No Security Without Combat

[ruxted]

Link to original article on ruxted.ca


No Security Without Combat

The debate on Canada's role in Afghanistan rages on.  Ruxted would be prepared to accept arguments that Canada needs to wind down its battle group between November 2009 and August 2010 in order to ensure forces are available for the February Olympics. So far, we have not heard that.  Sadly, it still seems the debate revolves around fantastic misconceptions about the provision of security and the reality of the threat in Afghanistan.

"The military forces of Canada have a role to play after February 2009 — even though it's not combat, it will be for security," Dion told reporters Sunday the 13th of January 2008.  Ruxted finds this position particularly worrisome as it suggests a continued naivety despite Mr. Dion's visit to Afghanistan.  Even the classical peacekeeping, of which Canadians take as a source of pride, required Canadian troops to engage in combat in places such as Cyprus and Bosnia.  Combat aversion is the sort of half-measure that was responsible for the atrocity of Rwanda.

Fortunately, Mr. Dion may be on to the right idea but it is not what he thinks.  Three days after his first comment, Mr. Dion observed, "The war against terrorism is mainly a police matter."  Here in Canada, people would not accept if police only arrested criminals that they caught in the act.  There is an expectation that, in the provision of public security, the police will conduct investigations and go after the "evil doers."  At the same time, police have tactical units capable of responding to the armed and aggressive threat.  So, how do we provide security in Afghanistan without doing the same?

Here in Canada, organized crime does not make a business of hunting the police but in Afghanistan that is what the threat does.  In Canada, organized crime does not attempt to seize political control (even local control of municipalities) by armed force but the threat in Afghanistan does.  In Afghanistan, the armed and aggressive threat is insurgent militias.  In this environment, the “typical police patrol car” might look like an infantry platoon and the emergency response team may resemble a combat team or special forces.

The combat mission is essential to the success of Afghanistan.  In its absence, everything else is only a half measure.

 

[OldSolduer]

Truer words have never been spoken. Perhaps some of our more left leaning politicians who preach "reconstruction, not combat" should get over to Afghanistan and sort it out.

 

[McG]

I see there is some disagreement on the Ruxted site itself: http://ruxted.ca/index.php?/archives/104-No-Security-Without-Combat.html#comments

 

[George Wallace]

I see there is some disagreement on the Ruxted site itself: http://ruxted.ca/index.php?/archives/104-No-Security-Without-Combat.html#comments

It looks like J MacLean flew off the handle and misinterpreted the words he quoted.  Ruxted wasn't saying that Canadian Troops "in Cyprus or Bosnia were actively seeking combat".  Ruxted stated that even in places like Cyprus and Bosnia Canadian Troops have engaged in combat.  Two different nuances.  Yes, as J Maclean says, Canadian troops are actively seeking combat in Afghanistan, but that is not what Ruxted stated they were doing elsewhere.  They were 'engaged' in combat, is not the same as actively seeking combat.  So, in the end J MacLean just flew off the handle in a rant over something he did not read correctly in the first place.  Perhaps J MacLean will read it again with a clear mind and realize the error that he made. 

 

[Jarnhamar]

Here in Canada, people would not accept if police only arrested criminals that they caught in the act.  There is an expectation that, in the provision of public security, the police will conduct investigations and go after the "evil doers."  At the same time, police have tactical units capable of responding to the armed and aggressive threat.  So, how do we provide security in Afghanistan without doing the same?

Very well said.

 

[54/102 CEF]

Gen Hillier is a wonderful communicator - we are very lucky

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/War_Terror/2008/02/01/4806386-cp.html

 

[Marshall]

Gen Hillier is a wonderful communicator - we are very lucky

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/War_Terror/2008/02/01/4806386-cp.html

I agree with his statements and im glad he 'stepped over the line' to say it as the liberals put it.

Without a definite combat role (or at least a combat role for a segment of our troops) how is the mission ever going to truely work?

R. Group i love reading your articles and i almost always 100% agree

 

[jmackenzie_15]

Years this debate has been going on and I just can't understand that how by this point, the folks at home particularly the politicians (after having it explained many many times) cannot seem to come to grips with the fact that IF THE TALIBAN ARE NOT DESTROYED, SECURITY AND DEVELOPMENT WILL NOT EXIST.

To quote just about everybody in the military over the last 3 years "what's the sense in doing reconstruction like building a school if as soon as we turn around and leave the Taliban burn it down?"

The Taliban cannot be negotiated with and will always only seek whatever means necessary to accomplish their goals which happen to be almost the direct polar opposite of ours. Bullets and rockets started flying years ago, the Taliban have declared war on Canada outright, so why are we still having this discussion?

They will continually seek out and destroy as many coalition and Canadian soldiers as possible as long as they exist, so please Canada, for the love of the fallen, do not strip us any of our ability to defend ourselves.Let us do what we do best - finding and destroying enemy combatants.

The Taliban are NOT countless, they will NOT keep coming forever, the problem is NOT poor training or equipment - the problem is manpower. I drove and walked all over Kandahar for 6.5 months playing whack-a-mole, cleaning up and clearing out some spot or town or village center, only to have to move to another one to deal with that problem and have the one we just cleared out suffer from a repeated Taliban-infestation.

Giving us more NATO troops so we can use our soldiers for non-combat roles is pointless and having been there to see it first hand, I fear will have little effect. Keep our combat troops where they are, re-inforce them with even more numbers so we can HOLD THE GROUND THAT WE TAKE, and peice by peice we can force these ****ers back to Pakistan or Iran or wherever they came from and close the gate behind them.

Maybe I can put this in a way the ordinary person in Canada can understand;

Soldiering in Kandahar with the infantry felt like trying to leave someones home after a visit with the kids, chasing them around the house trying to get them dressed and into the car, except you only have two hands and 5 kids - as soon as one is ready to go and you move onto the next, the first is already back to tearing around the place eating candy and writing on the walls again while you're left knowing this would be ALOT EASIER AND FASTER IF MY WIFE WERE HERE.

Catch my drift Canada?

 

[OldSolduer]

Most politicians in the "liberal/socialist" mode think that aggressors can be stopped by having a talk over a cup of tea. Neville Chamberlain thought he could stop Hitler in such a fashion. Look where that got us.
Some people will not accept the fact that sometimes the bully has to be punched in the nose to get him to stop. I know this is a simplistic analogy, howeverif per chance a politician is reading this, he might understand!! :

 

[54/102 CEF]

Most politicians in the "liberal/socialist" mode think that aggressors can be stopped by having a talk over a cup of tea. Neville Chamberlain thought he could stop Hitler in such a fashion. Look where that got us.
Some people will not accept the fact that sometimes the bully has to be punched in the nose to get him to stop. I know this is a simplistic analogy, howeverif per chance a politician is reading this, he might understand!! :

Your argument is not simplistic -

See a primer on your reference to Chamberlin - http://www.historynet.com/magazines/military_history/15599482.html?showAll=y&c=y

See a primer on Dunkirk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dunkirk

Validation - when Gen Alan Brooke came across off the Dunkirk Beaches (he was later the Chief of Staff to Churchill throughout the war) - he found no sense of urgency at Dover - peacetime conditions reined. See Turn of the Tide by Arthur Bryant http://www.amazon.com/Turn-Tide-1939-43-Alanbrooke-Diaries/dp/0586068341

Note the ref to Churchill above saying he has to control everything

What's my point? A few actually

The political base in Canada is mushy - no party has a lead or a clue. Doing nothing prior to the arrival of Gen Hillier equates to appeasement of the worst kind.

The Crisis has not yet hit

The LEADER has not yet emerged.

NTF - even current leadership at all levels may be vulnerable to a LEADER

 

[Greymatters]

It looks like J MacLean flew off the handle and misinterpreted the words he quoted.  Ruxted wasn't saying that Canadian Troops "in Cyprus or Bosnia were actively seeking combat".  Ruxted stated that even in places like Cyprus and Bosnia Canadian Troops have engaged in combat.  Two different nuances.   Yes, as J Maclean says, Canadian troops are actively seeking combat in Afghanistan, but that is not what Ruxted stated they were doing elsewhere.  They were 'engaged' in combat, is not the same as actively seeking combat.  So, in the end J MacLean just flew off the handle in a rant over something he did not read correctly in the first place.  Perhaps J MacLean will read it again with a clear mind and realize the error that he made. 

Just to track back a bit, why do so many people lump Cyprus and Bosnia into the same fruit bowl all the time?  I see little similarity between the situation and what we did in Cyprus and what we did in Bosnia.
 

 

[George Wallace]

Just to track back a bit, why do so many people lump Cyprus and Bosnia into the same fruit bowl all the time?  I see little similarity between the situation and what we did in Cyprus and what we did in Bosnia. 

???

OK?  You quoted me.  Why?

Canadian Troops were on Peacekeeping missions in both Cyprus and Bosnia.  Yes they were different Missions.  Yes they had different ROEs, as do all like missions.  The point being made is that in both Cyprus and Bosnia, Canadian Peacekeepers were called upon to enter into combat with an enemy force.  In 1974 the CAR were in combat on the Island of Cyprus when the Turks invaded.  We have already discussed in many topics on these forums the Medak Pocket where the PPCLI found themselves in combat in Bosnia.  So, I find your above comments rather ............. discombobulated.

 

[MdB]

In my mind, the goal is winning this war in Afghanistan. How is it to be achieved?

Not only in destroying the enemy. The goal is not only infantry's: to close with and destroy the enemy. To fix the enemy (as we're kind of a playing hide-and-seek over there) is achievable only in winning the Afghan population and empowering them to reach their goal: ie develop the country after ca 30 years of war (infrastructures the population can use), provide security (not achieved in the South and East), provide better form of government, develop law and order (police and armed forces).

The Afghan population will side with the most poweful authority (and not only legitimate) as it's been the conditions in our civilisations for most of history. Even more in societies that are not democracies, like Afghan politics that work mostly in terms of clans.

The other side of this is to provide legitimacy to the intervention at international- and national-level. I think the international part of it is more than legitimate to explain it here. The national part though is not that clear. We can only win there if we win the Canadian support for this intervention and I think that the job hasn't been done thoroughly yet. Explain the very nature of our role there, seek humanity in what we're doing, have the soldiers take a bigger part at the media coverage, politicians explain it in no-non sense words, etc.

Having just read Blatchford's Fifteen Days, I think this book is a very good start, as is some of CBC's soldier reports and many reporters doing an awesome job at try to seize the very essence of what is really going on. Like it's been said in the book, we lost Rwanda, we lost Darfour, let's not lose Afghanistan.

The reason why we need to seek active combat is to keep the initiative. It's as hard to keep it without asking people to remain targets.

As for Dion stating that Hillier isn't in charge of the country's foreign policy, I think that lacking a spine leads to such despicable acts as giving Hillier some political intents.


Updated for minor typos.

 

[Greymatters]

In 1974 the CAR were in combat on the Island of Cyprus when the Turks invaded.  We have already discussed in many topics on these forums the Medak Pocket where the PPCLI found themselves in combat in Bosnia. 

Fair enough.  Never mind... 

 

[54/102 CEF]

A comparison to the idea that you need someone controlling everything vs. the dreaded "collegial risk averse approach"

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/02/news/companies/elkind_jobs.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes

History, of course, is littered with tales of combustible geniuses. What's astounding is how well Jobs has performed atop a large public company - by its nature a collaborative enterprise. Pondering this issue, Stanford management science professor Robert Sutton discussed Jobs in his bestselling 2007 book, "The No A$$hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't." "As soon as people heard I was writing a book on assholes, they would come up to me and start telling a Steve Jobs story," says Sutton. "The degree to which people in Silicon Valley are afraid of Jobs is unbelievable. He made people feel terrible; he made people cry. But he was almost always right, and even when he was wrong, it was so creative it was still amazing." Says Palo Alto venture capitalist Jean-Louis Gasse, a former Apple executive who once worked with Jobs: "Democracies don't make great products. You need a competent tyrant."

That`s a Churchill in action. We need the Churchillian vs the Political Reptilian

 

[Panzer Grenadier]

We need the Churchillian vs the Political Reptilian

Any ideas?

 

[jmackenzie_15]

The reason why we need to seek active combat is to keep the initiative. It's as hard to keep it without asking people to remain targets.

As for Dion stating that Hillier isn't in charge of the country's foreign policy, I think that lacking a spine leads to such despicable acts as giving Hillier some political intents.

I wish more people would understand this fact. I also really support Hillier (more than I am obligated to  ;D). He isn't in charge but he run's this military and want's to see it's best interests served and standing around not fighting back is definately NOT in our best interests, if anything, it could increase the coalition death toll.
Ceasing operations to hunt down Taliban fighters and bomb makers is only going to give them more breathing room and planning time to enact more IED strikes on our Convoys and guys running around the province trying to "administer aid and reconstruction".

Some members of the gov't just (IMO) are not living in reality and don't seem to grasp the concept that as long as the Taliban (al qaeda or whatever you want to call them) exist, there is no security and effective reconstruction cannot take place.

I just finished reading an article on CTV detailing how 1/10th of Afghanistan is literally unpassable to foreign aid workers because it basically means certain death to go there - Taliban controlled territory.

Maybe Dion and his crew would like to get into an SUV full of water and medicine and drive into Zhari or Maywand by themselves ?
Or even suppose say they fully understand the security problem, are we all of a sudden content to let other nato nations bleed and die and do the fighting while we focus on reconstruction? That would personally and im sure nationally for alot of CF members be a tough pill to swallow considering the gains we've made and the comrades we've lost along the way.

Go all the way or stay home.

 

[OldSolduer]

Mack:

Well said!!

 

[a_majoor]

Professor Douglas Bland looks at the possible outcomes of the opposition parties ideas:

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=3b2d0a02-862b-4029-b433-40899b7ed3d0

Back to Srebrenica

Douglas Bland
Citizen Special

Thursday, March 13, 2008

As members of Parliament prepare to vote on Canada's commitment to the people of Afghanistan, they should pause to remember and consider Srebrenica.

They should recall the small town in Bosnia-Herzegovina where on July 11, 1995, "Dutch peacekeepers" deployed on a promise to guard this "UN-protected zone" instead walked away and allowed Bosnian-Serb soldiers to slaughter nearly 8,000 mostly men and boys. Nothing among the scores of UN failures to protect innocents discredited that institution and the concept of peacekeeping appeasement more clearly and sadly.

Yet here we are 13 years after Srebrenica listening to Canadian political leaders proposing policies for Afghanistan based in the same fantasies that led inevitably to the murders in Srebrenica.

Jack Layton's policies for Afghanistan, for instance, seem to be founded on the fantastic idea that the immediate withdrawal of armed forces from southern Afghanistan would, in and of itself, end attempts by insurgents to overthrow the legitimate government in Kabul and also immediately bring about a "peace process" leading to safety and security for all.

There is no evidence to support such an idea even within the UN or from non-governmental organizations such as the Senlis Council which promotes a wide range of economic and humanitarian policies to stabilize the region, but only as security allows.

What ought to be obvious to Mr. Layton - and probably is in his private conversations - is that his party's ideological policy preferences risk creating not just another Srebrenica, but an environment in which the atrocities committed at Srebrenica would become commonplace in southern Afghanistan.

He ought to explain clearly to Canadians this risk and his willingness to take responsibility for such an outcome if he votes to abandon Canada's commitment to Afghans.

On the other hand, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's policy of offensive operations if necessary, but not necessarily offensive operations, would spread such confusion in the ranks of the Canadian soldiers and officers he would leave in Afghanistan that another Srebrenica-type disaster of Canada's doing seems inevitable there. Worse, his vague rules of engagement for the Canadian Forces in the field would surely embolden the Taliban just as uncertainty in Dutch and UN resolve in Bosnia-Herzegovina emboldened the Serb army and prompted its attack on unarmed civilians in 1995.

Mr. Dion seems to believe that Canada can trumpet at home the Liberal party's claim to having invented peacekeeping and the concept of "responsibility to protect" while prompting at the same time policies aimed at abandoning the traditional principles underlying Canada's foreign policy. His policies are in fact a declaration of his willingness to desert less fortunate people living in dangerous circumstances whom the Liberal party while in government pledged to support. He too, like Mr. Layton, risks exposing generations of Afghans to their own, unending Srebrenica nightmare and so he too must declare, before he votes on the motion before the House of Commons, his willingness to be held to account for that outcome.

The government's motion is problematic also. It fails to declare that a Canadian commitment to protect innocent people once given cannot be withdrawn without assurances that some credible force will accept Canada's obligation before we leave Afghanistan.

The calls from Canada to allies for aid and assistance in this mission are entirely reasonable. But if those calls go unanswered, will the government simply walk away and risk putting the blood of another Srebrenica on Canadian hands?

If the answer is that Canada would do no such thing, then the motion ought to be amended to record this fact.

Before they vote on the motion before the House of Commons, every member of Parliament should reflect carefully on the realities of the situation in Afghanistan and the dangers not just to members of the Canadian Forces should the House vote to "stay the course." They must consider equally at least the certain dangers that Afghans we pledged to protect will endure if we do not fulfil our commitment to them.

The motion before the House of Commons is a vote on whether Canada can be trusted to keep its pledges or whether Canada will risk suffering international condemnation and humiliation as the Dutch did after they deserted their duty and found themselves complicit in the slaughter of innocent villagers in Srebrenica in 1995.

Ultimately, the vote must reflect individual conscience and it would shame members and the House of Commons if it were merely a reflection of crass partisan party preferences.

Douglas Bland is a professor and chair of the Defence Management Studies Program at the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

 

[AirCanuck]

Link to original article on ruxted.ca


No Security Without Combat

The debate on Canada's role in Afghanistan rages on.  Ruxted would be prepared to accept arguments that Canada needs to wind down its battle group between November 2009 and August 2010 in order to ensure forces are available for the February Olympics. So far, we have not heard that.  Sadly, it still seems the debate revolves around fantastic misconceptions about the provision of security and the reality of the threat in Afghanistan.

"The military forces of Canada have a role to play after February 2009 — even though it's not combat, it will be for security," Dion told reporters Sunday the 13th of January 2008.  Ruxted finds this position particularly worrisome as it suggests a continued naivety despite Mr. Dion's visit to Afghanistan.  Even the classical peacekeeping, of which Canadians take as a source of pride, required Canadian troops to engage in combat in places such as Cyprus and Bosnia.  Combat aversion is the sort of half-measure that was responsible for the atrocity of Rwanda.

Fortunately, Mr. Dion may be on to the right idea but it is not what he thinks.  Three days after his first comment, Mr. Dion observed, "The war against terrorism is mainly a police matter."  Here in Canada, people would not accept if police only arrested criminals that they caught in the act.  There is an expectation that, in the provision of public security, the police will conduct investigations and go after the "evil doers."  At the same time, police have tactical units capable of responding to the armed and aggressive threat.  So, how do we provide security in Afghanistan without doing the same?

Here in Canada, organized crime does not make a business of hunting the police but in Afghanistan that is what the threat does.  In Canada, organized crime does not attempt to seize political control (even local control of municipalities) by armed force but the threat in Afghanistan does.  In Afghanistan, the armed and aggressive threat is insurgent militias.  In this environment, the “typical police patrol car” might look like an infantry platoon and the emergency response team may resemble a combat team or special forces.

The combat mission is essential to the success of Afghanistan.  In its absence, everything else is only a half measure.

I couldn't agree more.  Too often people who are uninformed (particularly I find at the University campus) preach about returning to our 'roots' as peacekeepers, and that that is what we should be doing in Afghanistan as well - they just don't understand the reality of it.  Reconstruction not war is just not a statement that works in real life right now.