Daily Archives: 1/22/2008

Manley Report – No End Date Makes Sense

1/22/2008

Posted by Patti under Afghanistan, Canadian Politics

1 Comment

I spent some time today reading carefully through the report from the “Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan” chaired by John Manley, the former Liberal Deputy Prime Minister. The report on the whole seems to be in depth and well thought out. It doesn’t sugar coat the mission in Afghanistan nor is it doom and gloom. It raises some tough issues and makes some tough recommendations.

Partisan politics aside, the report lays out some obvious truths that don’t fit well in sound bites for partisan politicians.

For Dion, setting an arbitrary end to our combat role as February 2009 and then expecting our troops to focus more on training and mentoring Afghan National Army recruits just doesn’t make sense. You can’t train and mentor effectively from within the wire, you need to be able to accompany and support the raw troops on the battlefield and that means taking part in combat. You don’t train an army from a classroom. (more…)