Thank you.
I want to thank our guests for appearing today, and to say for many of us it's really important that we do have that kind of information from the ground and have more reporting. I think there are many things people might disagree on in terms of the mission in Afghanistan, but one of the things I think everyone agrees on is having more information, more reporting. So that's helpful, and your presentation tonight was a piece of that.
One of the people who has been working...and it was interesting to see Rory Stewart. I'm glad you visited him there. I was able to catch him when he presented here in Ottawa. He's a delightful speaker but also very knowledgeable. One of the things I think he brings to the table is a knowledge of how not to do things as well as how to do things. One of his considerations is that when you're planning development and aid or you're looking at governance models, it's perhaps helpful if you talk to the people you're trying to aid. I recall his charts of the acronyms, pages of acronyms, that have been brought to Afghanistan from the international community. He would flip to a village elder and say, “He doesn't understand these acronyms and neither do I, and this guy is a wise person, and I think we would do better to listen to him.” The shuras are obviously something we're trying to use a bit more so that we can have first-hand input from the people we're trying to help.
You said that just in the last month or so we've increased the number of people on the ground, both in Kandahar and Kabul, from the perspective of an integrated approach, diplomatic as well as aid and whatnot. Are there plans for more people to be going to both Kabul and Kandahar in the next couple of months?