The End of the Beginning in Afghanistan

CASC co-founder Terry Glavin explains how the international mission in Afghanistan is looking towards long-term success in defeating the Taliban and restoring peace to this fragile land. An excerpt:

It is in Kandahar that Canada has made its greatest efforts and sacrifices in the UN-mandated, 42-nation effort to bring some semblance of peace, order and good government to the Afghan republic. It really is the "pointy end of the stick." But even in Kandahar, we're finally starting to see what the end of the tunnel looks like.

A couple of days back I had breakfast with Brigadier-General Daniel Menard, who recently assumed command of Canada's 2,800 soldiers in Afghanistan, along with another few hundred American soldiers from the 1st battalion of the U.S. Army's 12th Infantry.

Long before U.S. President Barack Obama's long-awaited troop surge announcement, American soldiers had been pouring into Kandahar, allowing Canada's soldiers to focus their efforts on securing an area of about 1,500 square kilometres around Kandahar City, which contains about 85 per cent of the province's population.

During our conversations, Menard was confident enough to say that to clear and hold Canada's area of operations, he didn't even need any more American soldiers.

"We need to marginalize the Taliban, to make it irrelevant. And I think that during our tenure, up to September of next year, we can do this. I certainly believe that by September of next year we can create an environment and identify a population that understands that there is another way of living. And it's not they don't want to. It's just that they'e been terrorized for so long."

Read the complete article here.