McClatchy Embed with Axe to Grind?

[The Bread Guy]

You be the judge....

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 ....

More on links...

 

[GAP]

This is the trademark of the McClatchy Chain....They had little good to say about anything....oh, the facts are there, but always with a slant....one would think they are closely aligned with the "Stop War" crowd

 

[The Bread Guy]

As further evidence, here's what appears to be the same situation seen by a Toronto Star reporter:

This time, they think they've got it, they've really got it: A plan, a strategy, a clear objective, a hope in hell.

And they're no longer alone, essentially on their own to pacify the great swath of insurgency that is Kandahar province, spiritual home of the Taliban.

The Americans have come, 4,000 Stryker Brigade troops, nearly double the Canadian component that has been stretched so pitifully, if valiantly, thin these past five years.

With that incoming surge, halving the battle space, the Canadian contingent can set tangible goals and dramatically shift the thrust of operations to a combination of offence and defence: Attack and protect ....

 

[uniballer]

I've put off reading this article ever since she was "embedded" for those 5 days with us and I wish I never came across this speculative and insulting fairy tale that she wrote about us.

She might've had more facts and access to what was really going on if the first thing she said to us on her arrival wasn't "I'm here to report on how the Americans are coming to Zhari to clean up the mess the Canadian military has made here"

Also if she actually took notes during the security shura that she attended there wouldn't have been quotes taken out of context and credited to proper persons. 

On a positive note her perfume and tank top was a nice addition to the shura  ;D


And I've said all I will and can. Time to go back to the lurking