JB, you had one thing right.
We are there because of butchers.
The butchers who attacked unarmed civilians in an office building, hoping that their governments would be too cowardly to defend them.
Then they (or their controllers if you will) ran into the hills of Afghanistan and tried to hide amongst more civilians with the help of the regime controlling the country at the time.

Stageleft, all your solutions seem to involve our troops having some magical intuition which will allow them to know civilians, from terrorists disguised as civilians. You have yet to explain (realistically) how they should do this but maintain this is the solution to this kind of tragedy, mishap or what ever phrase you prefer (nice attempt at mis-direction though).

We are there because the Liberal government at the time actually believed it was important. From that point on, we either quit because it’s too tough for us or we continue to try to help these people (and God knows they need the help).

It’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be neat. How it will resolve in the end, I do not know.

What I do know is people who sit around offering hurtful criticisms based on partial information and absolutely no viable solutions are no help at all and most likely a hindrance.

You’re a waste of space.
I’m tired of wasting rational thoughts on irrational minds.

Why that soldier pulled the trigger may be important to people here in Canada who want to explain away or rationalize what happened but I can guarantee you that it is absolutely, 100%, immaterial, to the people who lost their children…. and I’d feel pretty darned safe in betting a good portion of my next pay cheque that it is also absolutely, 100%, immaterial to their relatives, and their friends, and their neighbours.

Once again I’m gonna quote from the article you linked, maybe people will read it this time and just maybe even ponder what it means.

Another hospital visitor said that if he were the children’s father, he would personally strap on a suicide vest and exact vengeance on Canadian troops.
 
Shopkeeper Din Mohammad said foreign soldiers had better stop accidentally killing civilians or they will suffer the same bitter fate as the defeated Soviets.
 
“They must stop this,” said Mr. Mohammed, who was visiting his son at Mirwais hospital when he saw the children’s lifeless bodies carried in.
 
“Otherwise the day will come when everybody will stand up against the foreigners in a holy war — a jihad.”
 
“It’s happened once before (with the Soviets). If things continue like this, history will repeat itself.”

Does any of that really surprise you?

That soldier didn’t pull the trigger because he hated kids…he pulled it because of duty…and he didn’t create the environment he is now involved in.

Butchers did and:

“Shit happens.”
Soldiers did the right thing.
“Poof”, you’re gone.

Ever been scared? Really scared?

Didn’t think so. Otherwise you wouldn’t be saying these things.

To quote a bad joke that was the cause of so much stupidity in and around the blogosphere a short time ago, a little girls brains splatted all over the back window of a car is a “tragedy”.

First and foremost it is a tragedy because a little girls brains were splattered all over the inside of a car and her dead brother because people with guns who are supposed to be helping were afraid they were being attacked when they were not.

After that it becomes a tragedy for the mission in general, remember the quote I posted above?

“Otherwise the day will come when everybody will stand up against the foreigners in a holy war — a jihad.”
 
“It’s happened once before (with the Soviets). If things continue like this, history will repeat itself.”

You wanna talk about encouraging the Taliban?

You wanna talk about giving aid and comfort to the enemy?

Each and every civilian who suffers a “mishap” at the point of a Canadian gun gives far more support to the enemy than this little blog, all its’ comments, and the sum total of every media article ever printed that criticizes such a “mishap” ever could.

Each and every post and comment that says

* Shit happens
* Soldiers did the right thing
* “Poof”, you’re gone!

– gives far more support to the enemy than this little blog, all its’ comments, and the sum total of every media article ever printed that criticizes such a “mishap” ever could.

Makes for great propaganda doesn’t it lads?

If we are on a humanitarian mission, we should not be standing idly by while the country sinks into deeper and deeper desperation and hunger drives more and more desperate men and boys into the Taliban ranks simply for grocery money.

If it’s policemen they need, we should be helping them pay a living wage to police recruits. We already had to take over paying the police ourselves because those who were supposed to pay them couldn’t be trusted to do so.

Poverty breeds discontent and fuels Taliban recruitment. I may be naive in thinking that fathers and mothers will fight those thugs who try to take the food from their starving children’s mouths.

No, it ain’t easy. Neither is it easy to chase a guerrilla movement into mountain hideouts and caves. We’ve been doing it your way for 6 years and we’re in worse shape than when we started. Continuing to expect better results from the same actions is not naive. It’s just stupid.

Manley said we should be retooling the mission with a much bigger emphasis on aid and reconstruction. Harper chose to accept the parts of the Manley report that called for more men and more military action and chose to disregard the parts that called for more attention to winning hearts and minds.

We must win hearts and minds. We cannot do that with bullets and bombs. To think that we can win without winning popular support (hearts and minds) is naive. To think we can win hearts and minds with a totally lopsided military effort is equally naive.

Okay, if it’s that easy, why is the government not doing that?

It ain’t macho enough. Too namby-pamby touchy-feely. It doesn’t line the pockets of war profiteers enough. It doesn’t boost Canada’s image in the eyes of GWB. It doesn’t mete out enough punishment to the rotten Taliban.

Right now, the poor town folk are being robbed by the warlord provincial governors and other Karzai appointees that we are assisting. When these Northern Alliance thugs were in power before, they were so corrupt and brutal that the Taliban was able to gain popular support and take over. Now, we’ve re-installed them and we back them with our military might.

JB

Okay, if it’s that easy, why is the government not doing that?

According to your words, it would all be so easy.

Unfortunately, anyone who bothers to look at the whole picture would use another word.
Naive.

Name me another conflict like this, where the distribution of aid packages has not immediately been grabbed by thugs with guns, to be used for their own purposes. Meanwhile the poor town-folk continue to go hungry and any hope of law and order goes down the toilet.

Without a policeman, all societies degenerate to anarchy.
It’s human nature.
Wishing it were otherwise is… oh, what’s that word??

Oh ya… naive.

We cannot win the war without winning hearts and minds. Afghans have slipped deeper into poverty, desperation and hunger during the course of the occupation. We are spending billions on war materiel and scant millions on aid. Thanks to our benign acceptance of Karzai’s corruption, much of the aid money we have sent has been siphoned off for governors’ mansions and out-and-out graft.

Every friendly fire death, every poorly targeted NATO airstrike has helped the Taliban recruit new fighters. Pure financial desperation and hunger have driven fighters to the Taliban where they are paid $14 a day compared to the $4 a day paid by the ANA and ANP.

Take a look at who we’re fighting for. Karzai has personally appointed the provincial governors. His talent pool has been the Northern Alliance warlords. Under our occupation, the country became officially established as The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The new constitution enshrines Sharia Law. Oipium harvests fuel both sides of the civil war that was raging prior to 9/11. Karzai admits to holding secret talks with the Taliban for several years and has publicly said that he would welcome Taliban inclusion in his government.

Cut and run (such an American phrase) or continue to support a corrupt regime that cannot even be trusted with its own police payroll? Cut and run or continue to prop up a regime that issues the death penalty for conversion from Islam to Christianity? Cut and run or continue supporting an Afghan senate that upholds the death penalty for “humiliating Islam” by questioning the treatment of women?

Alexander the Great cut and ran. The British cut and ran. The Russians cut and ran.

Afghans are suffering due to the worldwide food crisis. If we want to make lemonade, we can capitalize on that situation. By mounting a massive food distribution campaign, we can win hearts and minds. Desperate Afghans are selling their daughters for food money. They’re taking up arms in order to feed their families. If we divert a fraction of the money we’re spending on offensive seek and destroy missions to food aid, we will win hearts and minds. If we continue to support the corrupt Karzai regime and spend all of our time and money on shooting and killing and trying to achieve a military victory, we ensure failure.

I expect to hear the old refrain, “Without security, there can be no aid.” Hogwash. We can safely drop bags of grain and flour just as easily as we can drop bombs and shells. We can set up secure food distribution centres that would be welcomed and protected by the hungry locals. We can insist on oversight of the Afghan government that we helped install. We can keep track of the prisoners we hand over to ensure they don’t bribe their way back to the Taliban ranks. We can establish a market for legal, medicinal opium production. We can provide seed and fertilizer to help farmers move from opium to food crops.

The Manley Report calculates that Canada spent $6.1 billion on its military effort in the central Asian country between fiscal 2000-01 and 2006-07. The total financial aid between 2001-02 and 2006-07 was $741 million. Up to 90% of that $741 million is known to have been diverted to corrupt government officials.

There are about 2,500 military personnel deployed in Afghanistan. In comparison, there are 47 civilian government employees assigned to the country: at the embassy in Kabul, at Kandahar Airfield and in the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) office in Kandahar City. Of the 335 PRT team members, 315 are military personnel.

We’ve put nearly all of our eggs in the military basket and we cannot hope to win hearts and minds with that sort of lopsided approach. Again, if we don’t win hearts and minds, we will not win.

JB

To you, the best option now is to cut and run?

Look, I’m not talking about the decision to go, but what does it say about us if we cut and run as soon as the ordeal gets difficult.

If you can suggest a way to resolve this conflict short of giving up, I’d love to hear it (so would the government).

We are there and involved.
We either find a way to resolve the situation OR all those soldiers have indeed died for nothing.

Quitting now shows only one thing. We can’t stand the heat.

If that’s where we stand, then dismantle the military and start sucking up to the US for protection.
It’s not a half way proposition.

I disagree with the statement made in the blog post that the military staff are either trained in recognizing real threats or they are not. This is blatantly wrong. The best training in the world in any discipline cannot prevent all mishaps, accidents, etc.

Some of the best doctors have killed patients. It is very tragic when things like that happen, but they do happen and will continue to happen.

I generally disagree with “military games”. I don’t think America should be in Iraq, and I certainly don’t think that Canada should be in Afghanistan. But since we’re there, sigh, we’ll have to accept that innocent lives will be lost no matter what — among soldiers and civilians.

If we don’t like it, though accept we must, it is our right to speak up about it. And if enough people keep screaming about ending our mission in Afghanistan, then maybe, their voices will be heard.

I wonder how many people would be applauding if that car blew up the convoy?

Soldiers did the right thing and quite frankly, I assume they would do it again.

Thank you.

ROE attempt to balance a wide range of potential inputs and outcomes, minimizing risk to all stakeholders to the extent possible, ensuring compliance with an insane tangle of international, national and site specific regulations, and trying in the end to mitigate potential harm while maximizing the likelihood of a positive outcome.

The highest duty of care is on the soldier. The soldier is the professional onsite. The soldier has been trained, and the soldier understands the rules. Their accountability is of the highest order, and they know that.

The civilian may or may not know the rules. They may or may not understand the signals, or pay attention. They may or may not panic. Their behaviour is the great variable. And it is entirely conceivable to me that a panicky civilian does precisely what the driver in this case did; and that a well trained soldier, following the ROE, takes the shot. And that, I think is what happened.

The soldier in question needs neither our blame nor our forgiveness – he/she is in hell right now, working it out for themself.

I have a citizen’s right to point to this incident and say; this is an unavoidable consequence of our decision to be here. There will be more incidents like this, and they will impact on the achievement of the goals that Canada has set for its intervention.

But I have no right to fault the soldier we put there.

First, just because you’ve found no mention of multiple attackers in a single vehicle in the news doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. The CF has better intel than you can find in the local fishwrap.

Second, sentries on convoys aren’t generally using binoculars, as I understand it. Their hands are occupied with their weapons, and their heads are on a swivel using the Mark-1 A-1 eyeball to detect threats.

Third, the ROE may be deficient, and they may not be. I’d suggest neither of us is really in a position to know that for sure. But your suggestion that this was a f*ckup that could have been prevented seems a stretch to me. As I noted earlier, sometimes you can do everything according to the book and things still go to shit. There’s no set of rules or procedures that can deal with every single eventuality perfectly.

Maybe the soldier who took the shot screwed up. Maybe he or she didn’t. We’ll find that out in due course. In the meantime, Canada and the ISAF forces definitely need to do some IO to mitigate the damage done by this incident.

Every single soldier I’ve spoken with who has served over there understands that their mission exists to support the broader hearts and minds campaign that will eventually get Afghanistan back on its feet.

By the way, from the ISAF news release:

The vehicle was directed to keep its distance but it did not comply. ISAF soldiers gave hand, arm and audio signals as well as flashing light signals to stop. When the vehicle was 10 metres away and still approaching rapidly, the ISAF soldiers, fearing an attack, fired on it.

I’d also suggest to all here that it would be worth your time to read what a LAV gunner who’s been there and done that has to say about the issue. Really – he details a couple of real-life decisions he had to make and how they turned out.

“[1] car bombers do not come by the car load, I was unable to find one single reference to 5 bombers in one car.”

Right, and they have never used young boys and girls as suicide bombers or flown airliners into skyscapers. Oh wait, as of 2001 they changed those facts didn’t they? Your assumptions about what they don’t or won’t do is what kills soldiers.

“[2] it has been reported (and was reported on the radio this morning) that many drivers do speed because of the potential for IEDs on the side of the road – it is in their best interests to get passed any given place on the road as quickly as possible.”

Hence our forces efforts to make it very obvious that doing so near our convoys is unacceptable and probably life threatening. A poor choice was made by the driver which caused this incident. The soldiers did their job.

Your comments about the binoculars is ludicrous.
If the vehicle had been moving slow enough to allow the time to identify the situation better, it is unlikely this would ever have happened.

Do you really think the 5-10 seconds that this event unfolded in was sufficient time to allow for your solution?

You may have spent time in the military but I am sure from your words, you never had to face anything like this situation.
Hence my opinion, you have no right to judge.

PS – “According to a news slot (also on CFRA) the little girls head was blown off, in the car, in front of her parents…… there is no excuse.”
This add on was a blatant effort to inflame the issue and make our soldiers look as bad as possible. This kind of thing is what causes the nasty responses as opposed to a reasonable discourse.