Was the Manley Report a Sham?

The key recommendation of the Manley panel report on Afghanistan finally makes sense.

The notion of drawing a line in the sand over a demand that NATO provide an extra 1,000 soldiers to support Canadian forces in Kandahar always seemed curious. Why 1,000? It seemed like a political number to come up with in a report that was supposed to be an assessment of the mission, not the politics behind the mission. Why not something meaningful, say 5,000 or more?

Well, if Denis Coderre is right, one thousand was an entirely political number and the Manley Report was all about the politics behind the mission and nothing more. In effect, Manley played a willing shill for Stephen Harper.

The Liberal defence critic says the extra 1,000 troops was already arranged before the Manley report was revealed. From the Globe & Mail:

“What I have learned is that, even before the Manley report, there was already a deal that Americans, if they don’t have anybody [to assist the Canadians], will step up to the plate and provide that 1,000 soldiers,” said Mr. Coderre.

Steven Staples, president of the Rideau Institute, a policy organization that has been critical of Afghan mission, holds similar views.

“The additional troops will have more political than military significance. With the 1,000 troops, French President Sarkozy scores points with U.S. President Bush, President Bush claims victory at NATO next month, and [Prime Minister] Stephen Harper can keep Canada in the war for another three years,” Mr. Staples said in an e-mail yesterday.

“What is most concerning is that Canada, surrounded by 1,000 additional U.S. troops, will become increasingly implicated with U.S. forces and their aggressive war-fighting approach to the conflict.”

In this context the Manley report finally makes sense. John Manley’s job was to be Stephen Harper’s water boy – and he delivered.

 

Political Numbers and Political Lies

This is one of those posts where the urge to resort to vulgarity overwhelms the suppression mechanisms so, if you’re feeling of refined sensibilities, move along.

I have had it up to the tits with Manley’s political numbers. Yet that’s the key to seeing through all the feigned sincerity of the Manley Panel’s report.

2,000 – that’s the figure Manley puts forward. If someone – NATO, the United States, the martians – can come up with another 1,000 fighting soldiers, we ought to stay. That’s as far as these hucksters will go, just far enough for Harper to stage manage another scam debate like he did last time.

2,000. Two thousand. A brigade roughly. Why 2,000? Why not 1,800 or 18,000? Read the report. There’s no reason given for the magic number. That’s because there’s no reason for the magic number, other than magic. It’s just a shill’s device for stifling essential, meaningful debate. It’s a political number, one we’re expected to imbue with the quality of sufficiency because it’s enshrined in ink on paper.

We’re supposed to stay in Kandahar to 2011 and beyond so long as someone (presumably the Pentagon) comes up with the next 1,000 soldiers. And then what?

Are we going to win with 2,000 combat soldiers? Win what? Then again, what does “winning” look like to the Manley Panel? NOwhere in the sonorous yet empty report does “the Panel” venture a description of what we’re trying to win and just how we get there. Those are petty details beyond the scope of their higher, political vision.

Now, whether you be left, centre or right-wing, here’s a question. Do you believe we ought to ask Canadian soldiers to sacrifice their lives unless we (“we” – the people, the nation, our government) are actually in this to win?

You see, if you begin with that simple question, you arrive at a proposition that defines each and every remaining question in judging “the mission.” It is, in fact, the essential starting point. Without it, everything else is political numbers, political babble.

If you answer “yes” to that question (and you’re a total aberrant if you don’t), then you must next ask, what is the definition of “win.” What result will we be content with? You have to draw the line somewhere. We’re talking here guerrilla warfare bordering on civil war. That’s inherently messy and confusing. There won’t be any surrender documents signed at ceremonies on the decks of battleships this time.

The Manley Gang assume some bizarre consensus on the notion of winning. That’s why you’ll find no lengthy description and evaluation of options.

Listen to me. If you can’t define “winning”, you can’t wage much less win a war. Alexander the Great, Wellington, Rommel and Patton would think we were fools for even trying. Yet that’s what Manley/Harper would have us do.

Winning is somewhat more than the flip side of losing but working out how not to lose is a good first step in figuring out how to win. We’ve used the awful spectre of losing to justify continuing this war for better than six years now. The common line is that, if we lose, the Taliban returns triumphant. Says who?

Show me something, anything to make the case that the Taliban could return to power but for the military exertions of the US and NATO? We’ve been told that, every day for the past six plus years, and it’s become an article of faith, but protracted, screwed-up military adventures are almost always sustained by faith in delusions.

So, where’s the beef? The Other Side (the non-Pashtun tribes that make up almost 60% of the Afghan population plus the pro-government Pashtuns, collectively) has had six years of breathing space from the days when they were in a deadlocked war of attrition. Why, without us, would they not be able to do just as well as the ISAF infidel at swatting away the Islamists? Why? C’mon, let’s hear something reality-based. We just find it convenient to assume these dodgy South Asian types would all roll over and revert to the Bad Old Days. But for that assumption, that ludicrous home truth, “the mission” would be a f#&@ing joke. Can’t be having that, can we?

It’s not like these backward peoples need us to teach them how to fight. Ask the generals of the old Soviet army, hell ask Rudyard Kipling. They know how to fight and they need neither our training nor encouragement to do it.

What if we just let them settle Afghanistan’s hash (pun not intended)? I raise it simply because it’s an obvious question that you should but won’t find raised in the Manley Brigade report.

I could go on and on and on but I’ve found that I’ve already gone well past the useful limit of this blog medium so I’ll leave the rest of this rant for another time.

 

The Manley Report – A Few Salient Points

It took a while but I got through the Manley report on Afghanistan. At first I was somewhat impressed. With a few glaring exceptions the Panel seems to have managed a fair grasp of the facts. Much of the stuff was obvious but it was assuring to see them acknowledge it.

It’s when the report got into the political questions that their views became hard to accept, at times hard even to believe. This is ultimately a political discussion and the report leaves a bottomless pit of wiggle room, more than enough to allow it to be exploited by all sides of the issue. The closer you get to the end of it the more it appears a colossal waste of time.

A Few Salient Points:

“Without systematic performance standards, accounts of security successes or failures are mainly anecdotal …the Afghan and ISAF governments need first to craft a much more coherent and unified security strategy, and then impose practical, verifiable criteria for gauging and analyzing the course of that strategy.”

“…the Panel observed harmful shortcomings in the NATO/ISAF counterinsurgency campaign. The most damaging shortfalls included an insufficiency of forces in the field, especially in high-risk zones in the South; a top-heavy command structure at ISAF headquarters in Kabul; an absence of a comprehensive strategy directing all ISAF forces in collaboration with the Afghan government; limitations placed by some NATO governments on their units, which effectively keep those units out of the conflict… …These and other deficiencies reflect serious failures of strategic direction, and persistent fragmentation in the efforts of ISAF and NATO governments and between them and the Afghan government.”

Okay, John, there are these several critical, potentially even fatal flaws in the way business is being handled in Afghanistan. Why then don’t you tell us what they mean for the Canadian mission and what we’re to do if they’re not set right? You’ve pointed out the obvious but dodged any mention of what Canada should do in response. That’s a huge failure.

The report envisions Canada aiding the Kabul government in formulating a basis for negotiations between the central authority and the “good” Taliban wishing to renounce violence. The Panel still wants Taliban leaders responsible for former atrocities prosecuted. Here they overlook the fact that some of the “Northern Alliance” warlords were hardly better and yet used their control of the parliament to pass an amnesty for themselves. I think one-sided justice is going to create a non-starter for negotiations with the Taliban.

The Manley Panel report also skips over the reaction that any power-sharing deal with the Taliban is likely to trigger in the Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara warlords in the north who’ve been spending the last couple of years rearming and reconstituting their militias in anticipation of just such an eventuality.

The Panel seems to gloss over the fractures that underlie the Kabul government. It is a coalition of the willing – for now. The lack of trust and unity contribute, perhaps more than anything else, to Karzai’s inability to purge his government of corruption and move on the opium bosses. Enormous pressures have been brought on Karzai by the Americans and ISAF but he’s been unable or unwilling to crack down.

In the event of an ethnic or tribal breakdown in the central government what would befall the Afghan National Army? Would it remain loyal to the remnants of a Kabul government or break up into its constituent tribal elements and head for home? In that event do we sit on the sidelines of a renewed civil war or do we just take on a brand new bunch of enemiese to combat?

Leaving aside all the unasked questions, the manner in which the Manley Panel construed Canada’s mission was, in my view, biased, distorted, perhaps even dishonest.

…the Panel could find no operational logic for choosing February, 2009 as the end date for Canada’s military operation in Kandahar – and nothing to establish February, 2009 as the date by which the mission would be completed.

Here the Manley bunch is being wilfully disingenuous. February, 2009 was chosen not on the basis of operational logic or on any fanciful notions that the mission would be completed by then. To suggest that is pure sophistry and undermines any trust that should be placed in Manley’s vision.

Parliament merely decided (following a farcical debate in which essential questions were never asked, much less answered) to carry ISAF’s load in Kandahar until that date. ISAF and NATO were never released from the obligation to find replacements for us after that although Manley suggests that the extension was some form of de facto undertaking to stay for however long it takes to “win” in Afghanistan.

Manley is implying a much greater commitment than was ever undertaken. Staying to the end was never discussed in the debates leading up to the 2009 extension. It was certainly never explained to the Canadian people. He’s pulling that straight out of his ass and he knows it. He also knows that, without this sort of chicanery, his arguments for remaining are seriously undermined. It is entirely reasonable in a conflict such as this to expect to be relieved after a period of service especially given that NATO is an alliance with a strength over over a million soldiers.

Manley’s recommendation that Canada’s military mission to Kandahar be “conditionally extended” beyond 2009 leaves the future of our effort to be determined, not by Canadians, but by Brussels. The Panel even presume to put a tidy price on it – another 1,000-strong battle group furnished by other NATO members. They’ve done all the math having no idea what may be coming from Pakistan or the Taliban or the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara warlords or the drug barons. It sounds positively sophomoric. 1,000 won’t do the job that we’re facing today. What assurances can Manley’s Panel give that the price he demands for indefinite Canadian commitment will have any relevance in a year from now much less two or three? The answer is none whatsoever.

“If no undertakings on the battle group are received from ISAF partner countries by February, 2009, or if the necessary equipment is not procured, the Government should give appropriate notice to the Afghan and allied governments of its intention to transfer responsibility for security in Kandahar.”

Gee, that’s cute. What sort of notice does Manley have in mind and to whom does he suggest we “transfer responsibility for security in Kandahar?” What a load of nonsense.

In my initial assessment of this report based on news accounts I gave it a D+/C-. Having read it myself, I’d drop that to a very solid F.

 

It Could’ve Been Worse – A Bit Worse Anyway

A few days back I wrote that if the Manley report didn’t address the lack of troops in Kandahar, it would be rubbish.

Surprise, surprise. The report does focus on the force level issue and says that, if NATO doesn’t put up an extra 1,000 soldiers to aid the Canadian contingent, we ought to say sayonara and leave.

What’s unclear is whether Manley is talking about an extra 1,000 combat troops. That would actually double the existing Canadian fighting force. It would also require an additional contingent of support personnel.

The report also is understood to focus on the need for medium-lift helicopters. Those are already on order but aren’t expected to begin arriving until 2011.

So, what would an extra 1,000 troops do in a province that’s 54,000 sq. kms. in area with a population just shy of 900,000? The sad truth is, not much. That would be one combat soldier or counterinsurgent for every 450-civilians, not the 1:25 ratio formulated by Petraeus in the new US counterinsurgency field manual. Together with new helicopters it would permit us to establish a respectable fast reaction force but it wouldn’t be enough to maintain permanent security in the villages throughout the countryside. Even with the additional forces we’ll still be a garrison force with a few firebases or outposts.

Then there are all the “what ifs” in these recommendations. What if Brussels, already on notice that the Dutch are leaving in 2010, can’t come up with the reinforcements the Manley report identifies as essential? What if we don’t come up with the medium-lift helicopters? What if NATO does deliver the reinforcements but they come with the “caveats” so many nations impose that render them essentially useless?

Overall, I give the report a D+/C-. It’s not as bad as I was expecting but its recommendations are still pretty lame and much too narrowly focused to be helpful. It treats Canada and Kandahar as somehow autonomous, a war within a war, not as an integral component of a larger ISAF and US operation. Perhaps this “heads down” approach was necessary to avoid having to weigh the Canadian mission in the failing context of the larger operation. Yet does anyone think we can really sort out our problems in Kandahar immune to the troubles that beset the rest of southern Afghanistan, that lurk across the border in Pakistan’s Tribal Lands and that are smouldering in the warlords’ dens in northern Afghanistan?

Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die.