Posted on 11/01/2008 2:20:05 PM PDT by Clive
KANDAHAR -- Sounding much more upbeat than many of his international colleagues, the commander of Canada's Afghanistan mission insisted Friday that his troops have scored a series of important victories lately.
Canadians have eliminated Taliban commanders, seized bomb factories and broken up supply centres, said Brigadier General Denis Thompson.
Now, the soldiers plan to deny the insurgents their safe havens over the winter, helped by Pakistani security forces on the other side of the border, he said.
"We've faced some interesting challenges," he told reporters. "For every challenge, however, there are successes that we don't hear enough about ... This summer we were able to significantly disrupt the insurgents' command and control network. Many of their mid- and senior-level commanders were neutralized, including several key IED experts."
Meanwhile, the heavy-lift helicopters that Canada is expected to acquire from the U.S. by this January should help tactically, allowing troops to push "deeper, with a larger force" into insurgent country, he said.
A day after a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a heavily guarded government building in Kabul, Brig.-Gen. Thompson acknowledged there is a "perception" in Afghanistan that security is deteriorating.
He blamed that sense in part on the Taliban's tactical shift to more bombings and other terrorist activity and less conventional warfare, though Canadian officers have been making much the same point for almost two years now.
Brig.-Gen. Thompson also said that Afghan police have arrested three people thought to be responsible for several of the targeted assassinations that have terrorized Kandahar City.
A handful of British, French and American generals and diplomats have offered up more gloomy forecasts recently, with some suggesting the war cannot be won militarily. Such views have fed a growing push for negotiations with the militants.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
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Operations after January will be telling with the added copters.
That was an impressive list of accomplishments in the article.
God Bless them all.
***First thing I’d do is replace those French, British and American officers who think it’s lost. Next, put the Canadians in charge.
Operations after January will be telling with the added copters.
That was an impressive list of accomplishments in the article.
God Bless them all.***
If we had had this pride in accomplishment 18 years ago, I probably wouldn’t have emigrated. God bless us all and God bless the Canadian Armed Forces. Man for man, some of the best; let them be outfitted accordingly.
The brits have been paying a disproportionate butcher's bill at FOB Gibralter in Helmand province and I am wondering why.
How say you, SandRat?
It will take time to overcome errors of the past from all commanders for which the other ranks have paid the butchers bill but I have confidence that it will be corrected. The Marines, the Special Ops ranks from all nations will take the the fore and change will come.
***I hear what you are saying abouty defeatist officers, but don’t give up on the Yanks. We have the USMC helping our people in Kandahar and they don’t have a reputation for defeatism. ***
Good. We gained our reputation in places like Ypres and Vimy Ridge and in the liberation of the Netherlands. Perhaps it is in the previously undefeated land of Afghanistan that we can reclaim our military pride.
***It will take time to overcome errors of the past from all commanders for which the other ranks have paid the butchers bill but I have confidence that it will be corrected. The Marines, the Special Ops ranks from all nations will take the the fore and change will come.***
Good. It is about time.
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