On the first point, next door to Kandahar is Helmand, and then there's Uruzgan as well. We have Kandahar, the British have Helmand, and the Dutch have Uruzgan, and they all have the same problems we have, exactly the same problems. When we're talking to those countries, we're having the same conversations. If Canada says in NATO we really need to solve this problem, we've all got the same problem, let's see if we can work together, I do think that's a useful thing to do.
I understand this silo concept of having the military separate from development and aid. I understand the history of that, but it's not working. When we say there should be a special task force and a special envoy, we're trying to deal with that, because that silo stuff has to stop. It's not working. It's malfunctioning. We have to innovate. The answer can't be that these are two separate things. It's not a war that's going to be won by military means alone. We have to innovate now. If CIDA is not constructed to deliver that aid, then things have to be reorganized. We can't say we're going to lose Kandahar because we have the military here and CIDA here, so it's time for some innovation to meet those circumstances and our commitment.
Regarding the estimated number of Taliban, the answer is endless. There's an endless supply. There are two types of Taliban. There is the al-Qaeda linked Taliban with Arab, Chechen, and Pakistani elements financing and campaigning and organizing that. Then there are the local boys from the village who are firing an AK-47, who've never been to the big city of Kandahar, and who are fighting for money. We had them, and we've lost them, and we can get them back. This lower group of people is endless, because the male unemployment rate is 80% to 90%, and what most of those boys can do is shoot a gun. There are 800,000 people in Kandahar; most of them are living in extreme poverty. Most of them now are angry at us. Helmand has one million. There are lots more over the border in Pakistan. Oruzgan is being called the house of death.
In the Russian war, two million Afghans died fighting foreigners. Two million. The Russians had ten times as many military troops in Afghanistan as NATO has at this moment. The Afghans will fight and fight. We have a formidable situation there. The Taliban is very smart in the way they are dealing with their grassroots political campaign and in the way they're doing their hearts and minds campaign. They're locals. They speak the language. Many of them are from the same tribe. We have to be very clever if we're going to win this one, and as I've told you, I don't think we can accept that we might lose.