An announcement made by Chief of the Defence Staff General Walter Natynczyk has laid the groundwork of a ‘drawdown’ of Canadian military personnel in Afghanistan to occur over the next year and a half.Canada has currently no plan for combat troops to remain in the country after the summer of 2011.The planned withdrawal is based on a framework laid out by parliament, requesting that Canada end its military field involvement by 2011.The next year and a half will embody a good deal of logistical and clerical work as Canada begins to move materiel and later men, out of theatre.Defence minister Peter McKay has avoided speaking directly as to the post 2011 commitment that Canada will have in Afghanistan, but sources indicate that Canadian troop levels will be minimal following that deadline.
"I would caution you against saying dozens or hundreds or a thousand, there will be exponentially fewer… Whether there's 20 or 60 or 80 or 100, they will not be conducting combat operations."
-Spokesperson for Steven Harper, Dmitri Soudas.
There are 2800 Canadian troops in Theatre, and casualties have consisted of 133 soldiers and a diplomat.As the Canadian nation makes preparations for Remembrance Day ceremonies, the government has awarded for the first time, a medal intended for soldiers killed or wounded in Afghanistan.The ‘Sacrifice Medal,’ (pictured above) created last year was bestowed upon 46 individuals yesterday and formally replaced the wound stripe (pictured below) which was the standard decoration, since the second world war.
I have selected 'The Great Game' as the title of this web-log in homage to the historical roots of the Afghan conflict. Perpetually one of the great crossroads of imperial conquest and expansion, the Afghan region has found itself beholden to a multitude of successive regimes, both internal and external.
This has left the various ethnic and cultural groups which comprise 'The Afghan People' in perpetual flux. They have been left to lead what life they can manage amid the chaos of uprisings, transitions and titanic clashes between these mightier states.
This Log is being undertaken as a University Assignment for the purposes of developing my understanding of International Relations. The end result will be the chronicling of major events pertaining to the nation of Afghanistan and its peoples from roughly the 11th of September, 2009 through to early January 2010. I will be culling my sources from a variety of reputable and scholarly international news and governmental sources.
The interrelated issue of International Terrorism will undoubtedly get much attention here. Peace Support Operations and Operations Other Than War currently underway in the nation of Afghanistan are in response to the widespread use by International Terror groups of that same country for their own spiritual and ideological center. As the control and stability of the Afghan nation represents somewhat the 'center of gravity' for the enemies of the west, it is very difficult to discuss events that occur within its borders and not make reference to those pertinent ones which occur without.
A media coup for a detainee in Guantanamo for instance, can have untold effects on the capability of or mandate for the NATO ISAF mission in the region. Simple systems can be seen to generate complex results and complex systems can be seen to generate simple results. It is my intent to encapsulate in this log the full spectrum of forthcoming issues regarding Afghanistan both as the shattered nation it is, and the strong, thoroughly stabilized democracy that it can be.
The culmination of this Log will be the publication of an Essay (also on the same topics, also for the same course). It will cover almost 65 years of Afghan History, establishing the linkage between the nation's fragmented present and its past. Additionally, the Essay will explain exactly how it is that 'International Terrorism' as we now know it, came to be, and how it was that the enemies of the West came to call the nation of Afghanistan their home.
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