A small but significant bêtise from our greatest and goodest pundit: the voice of received Canadian wisdom, so rarely any insight. A letter sent to the Globe and Mail that they chose not to publish:
Canadian Forces can train Afghans without combat
Jeffrey Simpson writes (Just what is it we must see through in Afghanistan? June 9), regarding the proposal that Canadian troops might continue in a training role after 2011, that “Training, to be effective, is not done with a piece of chalk and a board, but involves accompanying troops as they fight, and fighting with them if necessary.”
That is not so. Basic military training of Afghan recruits, officer training, training in technical skills (including the fledgling Afghan National Army Air Corps) and such things can be done quite effectively–in the Kabul area for example as has been suggested–without going “outside the wire” alongside the Afghans and engaging in combat. After all that’s how such training for our forces is done in Canada.
I would note that the Canadian Forces already are sending a small number of personal to engage in that sort of training in the Kabul area, as part of the fairly new NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan.
(Update thought: The real point is: how can the country consider things intelligently when our leading journalists cannot be bothered to get basic facts right?)
Mr Simpson was making such simple mistakes about military matters over four years ago. He has also rather revised his broad views–see this post at Daimnation! from which the following is excerpted (CF links within no longer work):
Afstan: how soon the Globe’s Jeffrey Simpson forgets
…Mr Simpson does reach the right conclusion:
The best that can be reasonably expected over the medium term is not that Afghanistan will turn into some kind of liberal democracy but that it will not revert to Taliban theocracy.
Such a reversion would indeed be a threat, as it was before, to international stability and Western interests and, as such, would be worth trying to prevent — even if it leads Canadians into a hydra-headed mission that will bring more casualties and nasty surprises…
Indeed. Two days ago from Adrian:
These Are The Barbarians We’re Losing The War Against
Mark
Ottawa
[...] CF and Afstan: Judicious Jeffrey Simpson exceeds his pay grade [...]
Oh yeah, but the leftist MSM in Canada and the US sees itself fit to run both countries though.
As a veteran of the CF, I can definitively state that training does not take place in isolation.
All instructors, mentors, cadres etc. will train in the field along side the body training under their command.
There is no chalk talk, pat on the head and ‘off you go..’
To think otherwise is foolish and flat out wrong.
‘Lead by example’ is not a slogan, it is how things are done.
Kursk: But does not a lot of early instruction take place in situations far different from going “outside the wire” at Kandahar? Presumably that is what our training personnel in the Kabul area are doing now. Please have a look at this link again.
Mark
Ottawa
[...] well, one of our premier pundits can’t get his facts about the Canadian Forces and Afstan right either: CF and Afstan: [...]
See here for CF already training ANA at Kabul, and this post by Bruce R. at Flit on such training.
Mark
Ottawa
[...] said Canada should end its combat role as scheduled, but deploy soldiers in a safer region like Kabul training Afghanistan’s police and military [more here from LewMac]. MacKay said there is “great [...]
[...] level. Which no longer seems acceptable in this country. A strictly non-combat training role is something else and may just be acceptable if the government gets some guts and if the Liberals play [...]