Thank you very much.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. I have to say that you've unloaded a lot of information, and without our having the ability to really process it and think it through, it's difficult to respond. It feels like a bit of an assault, but I know that's not your intention.
I'm very disturbed about two things. One is that I think there is a failure generally.... I'm not meaning to level this accusation specifically at you, but I feel that it's been repeated here, again. It happens all the time in Parliament when one tries to ask questions, and all too often in this committee. There's a kind of intermingling and mixing and not making a clear distinction; one talks about the ISAF troops in general, and we don't really deal with the specifics of what the Canadian troops are doing in Kandahar as part of the counter-insurgency mission. The same is true when we keep hearing—as we do—various references to success stories, but actually, very seldom do we get the kind of information we need to really assess the mission in Kandahar, per se.
I want to say, Mr. Fisher, that I very much appreciated in your presentation that you were acknowledging that there is a very serious problem with Canada's failure to deliver with anything like a reasonable effort the 0.7% ODA. Every time we hear the claim that our highest commitments are to Afghanistan, of course, it's never acknowledged that we're at less than one-third, and in fact, less than one-quarter of some of the other developed countries in the world in terms of our level of commitment.
I want to go to a couple of specific reports that you haven't referenced in all your good news about progress. Most of what has been presented today is in very stark contrast to the assessment of the Secretary General in his report to the Security Council last week. Specifically, that report goes on at considerable length about the very serious popular alienation from both the Afghan government and, I think, the countries that are engaged in propping up that government. That is a result of a horrendous amount of corruption, bad appointments, and as Mr. Fisher himself said, the fact that the biggest security threats experienced by most people in Afghanistan are not at all from the Taliban but are in fact from the corruption that exists at the level of officials and from the violence associated with warlords, drug lords, and so on. I wonder if you could address that. I'm saying this specifically to Colonel Pellerin and Colonel MacDonald, if they could address that.