Almost all the media now routinely refer that supposed length (and then there’s the “longest war” line).  Just one example today, from Egregious Eric Margolis:

…
After nine years of war, the immense military might of the U.S., its dragooned NATO allies, and armies of mercenaries have been unable to defeat resistance to western occupation…

That “nine years of war” is nonsense (so is the “occupation”). The US has had troops in Afstan for that period–though in pretty small numbers until quite recently, see chart at p, 9 here.  But American combat was on a very minor scale, hardly worth calling war, until, maybe, 2005/6; for the allies 2006 marks the start of real fighting. Look at this graph, and see the chart below giving  fatalities per year  by country.

Canada’s main war did not in fact begin until we deployed in strength to Kandahar province in 2006–and 2006 is still the year of our most dead. We had a total of eight fatalities before 2006, some war until then.

For what the CF did in Afstan until then see Army – Deployment of the 3 PPCLI Battle Group around middle at this link (a combat mission), and Background – Origins Phase I: Kabul at this link (essentially a peacekeeping mission).  Canada took a military time-out for a year from the summer of 2002 until the summer of 2003.

Meanwhile there is also the myth of the US “invasion” of Afstan in 2011, now apparently accepted without question almost universally.  One has tried, a letter of mine in the Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 12, 2006 (no longer available online):

Afghanistan has not been ‘invaded’ by foreign forces

Re: Canada loses 40th soldier to bomb, Oct. 8.

This story refers to “the U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban.” But there was no invasion of Afghanistan.

Before the fall of Kabul, and of most of the rest of Afghanistan, to the insurgent Afghan Northern Alliance in November 2001 — and the consequent collapse of the Taliban regime — there were no foreign regular combat formations in Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance did receive air support and assistance from special forces (both U.S. and British); that, however, is not an invasion. Substantial foreign ground-combat forces — including Canadian — only entered the country after the Taliban had been deposed by indigenous Afghan forces, and those foreign troops entered with the agreement of the Northern Alliance.

It is most unfortunate that the mythical “invasion” of Afghanistan has become common currency amongst journalists — and this is no mere quibble. Describing what the U.S. and U.K. did in Afghanistan as an “invasion” tends to equate those actions in people’s minds with the real invasion of Iraq. That equation implicitly and wrongly calls into question the legitimacy of NATO and coalition actions in Afghanistan, which have been authorized unanimously by the United Nations Security Council.

Mark
Ottawa