Sir, thank you for the question. Let me walk through a couple of points.
First, we went through a terrible time in the former Republic of Yugoslavia, in the Balkans, when under the mission mandate and the rules of engagement and the legal constraints we had soldiers standing around and watching what was equivalent to ethnic cleansing. All of us know about that. That was a terrible time, and it was more difficult for soldiers to come home feeling satisfied, which is a key part of staying healthy from a mission like that than almost anything else you would do in your life.
Secondly, when our soldiers, sailors, airmen and airwomen-- because they are all there and sometimes we forget the last three pieces—when they go abroad for us, as they are now in Kandahar, in Afghanistan, they go with the very best values our country holds near and dear to our hearts. They walk them, they live them on a daily basis here, and we expect them to.
Thirdly, we're not the inspector general for the Afghan national security forces, so we don't go in and pry into all their details. But to the essence of what you said, sir, let me simply say that if we are in Afghanistan, we're there to help the people of Afghanistan. Yes, we're there to work and help build the Afghan national security forces very directly. If we witness any kind of serious abuse—I'm trying to think of exactly the words to say—of individuals, I expect that my soldiers, sailors, and airmen and airwomen are going to immediately alert their chain of command, and that chain of command, with those soldiers, is going to take action to stop any kind of serious abuse.
Just in case there is any doubt of that, I have reconfirmed that direction down through the entire chain of command into Kandahar province to make sure the CDS's intent and our expectations as a nation are absolutely clear to all and sundry, and they are. If there is any serious abuse of Afghans, and I think we've had some good examples in the past year.... I know there was a young sergeant, for example, who was caught on TV cameras, saying, “You know, I'm concerned that if these people are handed over to the Afghan national security forces, who were there at the time, they may be beaten, injured or killed, and we're not going to do that; we're not going to let them go over.”
That's the kind of behaviour we expect. That's the kind we're going to reinforce through our chain of command. That's what Canadian soldiers give us all the time. We will do an investigation to see if there is any witnessing of anything that's occurred in the past and see if we've not done that kind of thing, but I guarantee what you said, my CDS guidance and direction down the chain of command is absolutely, unequivocally clear.