Further to my previous post post, U.S. pressure on Canada to re-visit the decision to end our mission in Afghanistan can be expected to increase in light of the line story in this morning's Le Devoir.
In an interview with reporter Alec Castonguay, Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance, the commander of Canadian forces in Afghanistan, is quoted as follows:
"There's no way that Afghan forces will be able to assume responsibility for security in Kandahar in 2011. It's absolutely impossible. …The decision to withdraw Canadian troops in 2011 was a political decision. As we leave, we will have to be replaced by another NATO country in Kandahar."
In explaining the failure of our forces to achieve the objective set by the Conservative government in the 2007 Throne Speech and to meet the deadline set by Parliament, Brigadier-General Vance went on to say:
"In an insurrection, you need a strong security presence to protect the people. From the beginning of our mission in Kandahar in 2006, we never had sufficient military resources to make progress. We only had enough soldiers to contain the insurgency and to begin a slow improvement of the Afghan National Army."