The Big Cod Says, "Keep Verizon Out."

Safely retired ex-general Rick Hillier has a new gig as chairman of Telus Atlantic Canada Community Board.   In that capacity he wrote an op-ed urging the government not to let foreigners in to play in Canada's miserable cellular market.

As I read Hillier's bit of tripe I kept thinking that this was from the guy who talked Paul Martin into approving Canada's combat mission to Kandahar and who assured the Canadian people that his miniscule, 2,500-soldier force would only have to contend with a "few dozen ...scumbags."

I knew all I would ever need to know about Hillier's credibility with his Kandahar assessment.

Hillier "Didn't Hear" - Then Why Not?

He was the major domo of Canada's mission to Afghanistan, the Big Cod, the hard-chargin' guy who left no doubt who was in command of this gig.

Now that evidence of the torture of detainees is breaking out, safely retired General Rick Hillier says he never heard a word about it. Hillier says he didn't see so much as one of the dozens of e-mail warnings sent to civilian and military staff in Ottawa by senior Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin. He never even met the guy.

Is Hillier being honest? Who knows? Maybe that's not really important. Because whether he saw Colvin's warnings, his denial isn't the end of it. Assuming Hillier is telling the truth he needs to explain why he didn't get those warnings, why he didn't read those e-mails, why he wasn't on the phone directly to Colvin. What was going on at DND that kept those warnings from reaching the top brass? Who decided there was no need to tell Hillier? Why was he not told? What did Hillier do or not do to control what news reached him from Afghanistan?

It seems to me if Hillier was running a defence department in which warnings of this magnitude were kept from him, he was doing a lousy job of running the place. We've made a national celebrity out of this guy and for the life of me I can't understand why.

In today's Toronto Star, Chantal Hebert is drawing the same conclusions about Stephen Harper and Peter Mackay.

The Last Squawk of Rick Hillier?

I've had about enough of Rick Hillier and his delusions of grandeur.

The safely retired, ex-general seems to have found a perch where, like one of those really annoyingly loud parrots, he can squawk and scream at his former masters. Perhaps sensing that he still has the Canadian public on his side, Hillier is using his store of political capital to, well, politic.

Hillier doesn't seem to like the politicians we elect - of any stripe. The Liberals were bad, Harper is maniacal. Don't listen to them, don't trust them, he tells us. Apparently he thinks that parliament is going to sell us out on Afghanistan as if Canada's supposed military leadership hasn't done a good enough job of that already.

It's remarkable how readily and fulsomely Hillier can find fault, incompetence and dishonesty in the Canadian public's elected representatives and yet recognize so little fault in his own leadership of the Afghanistan mission. Memo to Rick - politicians alone can't screw up the Afghan gig as thoroughly as it is. It takes deeply flawed political and military leadership to pull off a mess like Afghanistan.

It seems Hillier's solution to Afghanistan is more of the same. Yeah, Rick, and just how well has that worked so far? Are you looking to repeat the Hundred Years War?

Rick Hillier is known to have a great affinity for his American counterparts so it's not surprising that he acts so much like them. Ever notice how many US generals have become astonishingly candid and outspoken about places like Iraq and Afghanistan but only after they have reached the safety of retirement? It's all "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" while they're still in the driver's seat but the gloves come off just as soon as they're safely buckled up in the backseat. And we all really love those backseat drivers, don't we?

Man, Hillier makes me yearn for the good old days when the only retired generals who castigated politicians were those who had actually won a war or two.

Hillier Said What?

What does a Canadian victory in Afghanistan look like? Well, according to a Status of Forces agreement between Canada and the Kabul government under the signature of General Rick Hillier, we promised that "Canadian troops will "eliminate" Al Qaeda, the Taliban, "anti-coalition armed groups, and any other insurgents threatening the security and stability of Afghanistan or international peace and security."

So, there we have it. That's where we agreed to set the bar. This is how we will measure victory or defeat for our mission to Afghanistan.

Hillier signed us on to this deal in 2005 during the federal election that brought the shining light of Harperism to power. From the Toronto Star:

A newly elected Harper quickly stamped his support on the mission when he reacted to an upswing in violence in Afghanistan by declaring Canada would not "cut and run" from the country.

"We will not be in any way backtracking from an obligation which has been undertaken," Harper said in a March 2006 news conference.

Less than three years later, Boss Harp had a change of heart - sort of like how he's flopped on everything else such as transparency and accountability for starters - and says we're not so crazy about eliminating the bad guys any more.

But, there it is. That's what our Great Canadian Hero, General "Hubris" Hillier, got us into. That's how you can judge our victory or defeat in Hillier's war.

Sure Hillier got the approval for this from the prime minister but, when you're taking your troops out on the ice, it's the general's responsibility to ensure that ice is thick enough to get his troops safely and successfully to the other side. The guy said it was doable. He told the PM that, he told the same thing to the Canadian people. He was wrong and I don't see any excuse for him not knowing that.

Canada's Troubles in Afghanistan Start at the Top

Here are a few home truths to keep in the back of your mind while weighing our progress in this maniacal war without end on terror:

1. An otherwise winnable war can be lost by bad military leadership.

2. An otherwise winnable war can be lost by bad political leadership.

3. Wars are rarely lost at the 11th hour. The groundwork for failure is often laid early in the game.

4. Wars are usually lost long before the losing side realizes it has failed. The outcome of a war may be conclusively decided long before the losing side has sustained enough damage to acknowledge the fact.

5. Superior technology and firepower are a poor substitute for competent political and military leadership.

6. Time is a precious and limited commodity in warfare. Fatigue sets in quickly and can be fatal.

7. Rarely are wars fought for the reasons fed to the public.



Pretty much each of these truths comes to bear on the way in which we perceive the war in Afghanistan. Our military leadership has been haphazard - at best. Read General Petraeus' counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24. This eye opener essentially digests the experiences and lessons of asymmetrical warfare since the days of the Romans. The players change, their weapons change, but the core principles survive. Then, having read that enlightening work, apply its recommendations to what we've been doing in Afghanistan. Sorry, I can 't do that for you, there's far too much material involved. Just, please, don't tell me we have the slightest hope of "winning" in Afghanistan until you've at least read the manual (which is, by the way, available, at no charge, in PDF format on the internet).

You don't need to take some measly 4-star American combat general's word for it. Read Caesar, read T.E. Lawrence or so many others. You'll find it all there. But - don't argue Afghanistan with me until you're able to discuss the salient aspects of guerrilla warfare.

By Petraeus' own writings, we're making every mistake in the book (including FM 3-24) in Afghanistan. I so wish the ghost of Colonel Lawrence had been around to whisper a bit of this reality to General Hillier before he cajoled his way through Paul Martin's office and on into Kandahar. Which leads me to bad political leadership.

I fully accept that Paul Martin fell for a song and dance act on Afghanistan. If, as Martin aides claim, he only approved it on Hillier's assurance that the forces could take it on and take on another major mission at the same time, what was Hillier doing giving this assurance? Either Hillier was smart enough to know that wasn't true - or he wasn't smart enough to know whether it was true. No matter which end you approach this from, it was lousy military leadership.

Then, as the enemy grew in strength and the mission took on burdens far beyond the worst-case scenario given Martin - Hillier did nothing to see that the Canadian force was appropriately reinforced.

Look at it this way. Hillier got the PM to sign on - and openly told Canadian TV cameras - that the 2.500-strong force was sufficient because we were going into that large province but only to kill "a few dozen ...scumbags." Given the history of Afghanistan, all its troubles and associated circumstances and perils, how could anyone say that? You don't take on missions - voluntarily, even beggingly - unless you're absolutely certain that the force you take will be able to cope with a worst-case situation. And then, when that worst-case situation emerges and catches you shorthanded, you do nothing to increase your numbers to the size of the force you ought to have taken in there when you first outlined the mission?

Imagine a Canadian general going to the prime minister of the day and coming out with approval for a war that will utterly exhaust our armed forces and leave them much less able to deal with any other threat anywhere, including Canada itself, that may emerge - and for years, possibly generations. Imagine that. Yet, somehow, that's precisely what's staring us in the face right now. If Hillier didn't warn Paul Martin off this godawful predicament, he ought to come out and explain why not? The Canadian people need an answer from The Big Cod on that one.

Sorry, ladies and gents, but winding up where we are right now , given all the clues and indicators, was foreseeable as at least "possible" if not straight out "probable." Why did this seem to come as such an unimagineable surprise by our military leaders?


Our political leadership failed - and continues to fail us. I don't believe you need to have much expertise in military history to see this coming down the line. Somehow Paul Martin accepted some pretty baseless assurances when he and his organization ought to have known better. But if benign gullibility is Martin's crime, his successor's has been far more culpable. Harper wants to be one of the boys, to stand shoulder to shoulder with the leaders of the other English-speaking democracies, the good old white boys.

Harper's leadership on Afghanistan is entirely politically-driven. That's bad news for the troops because it means their mission is compromised by a political agenda. The best trained, best equipped and most capable and motivated troops cannot overcome weak political and military leadership.

The Afghanistan war, or at least our chapter of it, began in 2001. Now we're in the bottom half of 2008. In the course of those seven years a lot has changed, not much of it for the good.

Afghanistan remains a failed state. Why? One reason is the destabilizing role of the insurgency, a problem compounded by the chaos in neighbouring Pakistan. That, however, is only one reason and there are others. Another key reason is that a strong Afghan state with a powerful central government is not in the interests of some very key players, among them the warlords (to whom we've handed over most of the country) and the drug barons.

It's no accident that Hamid Karzai remains the mayor of Kabul. He exercises only those powers the warlords are willing to give him and we're not doing a damned thing about that. Why? Because that would risk bringing us into conflict not only with a Pashtun insurgency but also with the Hazara, Turkmen, Tajik and Uzbek leadership. We'd be at war with everybody.

Time is a precious commodity in warfare and seven years is an almost unbelievable amount of time for a war and yet, as Milne noted in the previous piece from the Guardian, we've not achieved a single objective we had for invading and occupying Afghanistan.

There's no faulting our troops in this. They're not responsible for the abject failure of their leadership, political and military. The soldiers at the sharp end are doing a terrific job. They're well trained, committed and very capable but they can't overcome their shortage in numbers or the fundamental flaws inherent in "the mission" that will deny their efforts any meaningful victory.

It was stunning to read last week that the National Post itself has clued in to the fact that we're woefully understrength in Afghanistan. Wow, and it only took them seven years to notice! Even the Spot understands that we can't win in Afghanistan with the paltry forces we've deployed to Kandahar. Maybe if the Spot can figure that out there's hope yet that our politicians and generals may also reach that same state of belated enlightenment.

The Afghanistan Ottawa Won't Tell You About - the Afghanistan We're Being Asked to Fight to Defend

Some of us support the Canadian mission to Afghanistan. Some of us oppose it. On both sides, the great majority of us support our troops. This week our MPs are scheduled to have a "debate" on extending the mission to 2011. Our top general, the Big Cod, has already weighed-in on the debate, shamelessly insinuating that subjecting his (and it very much is "his") mission to political debate could place Canadian soldiers' lives in jeopardy (which, from Hillier's mouth to the Talibans' ears probably ensures it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy - and that jackass impugns our patriotism and support for the troops!).

What is the point of debating this if the arguments are to be framed on deliberately scripted myths and propaganda - half truths and outright lies? For that is exactly what has been dished up to the Canadian public by our political and military leaders. That is what has been fed to you and to me.

From Washington to Brussels to Ottawa the mission to Afghanistan has never been much more than a political football. That's why, six years down the road, it's an utter failure. Pursuing our political objectives is what guaranteed failure from the very outset.

Our political agenda treated the creation of a new Afghan government almost as an afterthought. We staged elections that saw our guy, Hamid Karzai, win as president without bothering to notice that the real reins of power were falling into the hands of warlords, thugs and common criminals.

Were we to defeat the Taliban - pretend for the sake of argument that could be possible - what would we leave behind? All that would remain would be a powerful, criminal enterprise under the control of Islamic fundamentalist warlords, our supposed former allies in the "Northern Alliance." If you take the Taliban out of the equation today that's what you have left, a feudal, Islamist narco-state under the grinding heel of Sharia law. That's what we have created, more by omission than act, in today's Afghanistan.

This week you'll hear a lot of patriotic jingoism from the floor of the House of Commons, most of it deserving to be shovelled rather than printed because it'll be heavily laced with pure, manipulative bullshit.

Sarah Chayes is a former National Public Radio reporter who's been in Afghanistan since the early days after the fall of the Taliban. She handed in her microphone to do development aid work shortly afterward. Today she's widely regarded as one of the most knowledgeable and reliable sources of just what is going on in Afghanistan and - surprise - it's not what you've been hearing from Rick Hiller or Peter MacKay or that practised dissembler, SHarper, or just about anyone else in Ottawa.

Chayes was interviewed on Bill Moyers Now this week. The entire interview can be watched on the PBS.org website. Here are a few excerpts from her remarks that may help you make sense of what you hear this week when our own MPs debate the mission to Afghanistan:


"SARAH CHAYES: You know, you can drive around the streets of Kandahar. You can drive around the streets of Kabul, and you see some massive buildings. Massive buildings. You see the price of property in Kandahar is probably close to the price of property in New York City.

BILL MOYERS: So who's living in those buildings? Who's using those buildings?

SARAH CHAYES: Government officials and drug traffickers. So it's either the opium money, or it's the development money. And we're not following that money trail. The same problem in Iraq. I mean, there's just millions of dollars that are kind of leaking out of the system.

BILL MOYERS: So, has this become an opium economy?

SARAH CHAYES: Definitely, it's an opium economy. And it's totally integrated into the economy. It's a normal aspect of the economy. And you can feel it. For example, in opium harvesting season, we needed one of our herbs. We needed somebody to -- basically wild crafting to harvest herbs up in the hills. We couldn't get anybody because there were you know, buses at the Helmand, is the province right next door to us where most of the opium is growing. And there would be, you know, from the Helmand bus depot, they would just drive people straight out into the fields. Because, and the price of labor was going up. Normally, labor is unskilled labor is $4 a day. It was $20 to $25 a day in opium harvesting season. It totally absorbs all of the available manpower. Now, the cliché that I don't subscribe to is that the Taliban are running the opium business.

SARAH CHAYES: Well, we're paying a billion dollars a year to Pakistan, which is orchestrating the Taliban insurgency. So, it's actually us-taxpayer money that is paying for the insurgents, who are then killing, at the moment, Canadian troops. Now if I were the government of Germany or France, I'd have a hard time putting my troops in that kind of equation. I would demand from Washington, that Washington require a lot different behavior from Pakistan.

BILL MOYERS: But the money's supposed to be to stop the Taliban in Afghanistan.

SARAH CHAYES: Has anybody done very strict accounting on where that money is going? I suspect that if you start looking at some of the receipts, you'll find that there's money missing.

SARAH CHAYES: yeah. I mean, you know, these are districts that are in the hands of the Taliban. There's a district I used to go to frequently. We would gather herbs for our essential oil distilling up there. And now there was a deal between the district chief, the government and the Taliban saying, "so long as you don't kill the police, we'll let you go wherever you want." Now what has started to happen, couple of things have happened. One is people are just so disaffected with the government that we put in power.

BILL MOYERS: Ordinary people.

SARAH CHAYES: Ordinary people.

BILL MOYERS: Disaffected?

SARAH CHAYES: Yeah. Their government is shaking them down. I have people telling me, "We get shaking down by the government in the daytime, and shaken down by the Taliban at night. What are we supposed to do?"

BILL MOYERS: This is the Karzai government.

SARAH CHAYES: That's correct.

BILL MOYERS: This is the government the United States put in power.

SARAH CHAYES: That's correct. It's basically a criminal enterprise. And we haven't really asked it for any accounts in any serious way. And that's where the average person in Kandahar is totally perplexed. They assume that this degree of corruption, which is everywhere. You hear about it in the police department. It's not just the police department, it's in customs. It's in any adminis--You have-- you want to get a driver's license. You have to fork over money.

BILL MOYERS: So what's our bind in southern Afghanistan?

SARAH CHAYES: I think there are two binds. One is our relationship with Pakistan, which is a contradictory one. And the other is our unwillingness to hold Afghan public officials to any standard of decency in government. We keep hearing in the west, about the democratically-elected Afghan government. And, oh, no, we can't get in there and interfere with any of these people, because they're the government of a sovereign country. Well, you could have fooled the Afghans. The Afghans-- the only person who's really elected, who has any power, is president Karzai. But every other government official that Afghans interact with on a daily basis, they didn't elect. And they don't have any recourse. They've got no way of lodging a complaint against this person. Or nobody who can put any leverage on them. And that's the other bind. We're only fooling ourselves when we talk about this democratically-elected Afghan government.

...SARAH CHAYES: Correct. And we made an alliance with these thugs than we then placed into positions of power. So it's sort of like a--it's like a western movie. You know, you've got a posse. You're going go out after the outlaws, so you gather together a posse and it's usually a posse of criminals, right? But in a western movie, you don't then put the posse on the city council. You know.
BILL MOYERS: So who is the sheriff?

SARAH CHAYES: We're the sheriff.

BILL MOYERS: We are?

SARAH CHAYES: In this particular metaphor, we're the sheriff, right? We're going go out after the outlaw, Osama bin Laden. We gather this posse of Afghan criminals to gallop off with us. And then we put them in positions of the governor. We make them into the governor, the mayor, the, you know. And we don't ask them anything about how they're governing. We don't demand-- all we say is, we have to support the Afghan government. We have to support the Afghan government. And so we've fed them money, we've fed them arms, and then we say to the people, "okay, you're supposed to hold your government accountable." they're looking at these thugs with the whole power of the entire world, is what it looks like to them, behind them. And the Afghan people say, "you want us to hold them accountable?" So this, I think, is really the root of the problem.

Sarah Chayes went on to say that some Afghans believe the US supports the Taliban because they know Washington supports Pakistan and, to them, Pakistan is the Taliban.

So, by propping up the Afghan government, we're bailing furiously with one hand while we are busy boring holes in the hull with the other. Now that sounds like something worth continuing, doesn't it?

It is only because we're pursuing our political agendas - civilian and military - that we can demand that this counterproductive and contradictory failure continue. This isn't about Afghanistan and the future of the Afghan people. If it was, we wouldn't be acting the way we have been and the way we intend to continue acting.

Hillier Delivers Paid Political Message to Pet Shills

Dick Cheney has Faux News, Rick Hillier has the Conference of Defence Associations, a group dependent on half a million dollars a year out of Rick's budget.

Hillier had'em all standing on their hind legs today as he claimed that the "debate" on Afghanistan (didn't know we had one) was putting the lives of Canadian soldiers at risk. He trumped that by claiming the suicide bomb attack on a Canadian convoy earlier this week was intended to influence the non-existant debate. Hillier doesn't seem to understand that the attack was intended to send a message to the Afghans that when Canadian convoys come through the civilians are in danger. It's a classic tactic of guerrilla fighters and, if the Big Cod doesn't know that much, he's far more of a danger to Canadian soldiers than any debate in parliament.

But I don't believe Hillier is that stupid. I think he's just playing politics and, come to think of it, he's a damned sight better as a politician than he is as a general.

Taliban Getting Outside Help. Ya Think?

General Rick Hillier has let the cat out of the bag, the Taliban is getting outside help.

Hillier said the Afghan insurgents are getting help from other radical groups, including those fighting in Iraq. Roadside booby traps in Afghanistan, also known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs, are becoming more sophisticated and deadly, in part because of outside help.

"We do see some of the tactics, perhaps, that do come out of Iraq," he said. "It's hard to say exactly . . . but we are pretty confident that some of the tactics in use of IEDs . . . has come out of Iraq, without question."

Support goes beyond expertise in explosives.

"Do we see foreign fighters in Afghanistan? We do.

"We see Chechens . . . and we see Arabs and Egyptians, Arabs from a variety of nations. We see Algerians and Moroccans, not in big numbers, but we do see those folks there."

Hillier seems to have made no mention of the (rabidly radical Sunni) Taliban being fed improvised explosive devices by (fiercely fundamentalist Shiite) Iran. This allegation was made by Hillier's boss, DefMin Pmackay, in Kandahar on Christmas day. Curious omission, that.

The general said that our glorious success in Afghanistan could have a stabilizing effect across the entire region - even in placid Pakistan next door. Yeah, right.

It's not that I don't expect Hillier to be top cheerleader for the Afghan mission. He hatched the idea and then sold it to the pols after all. What I find troubling is that he utterly shies away from discussing the metrics of just how well we're doing.

How well are we doing in Afghanistan? Who knows? How does one tell? Just what does winning look like? What does losing look like? How many areas in Kandahar province are free from the prospect of Taliban infiltration or attack? Maybe that's not a good measure. How many towns and villages can resist Taliban intimidation? That's probably not a good one either. How much territory do we control this year compared to last year and the year before? Move along, nothing to see here.

I guess we could use body counts, or at least we could if we had any reliable means to differentiate the civilians we kill from the insurgents we kill. Then again, body counts aren't much use if the enemy is able to readily replace his losses and keep recruiting and training new fighters as needed.

Hillier hasn't just lowered the bar, he's gotten rid of it entirely. The goal he initially set - way back when he talked our leaders into approving "the mission" - was to drive the Taliban out of Kandahar province. It was to kill a few dozen "scumbags." So just how has the general met his own stated objectives? Well, he's certainly killed a few dozen "scumbags" and a few dozen civilians to boot. But he's not driven the Taliban out of Kandahar. To the contrary, a few dozen have grown into many hundreds at least, possibly more, and they're not "out" of Kandahar but they are "throughout" Kandahar. The Taliban force has grown by leaps and bounds since we first arrived and yet we're still fielding the same minuscule battle group to fight them.

We've got some very important decisions to make this year including whether to extend "the mission" past its scheduled end in 2009. It's going to be a tough decision. Nobody in NATO wants in and yet no one wants to be the first to bail out either. The Dutch just extended their commitment to mid-2010 and I'm very suspicious that their incremental extension was taken in the hope that we would get out first so they didn't look quite so bad.

We've got important decisions to take and not much time to mull them over. Now, more than ever, we need some plain talk and clear direction from Rick Hillier. He either has to show us how to make this thing work, with clear and precise objectives, or he has to admit he hasn't got a clue about winning in Kandahar. I think he'll do everything he can to duck the tough questions that only he can address in hope that the whole thing can be blamed on feckless politicians.

Hillier's "Mission Accomplished" Moment

General Rick Hillier has told the Toronto Star that Canada's soldiers in Afghanistan will be handing over their combat role in Kandahar to the Afghan army as early as next spring. The mission will then focus on training and supporting the Afghan soldiers to prepare them for taking on the Taliban.

With the Taliban resurgent in Kandahar province and our tactics utterly incapable of providing essential security to Afghan villagers supposedly under our protection, it makes sense to try something else.

Bear in mind that Canadian soldiers haven't sustained a lot of casualties in actual combat. We tend to get whacked by IEDs and suicide bombers while patrolling and simply driving down the wrong road once too often.

Still, giving up a relatively unsuccessful combat role is a good prelude for either bailing out of Afghanistan altogether or moving along to some more peaceful locale.

Will the Afghan army hold up without us? Not if history is any guide. Military power in Afghanistan seems to be best fielded in ethnic militias but you can't get to that point without in-fighting. Remember the "northern alliance"?

At least shifting to the training mode distances us from the smear of "cut and run". Like the Americans in Vietnam, we never lost - we just didn't win.

What Is Hillier Hiding This Time?

General Rick Hillier doesn't want Canada's military answering any questions about our detainees in Afghanistan. Apparently, releasing the information could endanger our troops serving over there.

Now, given that we're treating those we capture humanely and ensuring they're not abused once they're handed over to the Afghanis, what's the problem? I expect the Taliban knows who we've captured, either because they're missing or because they can always get that information from their collaborators within the Afghan government.

No, it strikes me that Hillier's concern is more with protecting his mission from unwanted scrutiny at home than protecting our soldiers from the Taliban. I do not give Hillier the benefit of the doubt.

The Miserable Truth of Afghanistan

Another report stating the truth about Afghanistan - we're losing the hearts and minds of the Afghan people to the Taliban.

A Senlis Council survey found that fully half the men in the hotspot provinces of Helmand and Kandahar believe the international community will be defeated by the Taliban. In a counter-insurgency situation, half is not a 50/50 proposition, it's not even a C-minus, it's an F.

According to Senlis founder, Norine MacDonald of British Columbia:

- woefully inadequate aid and development, and misguided counter-narcotics policies, are turning people against NATO forces and making their work much more dangerous

- the survey shows alarming gains in Taliban support in the south, with 27 per cent of respondents backing the militants, compared with only 3 per cent in December 2005

- Eighty per cent of people surveyed said they worry about feeding their families, and 70 per cent know how to fire a weapon. People are hungry and angry, and when bombing campaigns level villages, it's not difficult to see how those facts come together

- In Kandahar and Helmand provinces, 80 per cent of respondents said the international troops were not helping them personally, and 71 per cent believed the Afghan government was also unhelpful.

"Meanwhile, a survey by the independent monitoring group Integrity Watch Afghanistan said that in the past five years – after the Taliban lost power –'corruption has soared to levels not seen in previous administrations,' and about 60 per cent of responders believed it was the most corrupt government in two decades.

"The poll of 1,258 Afghans said that under President Hamid Karzai, money 'can buy government appointments, bypass justice or evade police' with impunity. Weak law enforcement was mainly to blame, said the group's executive director, Lorenzo Delesgues.

"'Corruption has undermined the legitimacy of the state,' he said yesterday in Kabul.

Canada sent forces to Afghanistan treating it as a predominantly military issue. Our top general swaggered and boasted that his combat brigade was going to Kandahar to kill a "few dozen ...scumbags." It's becoming apparent that Hillier didn't bother learning the history of the place which would have shown him that these "scumbags" have, for centuries, proven themselves to be determined, skilled, resilient and courageous fighters who have repeatedly defeated larger, better organized and more powerful foreign armies. He didn't bother to learn the rudimentary lessons of counter-insurgency warfare, particularly the two fundamentals: you have to flood the place with large numbers of troops and you try to avoid using heavy firepower. Instead Hillier fashioned a force that was paltry in numbers and, in the result, unavoidably dependent on airstrikes and artillery to offset their weakness in numbers.

We committed our soldiers to Kandahar without regard to the shakey political dimension of this struggle. It was as though we assumed that Karzai's government was legitimate or perhaps we considered that to be America's problem. Either way, we're defending an illegitimate regime that most of the Afghan people in our area of operations utterly fear and loathe.

Deciding that the Karzai government deserved our support only because it wasn't the Taliban was naive, even stupid. Sending our soldiers over there equipped, staffed and trained to fight our notion of warfare, not the locals' was just as stupid, even irresponsible. Let's remember that support for the Taliban in Kandahar province has increased NINEFOLD since we assumed control of the place. If we keep going like this, where is that number going to stand by 2009?

We owe it to the men and women we send over there to fight and sometimes die to do what we neglected to do during Harpo's sham debate; to ask the tough questions and demand some straight answers from the government and General Rick Hillier, answers that are long overdue.