…of our Afghan combat mission:

Kingston man to lead troops
AFGHANISTAN: Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner will oversee mission until July 2011

A Kingston man is next in line to be the head of Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.

Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner will deploy to Afghanistan on Aug. 31 to take over as Commander of Joint Task Force Afghanistan from Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance.

Milner was quarterback for the Frontenac High School Falcons, which beat Regiopolis-Notre Dame in the 1979 Kingston area football championships by a score of 2-1.

Milner said he will be in command a total of 5,000 soldiers in Joint Task Force, including roughly 3,000 Canadian soldiers [see last link at end of post].

He said his nine-month term as commander will be a crucial period in the Kandahar region, where Canadian Forces are based.

“My particular area will be a big focus in the coming months,” he said. “Kandahar is one of the main focuses to resolve. It’s getting a lot of the heat and light.

“There’s a realization that a lot of the insurgents are working in the area and they’re having an impact on Kandahar City [more on the city].”

With Canadian Forces scheduled to begin withdrawal from Afghanistan by the time Milner finishes his term in July 2011, he said one of his main goals is to create a stable environment for whatever organization takes over the Canadian post.

“We’ll make a smooth transition to some NATO force or the Afghans themselves [almost certainly the poor bloody GIs],” he said. “Our goal is to hand a lot of responsibilities to the Afghan national army and Afghan national police as well.”

Milner said he’s designated one particular district under his command that shows potential to be completely Afghan-run.

“In the district of Dand, I’m confident that we can get the Afghans in the right direction,” he said [more here].

“This is a district has the right Afghan leadership, it’s got Afghan national police that have recently been well trained and we’re going to put in the Afghan national army.”..

Milner said preparing much of the Canadian military infrastructure for removal come July will be a task unique to his term as commander [more here].

He will receive an additional team of 200 around December to begin disassembling equipment…

Milner said he has planned his term with the understanding that Canadian Forces will move out on schedule in July.

“We’ve worked very closely with the Afghan national army and the leadership. We’ve established some very close ties so leaving won’t be easy but the bottom line is it’s going to happen [emphasis added].”..

Offical biography here (via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs):

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Meanwhile, in a district that was once the CF’s responsibility:

United States, Afghan forces prepare for major assault on the birthplace of the Taliban

HOWZ-E-MADAD, Afghanistan – As Lt. Col. Peter N. Benchoff prepares for an assault next month into the birthplace of the Taliban, he doesn’t sugarcoat the hurdles his troops face in this crucial swath of southern Afghanistan.

“Security sucks. Development? Nothing substantial. Information campaign? Nobody believes us. Governance? We’ve had one, hour-long visit by a government official in the last 2 1/2 months,” the battalion commander says. “Taliban is the home team here.”

“Here” is 116 square miles (300 square kilometres) of Zhari, a district just west of Kandahar through which the insurgents funnel fighters, drugs, explosives and stage attacks into the city…

Earlier:

“Canadian tragedy in Afghanistan”…

Afstan flash: One and half cheers for Peter MacKay/Dipper Update

Taking the“Can” out of Kandahar

Update: Some interesting observations about President Karzai’s plan to ban private security firms at BruceR.’s Flit.

Upperdate: After the last command:

Ottawa maps out post-combat role in Afghanistan
Internal documents reveal Ottawa’s vision for a ‘strictly civilian mission’ after 2011
…
A spring 2010 PowerPoint presentation, stamped “Secret, Canadian Eyes Only,” offers further evidence of how solidly committed Ottawa is to ending the military mission in Afghanistan despite pressure from allies to keep a combat force there.

The presentation, obtained under an access to information request for records from Chief of Defence Staff General Walt Natynczyk’s office, quotes Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s January, 2010, pledge that Afghanistan “will become a strictly civilian mission after 2011.”..

Defence officials said privately Monday the document was authored by the Privy Council Office – the central bureaucratic agency that serves the prime minister and is helping steer the Afghanistan mission.

…A Tory senator and even senior Liberals have talked up the prospect of keeping a soldiering force in the south-central Asian country past that date [2011, more here].

But Mr. Harper has been adamant that Canada’s combat mission – which has claimed the lives of 151 soldiers – will cease in 2011…

Canada’s post-2011 funding would include $9.7-million to support the RCMP’s international training program that deploys Mounties to Afghanistan to train local police [emphasis added]…

The presentation says that the “U.S., NATO and [other] allies” have asked for post-2011 contributions including training Afghan National Security Forces – a job that could require Canadian soldiers to stay behind…

So it’s OK for Mounties to stay on training the Afghan police but not for the CF to stay on doing non-combat training for the Afghan army. There is absolutely no logic in that, just political cowardice since the RCMP’s role has not been controvesial. Fie and hurl.

Mark
Ottawa