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TAYLOR: New book shows rewriting of Afghanistan war story has begun

By SCOTT TAYLOR | ON TARGET
Average: 4.9 (39 votes)

A new book recently released in the U.S. has already begun ruffling feathers north of the border.

In Little America: The War within the War for Afghanistan, author Rajiv Chandrasekaran reveals that senior American commanders believe their Canadian military counterparts dropped the ball in Kandahar province.

While not a household name in Canada, Chandrasekaran is regarded as a highly influential reporter for the Washington Post. His previous book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, inspired the Hollywood movie Green Zone, a critical assessment of the war in Iraq starring Matt Damon.

Research for the new book involved dozens of interviews with top level U.S. officials who were involved in the drafting of policies and conducting the war in Afghanistan. According to these officials, Canadian troops did not pursue the campaign against the Taliban as aggressively as the Americans felt they should have.

According to the book, Canadian troops were too “focused on the reconstruction activities, not providing security or gathering information.”

American commanders were apparently loathe to criticize their Canadian counterparts for fear of offending Ottawa. Andrew Exum, an American counterinsurgency expert quoted in Chandrasekaran’s book, believed “U.S. commanders thought that managing the NATO alliance was more important than winning the war.”

Another bone of contention raised by the Americans was Canada’s woeful teeth-to-tail ratio for those troops actually deployed in theatre. According to the book, barely 600 Canadians out of a contingent of 2,830 were sent on combat missions outside the wire. The rest of our soldiers presumably relaxed safely inside the perimeter, enjoying Tim Hortons coffee and playing street hockey.

For those Canadians all too familiar with the casualty count for Afghanistan — 158 killed and over two thousand wounded or injured — such callous dismissal of our troops’ sacrifices may sting our national pride.

Until now, our own political and military leaders insisted that Canada had been punching above its weight in the Afghanistan war, and one would have expected that to result in a flurry of back-patting and atta-boys from our allies.

Instead, we are now being chided as the weakest link and thereby scapegoated for the American failure to win the war.

To be sure, if anyone still held out any hope that Afghanistan could be declared a success before the announced final pullout date in 2014, the Pentagon would be sure to save Canada a place of prominence in the victory parade.

However, as the violence continues to spiral out of control and the Afghan intervention is certain to be relegated to the dustbin of military defeats, the finger of blame is already beginning to twitch.

With Canada having already completed the combat phase of its commitment and the fact that we were deployed for six years in the most strategically vital province of Kandahar, we make an easy target.

For those with keen memories, the U.S. policy of blaming NATO allies for failure is nothing new.

In early 2008, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates publicly blamed the British, Dutch and Canadians for the lack of military success in southern Afghanistan.

Given the casualties incurred by then, the British and Dutch governments vigorously challenged Gates’s comments and demanded apologies. Canada, at the time, was heavily engaged in negotiating the purchase of six used Chinook heavy-lift helicopters from the U.S. to allow us to support operations in Kandahar.

As a result Defence Minister Peter MacKay did not make any similar protestation over Gates’s rebuke of our soldiers’ fighting capabilities.

For the record, the Americans charged us $300 million for those six old choppers and regardless of the consequences, MacKay was remiss in not challenging Gates publically on behalf of our military’s reputation.

Three years later, Gates widened his targeted wrath to include all NATO and non-NATO partners for allegedly abandoning the Afghanistan mission and thus dooming the campaign to failure.

There are, of course, revisionist historians who would still have Americans believe that Vietnam was a military victory (just rent an old Rambo movie). With final defeat still two years away, the rewriting of the Afghanistan war has apparently already begun.

What is an irrefutable fact is that Canadian soldiers never lost a single tactical engagement with the enemy.

So how could we possibly have cost America the war?

Scott Taylor is editor of Esprit de Corps.

Face it

Submitted by Selina on July 2, 2012 - 8:53am.

If Afghanistan hadn't happened, the US would have found some other country to feed the Military-Industrial machine. The dust from the Afghani debacle hasn't even been fully stirred as of yet, but drums are beating for the next conflict, looking more and more like Iran. (Syria is perceived as a threat only to its' own citizens, and they don't have enough oil to bother)

Feed the machine, cite the now (if ever) non-existent American exceptionalism, mouth paeans to "democracy" and "freedom" while securing more raw product for the oil companies, one of the oligarchies that really own and run the US.

Looking on the bright side, because there is a surfeit of "enemies" to keep the US distracted, it keeps them from looking North. But for how long?

Just like the bully on the

Submitted by becky on July 2, 2012 - 9:35am.

Just like the bully on the playground, the US blames everyone else for their incompetence, arrogance and evil.
This was not a 'war', it was an invasion of a country, and the justification for that invasion was based on lies and greed. Canada should never have been there in the first place. We are there because Chretien wanted to placate the US because Canada did not get roped into the Iraq fiasco.
I find it hard to have any 'national pride' over our involvement in Afghanistan. We played a political game and innocent people died and will continue to die from the DU munitions used. We hear whining and moaning because 3000 people in the US don't have air conditioning because their electricity grid was destroyed in a storm, but never hear anything about the poor people in countries they have attacked. I guess air conditioning trumps life for others?
Afghanistan has been called the graveyard of nations and I guess the US doesn't want to be buried alone???

"The Dust of Empire"

Submitted by dennis.cato on July 2, 2012 - 10:13am.

There are three points in Scott Taylor's account of NATO's apparently impending defeat in the war in Afghanistan: (1) The beginning of the re-writing of the history of the war; (2) Those to blame for the impending defeat, and (3) Who gets to write the final chapter?

(1) Chardrasekaran's "Little America" may perhaps best be seen as just another chapter in the on-going melancholy saga of European intervention and defeat in Afghanistan, from the British in the 19th. century to the relatively recent Russian collapse. The story is put into context in Karl Meyer's "The Dust of Empire" (2003) but does not include the defeat of NATO. Perhaps Meyer will update it.

(2) According to Taylor, "finger of blame is already beginning to twitch." The Russians, of course, blamed covert America support of the Afghan "insurgents," US Secretary of Defence blamed their NATO partners, and Taylor is blaming Gates, at least for his misplacing the blame on Canadian shoulders. For what it's worth, I think we should go back to the 19th. century British defeat in what was then called the "Northwest Frontier" and blame the bellicose, fundamentalist, mediaeval culture of the Afghan native tribes themselves.

(3) Traditionally, the victors get to write the history of their wars and if the tradition continues my vote goes to Hamid Karzai or someone like him.

selina

Submitted by henry gondorf on July 2, 2012 - 10:11am.

Selina..military is not necessary in Canada....$$$$$ counts up here....they can invest and then clause in protections to get what they want with minmal input from Canadian public....just read C-38..you'll see protections of what we knew as Canada being thrown aside for multinational pillage....

I think

Submitted by Selina on July 3, 2012 - 10:28am.

that he was referring to US Military. Because of clauses in "agreements" signed by CRAP and other parties, there is no need for the US to bother with military adventures in Canada to get at whatever resource they want. The US oligarchs can access whatever they want, whenever they want from Canada citing clauses in these agreements and there isn't a damn thing (assuming the government wanted to do something) we can do about it.

So perhaps you should try to read the comments somewhat instead of embarrassing yourself, although mindless and ignorant certainly seem to be a specialty.

US Oligarchs ... what a phrase

Submitted by CoyoteII on July 3, 2012 - 1:14pm.

Is this the lefts great boogeyman that we should all fear now? Please come up with something, that's at least entertaining, if not plauseable. You can do better.

WE did our duty and then some

Submitted by eyes raised on July 2, 2012 - 11:01am.

Although not a popular war at home,we fulfilled our commitments to Nato,we won our enagements,were professional, and carried our end of the load as did the British and the Dutch.The Americans as noted are trying to re-write history ,we have seen this before.Ah well they are just being Americans, making excuses and blaming forgetting to look in the mirror.Whether they like it or not Canada is emerging as a world economic power,our size and natural resources make us natural leaders in many fields and we are neither American or British...........we are Canadians......and we are different.........and that's a good thing......
Chandrasekaran and other right wing mouth pieces of the American agenda do what they are told....maybe they should learn to ask a few questions,realize that the US is not the end all be all of the world, and that when they make mistakes they make big ones............

Effectiveness is not measured in lost soldiers

Submitted by Tim Riches on July 2, 2012 - 1:02pm.

"Given the casualties incurred by then, the British and Dutch governments vigorously challenged Gates’s comments and demanded apologies."

It makes little sense to tout your commitment to the mission by stating the number of soldiers wounded and lost. Pakistan has been trying this very thing recently to rebut the allegations it's government is in bed with the terrorists. It's a dissonant appeal for contrition that should be rejected out of hand. Combat effectiveness is not measured in blood lost, but rather in blood spilled.

Of Little Consequence

Submitted by CapeHalifax on July 2, 2012 - 8:06pm.

Canada has had a long history of American slights, but we are not alone.

From its dubious entertainment industry to its nefarious commercial offerings at the expense of foreign democratically elected governments and finally its prolific engagement in endless warfare, America's myopia is its single greatest national failure, a tragedy far greater than 9-11 and the root cause of much of the enmity the international community rightly bears it.

As we have witnessed all too often, words are cheap south of the border - honesty and veracity under-rated.

So why would our valorous dead take any slight from such a people? As long as we don't give credence to their despicable conduct here, amongst ourselves, the effect of such hot air in the cool North is negligible.

We went, we did, we accomplished at a dear, dear price and that should be enough for us.

Tim

Submitted by henry gondorf on July 3, 2012 - 3:54am.

I don't think combat effectiveness is measured by blood spilled..success depends not only on the capabilities of the specified force but also on the nature of the mission. The misson and war aims are not proper

Mr. Gondorf

Submitted by city mouse on July 3, 2012 - 1:13pm.

Embrace the “reply” button. Less scrolling, easier to follow. Give'r a try!

REWRITING AFGHANSTAN

Submitted by FT Ward on July 3, 2012 - 10:57am.

Little America is just one of a series of well researched books describing the futility of the NATO effort. There's lot's of blame to go around and Canada's minor effort deserves it as much as the US or Brits. This won't sit well with the pro-army crowd as admitting that billions of dollars and hundreds of casualties were wasted in a poorly thought out campaign will hurt their feelings. It would also raise the question of why the CF is being allowed to spend billions on equipment for "Afghanistan 2" when the first war ended so poorly.

You can add "What is an irrefutable fact is that Canadian soldiers never lost a single tactical engagement with the enemy." to the list of cliches regularly thrown around: "punching above its weight", "best small army in the world" and "winning hearts and minds" among the most misused. Since every command detonated IED and ambush was an "engagement" its obvious that the CF did "lose" many tactical engagements. I wonder if the author understands the irony of repeating a cliche first used by the US in Viet Nam?

"What is an irrefutable fact

Submitted by FT Ward on July 3, 2012 - 11:41am.

"What is an irrefutable fact is that Canadian soldiers never lost a single tactical engagement with the enemy."

Talk about rewriting. Every time the Taliban hit them with an IED and then got away was a loss. This goes along nicely with the other cliches of the war- "punching above our weight", "the best small army in the world" and "winning the hearts and minds". None are true but they make the military feel better about itself. I'm sure the newest "stab in the back myth" is coming along- the CF had everything under control and the Americans wrecked it.

The "facts" are that Canada signed to to do a mission without providing the necessary resources. Whether Hillier knew this or just didn't care is open to question. The CF went through several strategies trying to find something that worked (and failed) and eventually the public had enough of relatively high casualties for no return. It then "cut and run".

Words deadlier than IEDs

Submitted by CapeHalifax on July 3, 2012 - 5:37pm.

As a strategic weapon an IED is pretty much ineffective. No one won a war based on booby-trapped munitions. Ask the Cape Bretoners who visited the town of Ortona a couple of years back. Lots of IEDs, but Ortona fell all the same, as did the whole Third Reich, thankfully.

The measure of success of the Canadian contingent in Afghanistan was that they went to THEIR house and made THEM give way. Not a single Taliban district withstood the superior skill-at-arms of the our women and men among the poppies.

Now, we all agree, that along with force-of-arms there is a second front, a force-of-words. In Viet Nam that proved to be the deciding factor, in Ortona it didn't.

Will we let it be the cause of our defeat after the fact in Afghanistan, where no Taliban strategy could force it on us on the day?

Typical Canadian

Submitted by No problem here... on July 3, 2012 - 6:12pm.

Five sitting around while one does the fighting, too bad that all of that loot and bounty was not spent on equipment, rather than a gaggle of accountants, inventory clerks, administrative clerks, and last but not least Band-Aid specialists who stood around and watched civilian surgeons repair and save the lives of the wounded, many stood around, many were handsomely paid, as that is the Canadian way.

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