Well, well, well:

White House moves away from 2011 Afghanistan withdrawal timeline
The Obama administration is walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the Afghanistan war in an effort to de-emphasize the president’s pledge that he would begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has decided to walk away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the Afghanistan war in an effort to de-emphasize the president’s pledge that he would begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011, administration and military officials said Tuesday.

The new policy will be on display next week during a NATO conference in Lisbon, Portugal, where the administration hopes to introduce a timeline that calls for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan by 2014, according to three senior officials and others speaking anonymously as a matter of policy. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said Afghan troops could provide their security by then.

The Pentagon also has decided not to announce specific dates for handing security responsibility for several Afghan provinces to local officials and instead intends to work out a more vague definition of transition when it meets with its NATO allies, the officials said.

What a year ago had been touted as an extensive December review of the strategy now will be less expansive and will offer no major changes in strategy, the officials said. U.S. Central Command, the military division that oversees Afghanistan operations, hasn’t submitted a withdrawal order for forces for the July deadline [emphasis added], two of those officials said.

The shift, begun privately, came in part because U.S. officials realized that conditions in Afghanistan were unlikely to allow a speedy withdrawal…

This change of course obviously put the US in a much better position to pressure on us to keep troops in Afstan.  Meanwhile back home, the Crvena Zvezda’s prime pundit is desperate ideed for Canada to cut and run (number 2 pundit, Doubting Thomas Walkom, is equally ignorant; he too just does not understand anything about how military training is done–see Update below):

The Star’s Travesty Weighs In

For a very good overview of our role, take a look at this new background paper from the Library of Parliament:

Canadian Policy Towards Afghanistan to 2011 and Beyond: Issues, Prospects, Options

Update: Why CF trainers at Kabul would be a very Good Thing:

…
Total ANSF growth, starting from November 2009 to present increased from 191,969 to 255,506, an increase of 63,537 (33 percent). The Afghan army has grown from 97,011 to 136,164, an increase of 39,153 (40 percent) and the national police from 94,958 to 117,342, an increase of 22,384 (24 percent).

In November 2009, only 35 percent of all soldiers met the minimum qualification standards with their personal weapon. There was an unworkable 1:79 trainers to troop ratio at the firing ranges where Afghan soldiers were attempting to learn. Ten months later, the average unit has a 97 percent qualification rate at the range and the instructor to troop ratio has decreased to 1:29, thanks to increasing support from coalition partners.

The quality of the troops may in some way be reflected through public trust. The Afghan Minister of Defense, Abdul Rahim Wardak, mentioned that the Afghan National Police (ANA) is perceived as the most trusted public institution in Afghanistan during a Rehearsal of Concept drill in Kabul in October. According to the results of an Afghan nation-wide survey (sample 6,700), 71 percent of Afghans feel a favorable impression toward the Afghan National Police (ANP) and 74 percent feel favorably towards the ANA. (By comparison, only 23 percent of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll this month felt favorably towards the U.S. Congress.)

Last fall, the daily ISAF training capacity for the ANA was 6,000 seats, resulting in a backlog of the Afghan troops in the pipeline. Today, the ANA daily training capacity has increased to 20,000 seats (up 233 percent) and the ANP training capacity has increased 38 percent, from 7,740 to 10,661 seats. In 2009, there were zero Afghan trainers. Today, there are 1,800 Afghan trainers in the ANA and 800 in the ANP, and those numbers are growing. A critical assumption here is the continued support of coalition trainers [emphasis added]…

Education of this force is also critical to professionalization, but it takes time as we can see in western professional development pipelines for NCOs and officers. NTM-A has developed a “backbone” of NCOs, from 1,950 to 9,300, an increase of 7,350 (376 percent). The National Military Academy of Afghanistan had 300 applicants in 2005 for 120 spaces, and 3600 applicants this year for 600 spaces…

Hopefully, the upcoming Lisbon Summit will allow some time for COIN math homework. While they’re balancing equations on the chalkboard, attendees there should be sure to note that while the surge of ISAF forces are on the offensive in Kandahar, there is also another important silent surge occurring in the country. Attendees will also hopefully realize that coalition forces must meet their promised trainer contributions [emphasis added] for the conditions-based transition process to work and the ANSF to ultimately receive a passing grade on its report card.

Paula Broadwell is a Research Associate at the Harvard University Center for Public Leadership. She is the author of the forthcoming book, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus (Penguin Press, 2011).

Mark
Ottawa