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Enough- [A Must Read on Our Success in Afghanistan]

So what is the Action Plan?

I re-submit my proposal from months ago.

Cut $100 Million from the budget of the CBC and fund an hour a day on TV, and 2 pages a day in the newspaper (and all the reporters and editors and such to produce that amount of content) to report on the Military, Foreign Affairs, etc.  The CBC has failed in this profound responsibility, and thus it needs to be removed and implemented elsewhere. 

When there is a proper responsible source of information, then the "licensed monopolies", "subsidized", and other follower branches of the media who take their direction from the CBC will have to catch up, and the quality of the discussion will be dramatically increased.  And Canadians may even learn the name of one more Canadian soldier after Dallaire, Mackenzie, and our greatest ever General ... Douglas MacArthur (that is sarcasm, in case anyone thinks of pointing out the error).
 
stegner said:
Sorry MG I am sure you know I meant no offence.  Glad I could be of humour  :)  What is Karzai like-he seems like an interesting dude? Have you read Steve Coll's Ghost Wars?  
This is the best response you could muster for the comments regarding your use of flawed stereotype in lieu of informed discussion and/or profile questions put to you?  ::) 

Mods, is the Cadet Forum full?

JM
Mindlessly drudging away in Afghanistan, happily bareft of operational or strategic thought  ;)
 
Journeyman said:
Mods, is the Cadet Forum full?

JM
Mindlessly drudging away in Afghanistan, happily bareft of operational or strategic thought  ;)

There's always room for more. Take a break JM....go to the Green Bean in KAF at your first opportunity and have a Chai latte on me.    ;)

Regards
 
Great read, a sad sick point that it takes this sort of rant to make a point to the Cdn public.
 
I would say that most of Army.ca gets it, but outside in the MainStreet media -  :brickwall:



 
 
There's the challenge, Infidel6

Create a narrative composed of sound bites.
Simple thoughts - from the authority of experience.

Take MGs thesis and edit it into nice little bite sized chunks.
you know ....so that civvies like me understand. ;D

Any Individual writing a book is only good for about a month
of public attention span.

An Anthology with many contributions would be more credible than
Gwynn Dyer, Scott Taylor, or Eric Margolis

Stegner, Atlas and countless, nameless others who browse really
need to dig to find truth. If they don't find it easily the movie plot
in their head takes over.(A combination of Apocalypse Now and Black Hawk Down)

If information is easy - then the media can co-opt it for their own use.
If information is abstract - the media will follow their world view.

Maybe we should appoint an Editor in Chief.......

 
I was initially thinking of recruiting someone from media.........

but........ ;D

Yes, why not?

How do you feel about that Edward?



 
Thanks Bruce,

Ruxted is an excellent source but a bit academic.

What I would propose is a series of 100 to 300 word essays by
ARMY.ca members each supporting a single one line 105mm point.

The essays could be peer reviewed and individual essays could be used to support or
replace another. Perhaps submissions could be author edited after peer review.

The list of points becomes our "sound bite" narrative.

The media depend on witness accounts - filter - and publish.
Why not cut out the filter phase?








 
Flip said:
Thanks Bruce,

Ruxted is an excellent source but a bit academic.

What I would propose is a series of 100 to 300 word essays by
ARMY.ca members each supporting a single one line 105mm point.

The essays could be peer reviewed and individual essays could be used to support or
replace another. Perhaps submissions could be author edited after peer review.

The list of points becomes our "sound bite" narrative.

The media depend on witness accounts - filter - and publish.
Why not cut out the filter phase?

You should read Army.ca a little more often.  There is much you are missing.  Try reading this Call for papers?.
 
Thanks George!

How did I miss that? :o

Perhaps If I read more and post less....Hmmm  ;)
 
Afghan opium production mocks our counterinsurgency efforts

JEFFREY SIMPSON

August 28, 2007

Yes, as our media keep reminding us, our soldiers in Afghanistan are "heroes," men and women doing a difficult, dangerous and sometimes fatal job. They are undoubtedly doing the best they can, but, through no fault of their own, that best cannot be good enough.

Good enough to stop the insurgency in Kandahar and other parts of southern Afghanistan. Good enough to keep the Taliban at bay. Good enough to leave in 2009 with security assured and reconstruction under way in that corner of this post-medieval country.

Yesterday, the impossibility of this self-defined mission - as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is executing it - became even clearer with the latest report from the United Nations about opium production in Afghanistan.

Ever since the United States toppled the Taliban, and ever since NATO took nominal control of the mission, poppy eradication has been high on the list of priorities for reform. After all, it fuels the Taliban insurgency. Shutting down that source of money, therefore, conforms to one rule among many of counterinsurgency: Starve the insurgents of support.
Within NATO's division of labour, the British are supposed to be in charge of poppy eradication. Yet, the biggest upsurge in poppy production has occurred in Helmand province, where more than 7,000 British soldiers are based. The poppies are proliferating under the very noses of the eradicators.

Of course, the Americans with their anti-drug crusading spirit are doing most of the work. Predictably, they are failing. The funniest picture of the month was a Holstein cow the Americans had brought to an agricultural show being looked at by bemused locals. Wisconsin meets Kabul.

Antonio Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, reported yesterday that "Afghanistan's opium production has reached a frighteningly high level, twice the amount produced just two years ago." Apart from 19th-century China, "no other country in the world has ever produced narcotics on such a deadly scale."

Afghanistan is a narco-state. It produces 93 per cent of the world's opium. Nothing NATO has done, and nothing it proposes to do, will change this fact, except at the margin.

The insurgents, therefore, will continue to be well-financed from the proceeds of the opium trade, and corruption will continue to be rife in the Afghan government, some of whose members are directly involved in production and trafficking. Official corruption, of course, turns citizens against the very government that Canadians and other NATO countries are trying to help.

As long as NATO keeps trying to eradicate the trade - which brings farmers far more income that growing wheat or other crops - the mission will chase its tail. A useful command is: When failing, stop digging - meaning rethink the entire policy (as Canada's Greens propose) by creating a domestic market to supervise growing and purchasing. Nobody in authority, including the UN, thinks that way. So the digging continues.

Tactically, Canadian "heroes" are doing what they can. Strategically, they are part of a wider mission defying basic rules of counterinsurgency warfare.

Starving the insurgents is one rule, one that is being mocked by the drug trade. Sealing the border is another rule, mocked by the porous Afghan-Pakistani border across which insurgents (and drugs) flow with almost unimpeded impunity.

Having enough boots on the ground is another rule, mocked by the relative paucity of NATO troops and the unwillingness of most NATO partners to put their soldiers in harm's way. With too few troops, air power is too often used, with collateral civilian casualties.

These casualties contribute to mocking another counterinsurgency rule: that the battle is for the support of the local population. Foreign aid, including Canadian, is undoubtedly useful in this fight, but there isn't enough of it. How could there ever be enough in one of the world's poorest countries?

We are told, and rightly so, that we must "finish the mission," that Canada cannot "cut and run," that our men and women make the country proud. All of which is true but beside the point: The mission, however defined, is defying too many basic rules of counterinsurgency. Without a series of NATO course corrections, bravery alone will not bring strategic victory.

jsimpson@globeandmail.com

http://www.theglobeandmail.com//servlet/story/LAC.20070828.COSIMP28/TPStory/Comment



 
This is a great article, Ive passed it on to many with great review.
 
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