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From "In Afghan district, U.S. will face 'toughest environment' "
From "In Taliban heartland, coalition's made little headway after 8 years":
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From "In Afghan district, U.S. will face 'toughest environment' "
The Canadian soldiers in southern Afghanistan wonder whether the Americans who're coming later this month will be able to do any better than they have.
The Americans "need to understand this is the toughest environment" they'll face, said Capt. Chris Blouin of Canada's Royal 22nd Regiment. "It's not complicated. Expect everything."
Some Canadians are skeptical that the Americans will find the rows of big eight-wheeled Stryker armored fighting vehicles parked nearby to be of much use in the local terrain, which is lush with waist-high grapevines that make it impossible to travel on anything other than foot.....
From "In Taliban heartland, coalition's made little headway after 8 years":
.... For three years, a Canadian force of a few hundred has faced as many as 15,000 Taliban here. In those three years, however, the Canadians acknowledge that they've had little more than a "finger in the dike strategy" aimed at preventing Taliban forces from capturing Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, 20 miles to the east. With few resources, stalemate was the Canadians' strategy.
America's allies have no territorial gains to show for the effort. The schools they built were destroyed after the Taliban took them over and used them to stage ambushes. The small outposts they established, including the one in Sangsar, were abandoned in 2007 under constant Taliban attack.
"All we were really able to do, and have been able to do, is keep the insurgency sufficiently at bay that it doesn't become a real challenge to the state," said Canadian Brig. Gen. Jonathan Vance, who commands 2,800 troops in Kandahar province, about 300 of them based in Sangsar. "And it's not a real challenge to the state."
The Canadians' efforts to guide and train their Afghan counterparts who share this base have been equally frustrating ....
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