KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – The RCMP has started looking at how to continue the police training mission in Afghanistan after the Canadian military pulls out next year, the Mounties’ top man said Saturday.

But Commissioner William Elliot noted there are a number of details and variables to be worked out, among them, who would protect and transport the police trainers as they go about their business in the volatile country.

“We’re at the beginning of looking at options, but there are a lot more questions than answers at the moment,” Elliot told reporters after wrapping up a brief visit to Kandahar.  Read more... (539 words, 1 image, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

KANDAHAR — The RCMP has started looking at how to continue the police training mission in Afghanistan after the Canadian military pulls out next year, the Mounties’ top man said Saturday.

But Commissioner William Elliot noted there are a number of details and variables to be worked out, among them, who would protect and transport the police trainers as they go about their business in the volatile country.

“We’re at the beginning of looking at options, but there are a lot more questions than answers at the moment,” Elliot told reporters after wrapping up a brief visit to Kandahar.  Read more... (538 words, 1 image, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

Canadian combat troops are slated to leave Afghanistan next summer, but RCMP Commissioner William Elliott said Saturday he expects his personnel will have to stay behind to undertake the “huge challenge” of training police officers.

About 50 RCMP and other civilian Canadian police are posted to Afghanistan as part of a mission to train the Afghan National Police. The ANP, as it’s known, has had a reputation for roadside shakedowns and graft that Canadian officials hope mentoring, training and supervision will eradicate.  Read more... (486 words, 1 image, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed virtually all Canadian soldiers will leave Afghanistan by the end of 2011, making some of his most definitive statements yet on Canada’s future role there in an interview Wednesday with Canwest News Service.

Parliament has already decided the combat mission, involving about 2,500 troops centred around Kandahar, will end in 2011. The Department of National Defence has started preparing plans to bring the soldiers home.

But at various times over the past two years since that decision was made, there has been some discussion about using Canadian Forces personnel in a non-combat capacity or to station soldiers in a more peaceful part of the country.  Read more... (944 words, 1 image, estimated 3:47 mins reading time)

Canada’s chief of defence staff concedes 2009 was a “rough year” in Afghanistan, but he’s vowing to continue pursuing such strategies as having more soldiers leave fortified bases to live closer to the Afghan people.

Gen. Walter Natynczyk said a corruption-marred Afghanistan presidential election in the summer and growing violence in the war-torn country have made the past 12 months difficult.

July to September is considered the most deadly in Afghanistan since the war began, with 223 coalition soldiers killed, including 11 Canadians.

Still, Natynczyk insisted Canada is making progress in Kandahar, the dangerous southern province, where most of our troops are based.  Read more... (467 words, 1 image, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

OTTAWA – A special House of Commons committee focusing on the 2006-07 treatment of Afghan detainees should also examine the current treatment of Canadian-transferred Afghan detainees and their release from custody, sometimes back into the battlefield, New Democratic Party MP Paul Dewar said yesterday.

He made the comment in an interview about a written statement by Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon that there have been 10 allegations of mistreatment of Canadian-transferred detainees in Afghan custody since the signing of a supplementary May 2007 agreement with Afghanistan on detainee transfers.  Read more... (475 words, 1 image, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

OTTAWA (Marketwire) – The Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway, announced today that Canada’s new fleet of 15 F-model Chinook helicopters will be based at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, Ontario.

The new CH-147F Chinooks will support land forces and other Government departments, secondary search and rescue missions, as well as responding to humanitarian emergencies such as fire, floods, and earthquakes.  Read more... (450 words, 1 image, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Two Cabinet ministers unequivocally declared yesterday they never ignored allegations of detainee abuse in Afghan jails and further insisted the Canadian military did not do anything that would violate international conventions against torture.

Former defence minister Gordon O’Connor said the opposition parties’ accusations of a government cover-up “simply goes beyond common sense,” and the current minister, Peter MacKay, insisted that “no one ever turned a blind eye.”

Mr. O’Connor and Mr. Mac-Kay were testifying at a House of Commons committee on Afghanistan, which heard last month from a senior diplomat, formerly posted in Afghanistan, that senior bureaucrats in Ottawa warned him to keep silent about his concerns about the treatment of Canadian-captured insurgents after they were handed over to local authorities.  Read more... (489 words, 1 image, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

The debate concerning the alleged mistreatment of prisoners handed over by Canadian troops to local authorities in Afghanistan seems important, even noble, on the face of it. But as is often the case when moral issues turn into rabid political feuds, the moral crusaders have lost sight of the big picture: Their efforts threaten to undermine our entire military presence in Afghanistan, and thereby strengthen the Taliban, which has a record of “mistreating” Afghans on a far larger scale.

In the opposition’s relentless gotcha campaign against the government, in other words, we are witnessing a perfect example of the moral great becoming the enemy of the moral good.  Read more... (576 words, 1 image, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

A foreign affairs source said a memo sent by Colvin in the winter of 2007 was searing in its criticism and indicated the governor was corrupt, dangerous, self-serving and deeply unpopular with Afghans. OTTAWA– A former governor of Kandahar who is accused of personally torturing Afghans might have been removed from office as far back as 2006 if Canadian officials hadn’t defended him, according to diplomatic memos that have never been made public by the Canadian government.

The revelation about Asadullah Khalid, who stayed on as governor two years after concerns about his reputation were raised, opens up another embarrassing avenue of inquiry over Afghan prisoner abuse.  Read more... (872 words, 1 image, estimated 3:29 mins reading time)