Brig Gen Vance a proud Canadian Commander Canadian commander lays down the law at village shura ! !
DEH-E-BAGH, Afghanistan - Canada's top soldier in Afghanistan laid down the law today to a shura of village elders in the Dand district outside of Kandahar city. Dand is home to the village of Deh-e-Bagh, where tribal elders rejected the Taliban and asked for help from Canada and the provincial government.
A speedy recovery to Canadian wounded soldier. It makes me wonder why Canadians are risking life and limb, when in this so called Model Village, they do not appreciate our assistance. Yet in some polls Canadians want Canada to return to peace keeping. Men and women still get killed on Peacekeeping. There were 1,558 Canadian casualties, including 516 dead. In all UN peacekeeping roles since 1948. Many Canadians think that it is far easier to be a peacekeeper. However they are wrong Canadians and other UN Troops and RCMP still have casualties.
Time to consider peacekeeping reloaded As we reduce our commitment in Afghanistan, we must not allow wishful thinking to cloud our vision of the future By Cam Ross, FreelanceAugust 15, 2009 Canada will reduce its commitment in Afghanistan in 2011. As Canadians consider their future role in the world, they must not confuse reality with wishful thinking.
Remember Everyone Deployed
Nil Sine Labore
Robby
While the extent of Canada's withdrawal from Afghanistan has yet to be determined, Ottawa has clearly signalled Canada will have a reduced combat footprint. The key words are reduced and combat.
We can initially expect the 1,000 to 1,500 troops remaining to assist in training and development. And there will no doubt be an element of combat capability that will be included to provide security for those trainers and civilians. However, the bulk of the Canadian battle group will return home.
The new NATO chief does not want that to happen. He wants Canada to stay the course; that is not likely to happen. The reality is that there are four immovable truths. None has anything to do with how incredibly effective our troops are.
First, the polls, while extraordinarily supportive of the Canadian Forces, reflect increasing calls to bring the troops home.
Second, it was not just the Harper government that decided on the 2011 reduction. By astutely commissioning the Manley panel, the PM laid the groundwork for a parliamentary vote to stay until 2011. A similar all-party agreement would have to be undertaken to change the current 2011 decision; this is highly unlikely.
Third, Afghanistan is expensive in dollars as well as human capital. At a time of soaring national debt, it will be increasingly difficult to rationalize such expeditionary expenses. Also, we are entering an Arctic sovereignty era in which the military has a role. The cost will be immense.
Most importantly, the human cost in casualties and attrition from repeat tours is staggering. One combat unit's recent study revealed that over a 33-month period, troops were spending, on average, 22 months away from home.
Afghanistan has placed Canada's army, one of the best in the world, under tremendous strain. At 19,000 soldiers, the Canadian army fits into Calgary's Saddledome. Three thousand of those soldiers are in Afghanistan, 3,000 more are training to go, and another 3,000 have just returned home. This is unsustainable.
Fourth, Afghanistan presents a political burr under the saddle for a minority government, regardless of the party stripe. With a rebounding economy on the horizon, there will be a great temptation to hold an election within the year and the pressure on all parties to remove that Afghanistan burr will be immense. The burr will be replaced by familiarity, traditional peacekeeping -- regardless of the logic of staying the course in Afghanistan.
Many Canadians believe that UN peacekeeping is our traditional overseas military role. It is falsely perceived to be safe it exemplifies our desire to compromise, to be nice...Jean Chretien's boy scouts to the world. It is our comfort zone, as the NDP and others would say.
But what is traditional peacekeeping? Too many UN veterans have vivid memories of being shot at and blown up while under the UN flag to believe the calm portrayed on the back of our $10 bill, labelled Remembrance and Peacekeeping, is a realistic portrayal of their peacekeeping duties. Since 1948, traditional peacekeeping has cost us 114 lives; Canada has the third highest toll on the UN's country casualty list behind India and Ghana.
Since the end of the Cold War, the demand for international intervention has grown almost exponentially. In June, the UN had 93,216 military personnel deployed on 17 missions worldwide compared with only 12,084 personnel on 15 missions in 1999. The foreseeable future does not herald a rosier picture. The Haitis, Sudans and Congos of the world will not be solved easily or overnight.
The face of peacekeeping has changed. With the exceptions of Italy and France, 18 of the top 20 peacekeeping contributors are developing countries.
For a well-to-do country of 34 million, Canada's current contribution is abysmally small in numbers. Canada ranks No. 52 for UN peacekeeping with only 55 military personnel deployed on 10 UN missions. Whether it's a combat role with NATO or a peacekeeping mission with the UN, we should be cognizant of our own limitations. Something is wrong if we can only deploy about 3,000 military at a given time. Our wishful thinking is that we are a middle power that can positively influence troubled lands. The fact is that we are punching well below our weight class in both security and development, not in quality but in quantity.
What is certain is that there will be increased interest in Canada returning to its perceived default position, more for political expediency than sound foreign policy.
A return to the UN fold will resonate well with the voters. A recommitment to Haiti will be especially attractive for Quebec voters. To say no to the UN because we don't do peacekeeping anymore would be unwise, especially at a time when Canada is aggressively seeking a January 2011 seat on the UN Security Council. And the response of sorry, we have already given at the office will no longer apply post-2011.
Do I personally advocate a return to the traditional role of peacekeeping?No. Peacekeeping reloaded? Probably. But, realistically, the peacekeeping of today is scarcely identifiable as the task defined in 1956 by Lester Pearson. Change that $10 picture for one that depicts Canada's Armed Forces as the capable warriors they are and stop deluding ourselves. Effective peacekeeping sometimes needs a big bat.
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Retired major-general Cam Ross, a former UN assistant secretary general and force commander of UNDOF on the Golan Heights, is a fellow of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.
NATO forces concentrated their efforts on ensuring the security of the village and on resurrecting the local economy in the hopes of finally convincing residents that their best course of action was to support the coalition and not insurgent forces. But an IED blast just outside the village's limits sent a Canadian soldier to hospital with a serious leg injury and angered Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance, the commander of Task Force Kandahar.
Vance demanded and received an immediate shura or meeting with village elders and told them he was disgusted that one of his soldiers had been injured and no one in the village had reported the explosive device being planted. He told them it is a two-way street and hinted that without their support he wouldn't be willing to risk any more Canadian casualties.
