, and we must ensure that the trust between our forces remains solid in order to defeat our common enemies."

British Prime Minister David Cameron's office said he had been made aware of the incident, but declined to comment specifically until next of kin are informed.

Six Afghan soldiers were killed in early July after "mis-communication" between ISAF and Afghan forces led to a botched airstrike by international forces.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/07/13/afghanistan-nato-troop-death.html#ixzz0tZC8SC3P

 

[Dog Walker]

Afghan-led attack will be 'Taliban's worst nightmare'
Published: July 13, 2010 at 6:27 PM
By Heather Somerville, Medill News Service, Written for UPI

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/07/13/Afghan-led-attack-will-be-Talibans-worst-nightmare/UPI-96711279060038/

WASHINGTON, July 13 (UPI) -- Afghan troops will lead an attack on a Taliban stronghold in the coming weeks, a sign that the country's security forces have strengthened, U.S. officials said.
The attack will involve U.S. and international troops and will strike the Arghandab district, an area in southern Afghanistan just outside Kandahar, where some of the heaviest fighting has occurred.
Arghandab is considered the "Taliban's home," said U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., in a news conference Tuesday.
Levin and U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they met with top government and military officials.
Levin said the attack, which is scheduled for the end of the July or early August, will be "the Taliban's worst nightmare."
"This is going to be Afghan-led," Levin said. "The meaning of that will not be lost on the Afghan people and it will not be lost on the Taliban."
U.S. troops won't be spared the dangerous combat in Arghandab. The terrain is difficult and casualties are expected to be high, Reed said.
"We have very serious fighting ahead," Reed said.
An additional 30,000 U.S. troops will be deployed over the summer to help fight the surge in the southern region of the country.
The senators pointed to improvements in the Afghan army as progress in the 9-year war. Levin said the Afghan army has been actively recruiting since the announcement by U.S. President Barack Obama that the United States will begin withdrawing troops in July 2011 and turn responsibility over to Afghan forces. Levin confirmed Tuesday that the United States was on schedule for meeting that deadline.
Pakistan terrorist groups continue to pose a threat to U.S. and international forces, Levin said. Terrorist organizations, including the Pakistan-based Taliban and the Haqqani network, have launched attacks over the border into Afghanistan. The Pakistan government has failed to take action against the terrorist groups, Levin said.
Levin said he would ask the U.S. State Department to add both organizations to the list of foreign terrorist groups.
"It's long overdue," he said.
With the terrorist organizations added to the state department list, U.S. law would require Pakistan to take action against them, Levin said. If Pakistan didn't cooperate, the United States could restrict or revoke aid to the country, or even strike against the terrorist groups from inside Pakistan.
"Their country is used as the launching platform for terrorist attacks," Levin said.

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND JULY 14 (Allons enfants...)

Coalition eases up on Afghan airstrikes
USA Today, July 14
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-07-14-1Aairstrikes14_ST_N.htm

WASHINGTON — Warplanes in Afghanistan are dropping bombs and missiles on insurgents at about 25% of the rate they did three years ago despite more widespread combat, reflecting commanders' emphasis on reducing civilian deaths.

So far this year, jets have dropped bombs on only 10% of their combat support missions, compared with almost 40% in 2007, Air Force records show. The decline coincides with the arrival of most of the additional 30,000 U.S. troops ordered to Afghanistan by President Obama. Attacks on U.S. and allied troops — as well as deaths — are at all-time highs.

The reduction in bombing comes amid debate about rules restricting the use of overwhelming firepower for troops in combat. Some military analysts, including Barry Watts, who flew combat missions in Vietnam, say the rules have increased risk to ground forces fighting the Taliban...

German PzH 2000 Baptism of Fire
"Ares", Defense Technology Blog, July 12
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3aa9184891-8590-41ef-a875-fad896f8d85d

The German army has fired artillery in support of a combat operation for the first time since World War II. The Bundeswehr’s operations command in Potsdam announced over the weekend that Panzerhaubitze 2000 (PzH 2000) 155 mm armored artillery
[ http://www.army-technology.com/projects/pzh2000/ ]
fired five rounds in support of troops dealing with two attacks by improvised explosive devices 12 kilometers west of the German provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan.

The Bundeswehr’s Artillerielehrregiment (Artillery Training Regiment) 345 in Kusel, Rhineland-Palatinate, deployed three PzH 2000s to Kunduz between the end of May and beginning of June. Two PzH 2000s are in firing positions on the edge of the PRT and a third is held in reserve.

The German contingent of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is the second to deploy PzH 2000 to Afghanistan, following the Dutch deployment of three of the armored howitzers in 2006. Dutch PzH 2000s have fired in support of combat operations but Germany has so far had to rely on 120 mm mortars for indirect fire support [emphasis added].

U.S. May Label Pakistan Militants as Terrorists
NY Times, July 13
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/world/asia/14diplo.html?ref=todayspaper

WASHINGTON — The new American military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, is pushing to have top leaders of a feared insurgent group designated as terrorists, a move that could complicate an eventual Afghan political settlement with the Taliban and aggravate political tensions in the region.

General Petraeus introduced the idea of blacklisting the group, known as the Haqqani network, late last week in discussions with President Obama’s senior advisers on Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to several administration officials, who said it was being seriously considered.

Such a move could risk antagonizing Pakistan, a critical partner in the war effort, but one that is closely tied to the Haqqani network. It could also frustrate the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who is pressing to reconcile with all the insurgent groups as a way to end the nine-year-old war and consolidate his own grip on power.

The case of the Haqqani network, run by an old warlord family, underscores the thorny decisions that will have to be made over which Taliban-linked insurgents should win some sort of amnesty and play a role in the future of Afghanistan. Mr. Karzai has already petitioned the United Nations to lift sanctions against dozens of members of the Taliban, and has won conditional support from the Obama administration, so long as these people sever ties to Al Qaeda, forswear violence and accept the Afghan Constitution.

“If they are willing to accept the red lines and come in from the cold, there has to be a place for them,” Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said to reporters at a briefing on Tuesday.

From its base in the frontier area near the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani is suspected of running much of the insurgency around Kabul, the Afghan capital, and across eastern Afghanistan, carrying out car bombings and kidnappings, including spectacular attacks on American military installations. It is allied with Al Qaeda and with leaders of the Afghan Taliban branch under Mullah Muhammad Omar, now based near Quetta, Pakistan.

But the group’s real power may lie in its deep connections to Pakistan’s spy agency [emphasis added], the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, which analysts say sees the Haqqani network as a way to exercise its own leverage in Afghanistan. Pakistani leaders have recently offered to broker talks between Mr. Karzai and the network, officials said, arguing that it could be a viable future partner.

American officials remain extremely skeptical that the Haqqani network’s senior leaders could ever be reconciled with the Afghan government...

The focus on a political settlement is likely to intensify next week at a conference in Kabul, to be headed by Mr. Karzai and attended by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other officials...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND JULY 15

Dutch close to end
Defence News (Australia), July 14
http://www.defence.gov.au/defencenews/stories/2010/Jul/0714.htm

The Netherlands' partnership with Australia in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan, will come to an end on August 1.

The Dutch-led Task Force Uruzgan began in 2006 when Dutch forces first arrived in the province.

Dutch and Australian forces have worked together on rebuilding local infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and mosques and improving the local security situation...

Afghans to Form Local Forces to Fight Taliban
NY Times, July 14
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/world/asia/15afghan.html?ref=todayspaper

After intensive negotiations with NATO military commanders, the Afghan government on Wednesday approved a program to establish local defense forces that American military officials hope will help remote areas of the country thwart attacks by Taliban insurgents.

Details of the plan are sketchy, but Americans had been promoting the force as a crucial stopgap to combat rising violence here and frustration with the slow pace of training permanent professional security forces — the bottom-line condition for the American military to begin pulling back from an increasingly unpopular war. Many parts of Afghanistan have no soldiers or police officers on the ground.

Over 12 days of talks, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new NATO commander, overcame the objections of President Hamid Karzai, who had worried that the forces could harden into militias that his weak government could not control. In the end, the two sides agreed that the forces would be under the supervision of the Afghan Interior Ministry, which will also be their paymaster.

“They would not be militias,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman, at a briefing in Washington on Wednesday. “These would be government-formed, government-paid, government-uniformed local police units who would keep any eye out for bad guys — in their neighborhoods, in their communities — and who would, in turn, work with the Afghan police forces and the Afghan Army, to keep them out of their towns.”

It is, he added, “a temporary solution to a very real, near-term problem.”

The program borrows from the largely successful Awakening groups that General Petraeus created in Iraq, though the two programs would not be identical. Unlike the Iraqi units, the Afghan forces would not be composed of insurgents who had switched sides. They would be similar as a lightly armed, trained and, significantly, paid force in a nation starving for jobs.

In fact, the program runs the risk of becoming too popular — it will create a demand in poor communities around the nation that could turn it into an unwieldy and ineffective job creation program.

While some American officials said the forces could have as many as 10,000 people enrolled, Afghan officials indicated that they wanted to keep them small, especially in the beginning...

American military officials said, however, that they would be intimately involved, and that United States Special Forces units, which have created smaller-scale programs locally, especially in southern Afghanistan, would continue to set up and train the forces [emphasis added]...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Canada hands over responsibility for Kandahar City to U.S.
Postmedia News, July 15, by Matthew Fisher
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=3281650

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — After holding the Taliban at bay in Kandahar City for more than four years, Canada transferred responsibility for the war in the provincial capital to the U.S. army’s 82nd Airborne Division on Thursday afternoon.

With the move, Canada’s area of responsibility has now formally shrunk to Panjwaii and Dand districts, to the southwest of Kandahar City. The 1 Royal Canadian Regiment battle group now patrols Panjwaii and a squadron from the U.S. army’s 10th Mountain Division, which remains under Canadian command, does the same in Dand.

While Panjwaii, in particular, remains a grave military problem, with large numbers of Taliban, NATO and the insurgent leadership have long said that Kandahar City was the most crucial ground in the long war.

Where Canadian Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance’s command only three weeks ago included nearly 6,000 troops and covered much of the most hotly contested geography in Afghanistan, it now involves slightly more than 3,000 troops, including the soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division. Where Canada’s area of operations once covered an area the size of New Brunswick, it now encompasses territory no larger than Calgary or Ottawa.

The decision by NATO to give the Americans the lead in Kandahar City has been anticipated every since President Barack Obama announced last December that the U.S. would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Military responsibility for the city, and close relations with its top politicians and quasi warlords, now falls to Col. Brian Drinkwine of the 82 Airborne’s Task Force Fury. The paratroop commander has an infantry battalion and a strengthened military police battalion under his command, with many additional forces expected in the coming weeks.

Task Force Fury is now charged with enforcing a ring of stability, which includes a warren of heavily fortified and defended checkpoints that were set up around the city perimeter under Vance’s direction in recent weeks.

Thursday’s transfer follows the handover of Zhari and Arghandab districts on June 28 from Vance’s Task Force Kandahar to the U.S. army’s 101st Airborne Division.

As Canada prepares for the end of its combat mission in Afghanistan in July 2011, the first time in its history that it will leave a war that has not yet finished [emphasis added], its influence in NATO in Afghanistan and elsewhere is expected to plummet at the very moment when the war here becomes a much bigger, potentially decisive endeavour…

Although no one from NATO has said so publicly here, Ottawa’s decision to abandon the Afghan mission has frustrated and angered many in the alliance. Canada’s withdrawal has been regarded far more seriously than the decision by the Dutch government to bring its troops home from Uruzgan province this year. This is because Canada contributed more troops to a far more dangerous area of the country and gave them more robust rules of engagement…

New US commander in Uruzgan: “We’ll continue the Dutch work”
Radio Nederland, July 14
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/new-us-commander-uruzgan-%E2%80%9Cwe%E2%80%99ll-continue-dutch-work%E2%80%9D

The Dutch effort in Uruzgan will not be wasted, said United States Army Colonel James Creighton in an interview at Camp Holland with Radio Netherlands Worldwide. On 1 August, he will take over command from the Dutch troops who have been stationed there for the last four years…

The new US commander is not entirely sure how many additional US troops will be deployed in Uruzgan. Earlier, US Special Forces and diplomats told RNW that Uruzgan might possibly have to make do with less troops than the current 1700 from the Netherlands, because the situation in the bigger provinces is demanding more attention. The colonel has another idea about that.

“I think it will be a little bit less than we had, but basically about the same. I don’t know the exact numbers of the Dutch before and I don’t know the numbers now, that we’ve got [!?!, emphasis added]. We are still in the planning phase. But it is enough to do the mission. My mission is to maintain what the Dutch have done and build on it if possible.”

More diplomats
Colonel Creighton emphasised that he will deploy more diplomats and experts than the Dutch…

“The Afghanistan Tightrope”- Moore
Conference of Defence Associations’ media round-up, July 15
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1279212332/0#0

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND JULY 16

On the battlefield, Canadian soldiers get permission to shoot
Since Brigadier-General Jon Vance took command in June, Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan are finding it easier to fight insurgents
Toronto Star, July 16
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/836407

PANJWAI DISTRICT, AFGHANISTAN—A pair of Canadian helicopters circled low over a vineyard, watching two insurgents try to slip away, waiting for permission to shoot.

The chopper crew and soldiers on the ground were confident they had a good kill in their sights, with little risk of harming innocent bystanders if the Griffon’s door gunner pulled the trigger.

But the crew needed permission from high up the chain of command, an often frustrating hierarchy that soldiers call “the kill chain.”

For months now, Canadian and other NATO troops fighting in southern Afghanistan have complained that restrictive rules of engagement, written to win Afghans away from insurgents by limiting civilian casualties, have handed the momentum to the enemy.

Not this time.

The Griffons had been flying just hundreds of feet above two insurgents for some 20 minutes on the morning of July 5. Soldiers at a nearby outpost, dripping sweat in the scorching morning heat, barely looked up.

They’re used to nothing coming of it.

The insurgents were holed up in a small building the size of a shack, with thick, mud brick walls, where farmers normally dry grapes. When they tried to escape, and commanders had no doubt the men were combatants, their war was over.

The grinding noise of a chopper’s motorized machine gun, capable of mincing a target with at least 2,000 bullets a minute, echoed across the desert plain. It sounded like a wood chipper dicing up tree limbs.

“Oh ya, baby!” one soldier shouted up at the sky as the airborne gatling gun spewed repeated bursts. Whoops and cheers rippled across the dust-blown camp.

In a war where the enemy hides in villages, and fights mainly with homemade bombs hidden in cooking pots, water jugs, farmer’s fields and trees, it’s not often Canadian soldiers get to fight back.

Oscar Company was savouring some payback, a sweet taste they’ve been enjoying more often in recent days.

Since Brigadier-General Jon Vance returned to take command in early June, the kill chain has been cut shorter, and Canadian troops on the battlefields of eastern Panjwai district say it’s getting easier to take the fight to the insurgents...

Petraeus took over from McChrystal, who was forced to quit after he and his staff ridiculed President Barack Obama and key national security aides in front of a Rolling Stone magazine reporter, who wrote an embarrassing profile.

The Canadian and U.S. commanders’ blunders may prove a boon to troops risking their lives in a conflict that seems a lost cause to many back home [emphasis added]...

Kandahar city, the provincial capital and a centrepiece in the counter-insurgency effort, passed from Canadian to U.S. control Thursday afternoon.

Canadian forces are now responsible for the relatively peaceful Dand district to south, sparsely populated Daman to the southeast, and Panjwai to the west, where troops are in a hard fight against the insurgents [emphasis added].

They have free reign in Panjwai’s western region and regularly ambush or hit Canadian soldiers with IED strikes in the district’s east.

Canada handed over Arghandab and Zhari, two other districts where insurgents have strongholds west and north of Kandahar city, to U.S. command late last month...

Some 70 per cent of IEDs planted in areas under Canadian control are found before they explode [emphasis added], but brown said Oscar Company has an even higher success rate.

That’s partly because Afghan villagers can collect cash rewards for pointing out IEDs. But some are also sick of seeing children and other innocent people die or suffer ghastly injuries in the blasts, Brown added.

“They’re equally afraid of the IEDs as we are,” he said. “The last thing a lot of these guys want, particularly now that the grape harvest is upon us, is IEDs in their fields.”..

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

NATO launches Afghan intelligence-sharing drive
Reuters, July 15
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE66E5YL20100715

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - NATO said on Thursday it had begun implementing a project to improve intelligence-sharing among foreign forces in Afghanistan, with the aim of boosting operational efficiency and cutting casualties.

NATO officials said the Afghan Mission Network was based around a high-speed broadband link between 63 locations in Afghanistan to allow better sharing of operational information and databases to help counter threats from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and speed up medical evacuation times.

They said the system reached an initial operating capability on July 1 and should be fully operational in 12 months' time.

The launch was made possible after the United States announced this year it would share sensitive technology to counter the threat from IEDs, which account for the largest number of deaths in NATO's troubled Afghan mission.

Some of the 46 nations contributing to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan had insisted on help in countering the IED threat as a condition for sending extra forces to back a big U.S. troop increase in the country.

...while all 46 ISAF nations and the Afghan army would now be able to share information, NATO officials conceded there would be different levels of access depending on the sensitivity of information, and it would remain the prerogative of countries to decide whether to share intelligence.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND JULY 19

New Afghan rules clarify when helicopters gunners can unleash 'Allah's breath of death'
Postmedia News, July 18, by Matthew Fisher
http://www.canada.com/news/Somnia/3293546/story.html

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — After months of complaints from NATO troops about strict rules of engagement, Canada's trigger-pullers are expressing universal approval of a new written tactical directive from Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance that clarifies when soldiers in Task Force Kandahar can shoot at the Taliban.

"We feel much more pleased with the way things are done now. That's the general consensus," said Cpl. Luke Carlson of Emo, Ont., who mans a Dillon Gatling gun on a Griffon helicopter. "It's crystal clear what the general's directive is. It has made it easier for us."

The directive, which Vance discussed with pilots and gun crews during a half-hour meeting earlier this month at the air wing, was "pretty specific," said Lt.-Col. Jeff Smyth, commander of Edmonton-based 408 Squadron, which is due to rotate home soon after nine months in Afghanistan...

"We now feel we can be more proactive and can take more action. We can be more aggressive."

The Griffons have all been armed with two potent Dillon Gatling guns [emphasis added] capable of firing 50 bullets a second. They were also fitted earlier this year with a state-of-the art optical sensor.

Where the Griffons were involved in four "tics" (troops in contact) or engagements in their first five months in Kandahar, they have been involved in more than a dozen in recent days, including one in which two insurgents were shot. One of them apparently died immediately. The other died after managing to move a couple of hundred metres.

However, Smyth cautioned: "We are not going out there to kill people. We do not do deliberate ops. But we came here to protect our troops on the ground. If that means killing insurgents, that's part of the job."

Smith, who has already logged hundreds of hours of flying time on Griffons here, said he had been involved in a tic only 24 hours earlier...

Carlson, normally an infantryman with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, says he "had a bad view of the Griffon" when he started on the aircraft last year, but is now a huge fan, thanks in large part to the Dillon gun, which was acquired after much debate within the air force.

"It is like a laser beam coming down," Carlson said, referring to the speed of fire and the fact that every fifth bullet is a tracer. "When you have done your assay, and you are cleared on to the target, all your fire will be accurate."

Insurgents are said to call the gun, which is also used on some U.S. and British helicopters, "Allah's breath of death."..

Riding with ghosts
Meet ‘Team Canada' — the last major aid group remaining in Kandahar takes a uniquely daring approach to the struggle for Afghanistan, operating almost invisibly on a mission to put tens of thousands of Afghans to work
Toronto Star, July 18, by Mitch Potter
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/837190

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN—We are motoring down a bare-dirt back road in Kandahar Province, a road where NATO patrols never go. This way is better, explains the ghost behind the wheel, because roads without soldiers tend not to explode.

The car is “soft-skinned” — no armour. There are no body vests. No helmets. No blast goggles. No convoy. There is a gun on board, but it is concealed to avoid undue attention. Just plain vanilla wheels with two men from Canada dressed as Afghans — one, the driver, surveying the way ahead with purposeful, probing eyes, the other, a reporter, wondering what fresh hell awaits on this sweltering Friday afternoon.

“Don't worry. I know these roads better than most Afghans,” says the ghost, as we cross the Tarnac River Afghan-style — by driving right through it.

He is Panjwaii Tim, a 41-year-old from small-town Manitoba who cites Don Cherry and carries with him a Winnipeg Blue Bombers cap. A few years back he worked in Afghanistan the conventional way — as a reservist with the Canadian Forces, a tour replete with frustrations. Too few troops. Too much territory. Too much confusion about which way forward. And just as he began to really understand this place — gone. With another fresh batch of wide-eyed six-monthers in his wake. Rinse and repeat.

Now a much-savvier Panjwaii Tim is back on his own terms, not with the military but leading one of the last major Western aid groups still operating freely in Kandahar City, an outfit fast gaining a reputation for uncommon courage. A group dubbed “Team Canada.”

Nearly every other civilian foreigner has fled Kandahar. Some have taken refuge inside nearby NATO bases, others have retreated to comparably calmer Kabul. But not Team Canada, despite the rash of bombs and targeted killings that torment this crucial southern city. They are working under the radar to rapidly turn tens of millions of international aid dollars into jobs for thousands of Afghan men...

...word is trickling out anyway in the wake of a startling, praise-filled post on the military blog Free Range International, which in April anointed Panjwaii Tim and his colleagues with the Team Canada nickname.
[This actually in March:
http://freerangeinternational.com/blog/?p=2783 ]
And it dared NATO commanders to take lessons from Team Canada's nimble ways and let at least some troops shed the suffocating armour and lumbering metal that encases them.

“They are the best crew in the country,” the blogger, Tim Lynch, an American contractor who does work similar to Team Canada in safer Nangahar Province, wrote in an email to the Star. “They have balls the size of grapefruit.”

It was through Lynch that the Star made first contact with Team Canada and, after careful negotiation, scored an invitation to meet them.

The Canadian military today requires reporters to fill out 47 pages of forms before embedding. Panjwaii Tim required only a handshake — and a solemn promise on the ground rules.

“We're proud of the work we do. But you understand the stakes: this is life or death for us. No last names, no naming our NGO. No precise description of where we live. The danger is real. Do not make me regret this.”..

Team Canada's techniques took 10 years to develop, Panjwaii Tim explains, combining and refining lessens learned since 2001, when the first Westerners arrived in Afghanistan following the attacks of 9/11. To even a casual observer, they appear to be approaches NATO and other agencies would do well to emulate.

Tim notes that “living within the community, working with the populace shoulder to shoulder” once was a hallmark of Special Forces. Now he says he hears nothing but “frustrations” from the elite Canadian commandos with JTF2, who, though stationed on the outskirts of Kandahar, appear rarely to leave their base.

“JTF2 is not a very happy bunch,” says another Team Canada member. “Every move they make needs to be approved by Ottawa, and by the time the answer comes, the opportunity is gone. So they're stuck there [emphasis added].”..

Team Canada is focusing on Afghanistan's most problematic districts, those most recently held by the Taliban.

“We're the first ones in,” explains Nate, the Texan. “The idea is to be as labour-intensive as possible. If it's a drainage ditch, for example, you might be able to dig it in a week with big machines. But instead, we use men with shovels, and that way employ several hundred for several months. As we reach the peak of the fighting season, that vulnerable population desperate for employment has an option other than to become prime recruits for insurgents.”..

Liam Fox: troops will leave Afghanistan by 2014
Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, confirmed today that 2014 was the target date to pull out troops from Afghanistan.
Daily Telegraph, July 18
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/7897111/Liam-Fox-Troops-will-leave-Afghanistan-by-2014.html

But he said some military personnel would remain in the country to train Afghan forces.

''It has always been our aim to be successful in the mission and the mission has always said that the Afghan national security forces would be able to deal with their own security by 2014,'' Mr Fox told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show.

''We recognise that there will be further work to do in terms of training and improving the quality of those forces beyond that, which is why we have said training forces may be available after that date. But we have made it very clear that that will not be combat forces [emphasis added].''

His comments came after a document was leaked to a Sunday newspaper mapping out a blueprint for the withdrawal of coalition forces within four years.

President Hamid Karzai is to announce a timetable for a "conditions-based and phased transition" at an international conference being held in Kabul next week which will map out the future of the troubled country, according to the leaked communique.

The document, seen by The Independent on Sunday, reportedly states the withdrawal of Nato troops is to begin within months, with the Afghan National Security Forces taking control of military operations by the end of 2014.

The disclosure comes after Foreign Secretary William Hague hinted at British troops leaving Afghanistan by 2014 but stressed that the Government was not "setting a timetable for what happens over the next few years"...

Prime Minister David Cameron's has previously vowed to have troops out by 2015 was ''quite conservative by comparison'', he said...

Commitment to Afghanistan troop build-up wanes
The Australian, July 19
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commitment-to-afghanistan-troop-build-up-wanes/story-fn59niix-1225893665486

WITH six Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan in a month, Tony Abbott has backed away from a promise to commit more troops.

Asked yesterday if he still planned to send more troops and to take over the lead role in Oruzgan Province from the departing Dutch, the Liberal leader told Sky News he would support the existing Australian Defence Force commitment of about 1500 personnel.

"If circumstances change, obviously you'd have to consider that in government," Mr Abbott said.

"But I support the existing commitment. I think our troops are doing a magnificent job there. It's obviously very dangerous...

Since the Dutch left, the Diggers have taken over responsibility for training the Afghan National Army's 4th Brigade and US troops have moved in to take the lead role in Oruzgan Province [emphasis added].

Newspoll has marked dwindling public support for the war in Afghanistan after many years of conflict and mounting casualties.

The proportion of Australians supporting the commitment of troops has dropped from the days in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when two-thirds supported sending troops, to March last year when nearly two-thirds were opposed.

Asked if Australia's troops would be safer if they were deployed in larger numbers as suggested by the Australia Defence Association, Mr Abbott said that was an issue on which he would seek the advice of defence chiefs if he became prime minister...

U.S. hopes Afghanistan-Pakistan trade deal boosts cooperation in war effort
Washington Post, July 19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/18/AR2010071803086.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- Like an anxious matchmaker nudging a nervous couple together, the Obama administration has persuaded Afghanistan and Pakistan to take their first tangible step toward bilateral cooperation -- a trade agreement that will facilitate the ground shipment of goods between and through the two countries.

The accord has been under negotiation for years; Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari promised President Obama more than a year ago that it would be completed by the end of 2009. During marathon talks between the two sides that began last week, U.S. officials helped forge a deal in time to announce it Sunday night, just hours after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived for a two-day visit.

On Monday, Clinton and the Pakistanis will unveil their own bilateral agreement pledging an initial $500 million in new U.S. economic assistance to Pakistan. The aid, primarily for water and energy projects, is part of a $7.5 billion, five-year development package approved by Congress last fall.

The trade and aid agreements are part of the administration's ongoing efforts to facilitate Obama's Afghanistan war strategy. It hopes that a long-term investment here, along with repeated visits from senior officials, will persuade Pakistan to more solidly align its interests with those of the United States.

Most immediately, the Obama administration would like the Pakistani military to take more aggressive action against Taliban groups that use Pakistan as their headquarters and base of operations for attacks in Afghanistan. The groups, including the Haqqani network based in the Pakistani tribal areas along the Afghan border and the Quetta Shura based in the southern province of Baluchistan, have historically close ties with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate...

Islamabad is at least as important as Kabul, Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Sunday. Pakistan is "one of the most critical countries in the world," he said.

Historical adversaries Pakistan and India have long competed for influence in Afghanistan, and the administration has tried to juggle its relations with the three while encouraging resolution of differences among them [emphasis added]. Over the past year, it has pushed for dialogue between Islamabad and Kabul as part of its war effort. The new trade accord, an expansion of a limited agreement signed in 1965 and the subject of sporadic and unsuccessful negotiations since then, will boost Afghan exports by regularizing customs and transit permit arrangements, giving Afghanistan easier access to Pakistani seaports and allowing Pakistan greater access to Central Asia.

Afghan trucks, which have had to offload goods onto Pakistani vehicles on their joint border, will be able to deliver goods directly to Pakistani destinations and ports, and to travel across Pakistan to the Indian border, where the items will be offloaded onto Indian trucks. Full cross-border transit has been put off until Pakistan and India resolve their own differences...

Mark
Ottawa 

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND JULY 20

Karzai sticks to 2014 goal for Afghans to take charge of security
The Afghan leader's statement to an international conference comes as casualties mount and exit-strategy worries intensify.
LA Times, July 20
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-afghan-conference-20100721,0,7688442.story

President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday told a major international conference that he believes Afghanistan's  security forces will be ready to take over responsibility for safeguarding the country within four years.

That timeline was endorsed in a communiqué to be issued by conference participants, who included all the major troop-contributing nations in the Western military coalition that is battling the Taliban and other insurgents.

"I remain determined that our Afghan national security forces will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country by 2014," Karzai told dozens of high-level delegates who gathered amid a near-lockdown in the Afghan capital. Participants included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon...

Canadian foreign affairs minister offers conditions for support of Afghan reconciliation
CP, July 20
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/foreign-affairs-minister-cannon-supports-afghan-reconciliation-with-conditions-98811354.html

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan [emphasis added] - Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon told an international conference in Kabul Tuesday that Canada would be willing to support reconciliation with the Taliban to bring peace to Afghanistan but only if a number of criteria are met first.

Cannon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior foreign officials from nearly 70 countries gathered in Afghanistan's capital for the one-day conference, which was seen as an affirmation of international support for the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Karzai has been reaching out to the Taliban in hopes of ending the war.

He won endorsement from a national conference over a month ago for his plan to offer incentives to militants to lay down their arms and to seek talks with the Taliban leadership.

The Taliban have publicly shunned the offer, and the United States is skeptical whether peace can succeed until the Taliban are weakened on the battlefield.

"We encourage a reconciliation process that is inclusive of all Afghans, no matter their ethnicity, tribe or gender. Those who are reconciling must renounce violence, accept the Afghan constitution and cut all ties to terrorist groups such as al-Qaida," said Cannon in a speech to the conference.

"Canada is supportive of it because there are no conflicts in the world that have been able to resolve themselves without any reconciliation and reintegration so we have indicated our support for that process."

Cannon also called for electoral reform, a review of the National Justice Programme in Afghanistan and in order to address "past and present human rights abuses", an update of the 2006 Action Plan on Peace, Reconciliation and Justice...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND JULY 21

U.S. Forces Step Up Pakistan Presence
WSJ, July 20
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704723604575379132838698738.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories

U.S. Special Operations Forces have begun venturing out with Pakistani forces on aid projects, deepening the American role in the effort to defeat Islamist militants in Pakistani territory that has been off limits to U.S. ground troops.

The expansion of U.S. cooperation is significant given Pakistan's deep aversion to allowing foreign military forces on its territory. The Special Operations teams join the aid missions only when commanders determine there is relatively little security risk, a senior U.S. military official said, in an effort to avoid direct engagement that would call attention to U.S. participation.

The U.S. troops are allowed to defend themselves and return fire if attacked. But the official emphasized the joint missions aren't supposed to be combat operations, and the Americans often participate in civilian garb [emphasis added]...

Because of Pakistan's sensitivities, the U.S. role has developed slowly. In June 2008, top U.S. military officials announced 30 American troops would begin a military training program in Pakistan, but it took four months for Pakistan to allow the program to begin.

The first U.S. Special Operations Forces were restricted to military classrooms and training bases. Pakistan has gradually allowed more trainers into the country and allowed the mission's scope to expand. Today, the U.S. has about 120 trainers in the country, and the program is set to expand again with new joint missions to oversee small-scale development projects aimed at winning over tribal leaders, according to officials familiar with the plan.

Such aid projects are a pillar of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy, which the U.S. hopes to pass on to the Pakistanis through the training missions.

U.S. military officials say if U.S. forces are able to help projects such as repairing infrastructure, distributing seeds and providing generators or solar panels, they can build trust with the Pakistani military, and encourage them to accept more training in the field...

The move to accompany Pakistani forces in the field is even more significant, and repeats a pattern seen in the Philippines during the Bush administration, when Army Green Berets took a gradually more expansive role in Manila's fight against the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf in the southern islands of Mindanao.

There, the Green Berets started in a limited training role, and their initial deployment unleashed a political backlash against the Philippine president. But as the Philippine military began to improve their counterinsurgency skills, Special Operations Forces accompanied them on major offensives throughout the southern part of the archipelago.

In Pakistan, the U.S. military helps train both the regular military and the Frontier Corps, a force drawn from residents of the tribal regions but led by Pakistani Army officers.
[ http://www.khyber.org/pashtohistory/frontiercorps/frontiercorps.shtml
http://www.pakistanarmy.gov.pk/awpreview/textcontent.aspx?pid=147 ]

The senior military official said the U.S. Special Operations Forces have developed a closer relationship with the Frontier Corps, and go out into the field more frequently with those units [emphasis added]. "The Frontier Corps are more accepting partners," said the official.

For years the Frontier Corps was underfunded and struggled to provide basic equipment for its soldiers. A U.S. effort to help equip the force has made them more accepting of outside help...

Traveling with the Frontier Corps is dangerous. In February, three Army soldiers were killed in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province when a roadside bomb detonated near their convoy. The soldiers, assigned to train the Frontier Corps, were traveling out of uniform [emphasis added] to the opening of a school that had been renovated with U.S. money...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found July 21, 2010

Tanks Work in COIN
Article Link
By Greg Grant Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Two top-notch RAND researchers, David Johnson and John Gordon, who are drilling deep into the subject of heavy armor performance in irregular and hybrid warfare, released a teaser of some initial findings from surveys of U.S., British, Canadian, Israeli and Danish land forces’ experiences over the past decade.

The bottom line: from Iraq’s city streets to to Gaza’s narrow alleyways to the mountains of Afghanistan, ground troops love the intimidating presence of the 60 to 70 ton main battle tanks, their precise firepower and their unmatched utility as mobile pillboxes. Tanks provide unmatched survivability on battlefields seeded with IEDs; while a number of tanks have been lost to very large IEDs, they are more survivable, against a larger range of threats, than any other vehicle on the battlefield.

When it comes to comparing wheels versus tracks in off road mobility, there’s no contest, tracks win hands down; due to their high ground pressure, wheeled vehicles are easily mired in soft ground.

When it comes to fighting hybrid enemies, loosely defined as irregular opponents armed with high-end weaponry, tanks are an essential ingredient. “Light and medium force complement heavy forces in hybrid warfare, particularly in urban and other complex terrain, but they do not provide the survivability, lethality, or mobility inherent in heavy forces,” the RAND team writes.

The big downside of heavy armor is the greater logistical burden; while extremely robust in a toe-to-toe fight, tanks and heavy armored personnel carriers can often be mechanically fragile creatures.

Some selected input from the team’s interviews:
More on link

Dutch military abandon Afghan helpers
Published on : 20 July 2010 - 4:42pm | By Bette Dam
  Article Link

The 102 interpreters who have assisted the Dutch military mission in Afghanistan are angry. Although they have risked their lives for the country, the Netherlands has abandoned them. The Americans, by comparison, are allowing their interpreters and translators to apply for visas to travel to the United States.

The Afghan interpreters are not actually permitted to talk to journalists but they don't care any more. With the Dutch leaving the southern province of Uruzgan soon - on 1 August - their contracts have been terminated. They feel they are being forced to return to their families. But that's part of the problem - they complain in interviews with Radio Netherlands Worldwide - they are afraid the enemy will target them – and hence possibly their loved ones too - for working with the "heathens".

High-value targets
"The Taliban know how important we are. Ideally they'd like to shoot dead a Dutchman but we interpreters are the number two high-value target," explains one of the interpreters, who has spent four years with the Dutch troops.

"The Taliban know we are the eyes and ears of the Dutch mission. If they kill us, the Netherlands can't get as much done. Our translation work has helped pull the Dutch guys through this war. We listen to radio messages and we can tell them which direction the enemy will be shooting from. We have saved many Dutch lives and that is why the Taliban will do everything they can to track us down."

One of the interpreters - in his twenties and like his colleagues afraid his name may be known to the Taliban - doesn't go home any more when he has leave. "There are many armed groups in Afghanistan these days which hate the foreigners. So associating with them is no longer popular. And it's extremely dangerous."

Another says he stays indoors during his holidays hoping he will not be noticed. In May, four "terps" - as they call themselves - were murdered in eastern Afghanistan for working with the Americans.
More on link

Caregiver burnout adds to veterans' woes
  Article Link
Post-traumatic stress disorder; Not enough social workers to help soldiers returning from Afghanistan, union says
By KEVIN DOUGHERTY, The Gazette July 21, 2010

Canada's soldiers returning home from the war in Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder face added obstacles because of caregiver burnout at Veterans Affairs, the federal department charged with helping them.

Magali Picard, vice-president of the union representing Veterans Affairs employees, told reporters yesterday that social workers within the department have a caseload of 40 clients, compared with caseloads of 20 in provincially run community clinics.

And in the Quebec City office, which serves the Canadian Forces Base at Valcartier, department norms say there should be 24 social workers, but there are only 16.

"Several have left for professional burnout," Picard said.

That means soldiers suffering from PTSD can wait up to four months before seeing a social worker, a necessary step to integrate them back into society and return them to the labour market.

Picard explained that patients waiting to see a Veterans Affairs social worker can't go to a CLSC because the CLSC will just send them back to Veterans Affairs.
More on link

 

[Dog Walker]

Article found July 23, 2010

Taliban says US drone attacks 'temporarily' hindering insurgency
Spokesman says increased use of unmanned aircraft has forced change in operations, but drummed up new recruits
Friday 23 July 2010 10.07 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/23/taliban-drone-attacks-pakistan

The Taliban have admitted that US drone attacks have disrupted their operations in Afghanistan but insist it will be only for the short term.
Under Barack Obama, the US has stepped up the use of unmanned aircraft to target Taliban leaders and foreign fighters sheltering in neighbouring Pakistan, particularly in the border region of North Waziristan and South Waziristan.
"In the short term, yes, you can say it has caused us some difficulties because of the martyrdoms and realignment of our ranks," a Taliban spokesman, Muhammed Umer, told the BBC. "But our command and control system is very strong and well established, so we won't be affected for long," he said, adding that anger at drone attacks was drumming up new recruits. "Instead we get new courage, becoming more powerful with the flow of new blood."
Analysts say the increase in drone attacks has forced a change in the pattern of militant behaviour in the tribal area, with Taliban and foreign fighters more careful about gathering in large groups and tending to move on from locations more quickly.
In the most recent attack, Pakistani security officials last week said that between 10 and 14 "militants" were killed in a Predator strike, although no senior Taliban or al-Qaida leaders were reported killed. It was the first strike reported inside Pakistan this month, coming after a 16-day hiatus – the longest delay between strikes recorded since the US stepped up its the air campaign at the end of July 2008.
So far this year, the US has carried out 46 strikes in Pakistan, with all but three in North Waziristan. The other two strikes took place in South Waziristan and the tribal agency of Khyber. The US is well on its way to exceeding last year's strike total in Pakistan. In 2009, the US carried out 53 strikes in Pakistan; and in 2008, the US carried out 36.
As for casualties, 700 people reportedly have been killed in such attacks under Obama, compared with slightly fewer than 200 from under his predecessor, George Bush.

 

[GAP]

Articles found July 23, 2010

Chinooks not returning to Canada after Afghan mission
Article Link

Thu Jul. 22 2010 05:03:44

The Canadian Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Six aging Canadian Chinook helicopters that have become the pride of the air force in Afghanistan may not be headed to the scrap heap when the mission is over but they are not coming home either.

The CH-47D Chinooks, purchased from the United States with a price tag of $292 million a couple of years ago, have done yeoman's service since they began flying here early last year.

But with a plan to purchase 15 brand new CH-47F Chinooks there will be no need to bring home the aging fleet.

"Believe me, the value of those aircraft cannot be diminished. They will not be scrapped," explained Defence Minister Peter MacKay as he wrapped up a three-day visit to Afghanistan.

"We will turn them over. Most likely they'll go back to the company (Boeing) for resale. Possible consideration could be given for the purchase of the new F models that we will receive," he added.

The purchase of the new Chinooks will cost $2 billion plus an estimated contract value of $2.7 billion for 20 years of in-service support.

"We are, as you know, contracted to buy new Chinook aircraft so we'll be swapping them out but it is yet to be determined the fate of those particular aircraft. They will not come back to Canada," said MacKay.

MacKay couldn't say if Canada would receive credit from Boeing to offset the nearly $5 billion cost of the new Chinooks. He said there is little doubt that the current Chinooks will find a new home.

"There's still discussion on what the specific outcome of these discussions with Boeing will be" he said.
More on link

National Post editorial board: Afghanistan’s new target date
Article Link
National Post editorial board, National Post
Wednesday, Jul. 21, 2010

On Tuesday, delegates to an international conference agreed that Afghan forces should take primary responsibility for security in all areas of Afghanistan by 2014.

This is a reasonable consensus. It also provides a more realistic departure date for Canadian troops, who currently are scheduled to end combat operations by the end of 2011. In light of this week’s events, Prime Minister Stephen Harper should consider extending our Afghan operation.

Iraq shows what sort of progress is possible when local troops take responsibility for the security of their own country. Eight years out from the U.S.-led invasion of their country, Iraqi forces now are responsible for security in over 90% of Iraq. This could be the most significant reason that negotiations on how to resolve the indecisive results of April’s national elections have not deteriorated into bloodshed: It is easier to honour the rule of law when those enforcing the laws are one’s neighbours.

A lot of work remains before Afghanistan can achieve a similar level of success. Huge strides have been made toward professionalizing the Afghan national army. But there is still so much corruption in Afghanistan that police services often go to the highest bidder. And soldiers whose government pay is irregular are still occasionally lured away to the Taliban, which continue to find support across the border in Pakistan, and dominate much of the Afghan hinterland.
More on link

Afghanistan war: The civics in a Kandahar governor's slap
Article Link
In the Afghanistan war, the Kandahar offensive was postponed this summer to strengthen civic institutions. Does a governor who smacks his constituents toe the appropriate line?

By Tom A. Peter, / Correspondent / July 22, 2010
Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan

Tension was running high in this farming area in late June after a number of locals were arrested by Canadian and Afghan troops for suspected insurgent activity. So the Canadians were relying on Haji Baran, governor of this district in the heart of Kandahar Province, to help them quiet villagers' concerns.

Crisply robed and rotund, with the air of authority of Afghan khans of centuries past, Mr. Baran swept from an Afghan Army vehicle through the 115-degree F. heat and into the shade of a patio crowded with village men anxiously chattering about sons and brothers detained. Though illiterate, Baran had in his head the carefully crafted NATO talking points about the necessity of the recent military operation.

But he didn't have the specifics that his constituents wanted so soon after the operation: Where were their loved ones? So, adjourning the meeting and rising to leave, he invited anyone with questions to come to his office in a few days when he would know more. But as he was exiting, a crescendo of questions followed, the crowd tugging at his sleeves.

Without warning, Baran firmly lashed out with a beefy palm and slapped one of the more persistent villagers across the face. The stunned questioner was silenced, but the crowd continued the clamor all the way to the ramp of a Canadian armored troop carrier that would seal him off from the crowd.

For Baran, the slap was business as usual.

For the Canadian soldiers and US civilians advising him, trying to put a positive face on the local government, the slap was a minor disaster. Officers filed disapproving reports. A Monitor reporter, the only journalist in attendance, received numerous briefings about the International Security Assistance Force's emphatic condemnation of such conduct.
More on link

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND JULY 26

All Spiegel Online, first July 25, rest July 26

The Afghanistan Protocol
Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War from Those Fighting It
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,708314,00.html#ref=nlint

Leaked Afghan War Documents
Former Pakistan ISI Chief Gul Denies Accusations
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,708592,00.html#ref=nlint

The Truth about Task Force 373
War Logs Cast Light on Dirty Side of Afghanistan Conflict
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,708559,00.html#ref=nlint

The Helpless Germans
War Logs Illustrate Lack of Progress in Bundeswehr Deployment
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,708393,00.html#ref=nlint

Plus NY Times main site for its pieces:

The War Logs
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/war-logs.html

And the Guardian:

The War Logs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/afghanistan-the-war-logs

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND JULY 29

Wikileaks is No Smoking Gun
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, July 29
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1280425801/0#0

Mark
Ottawa