Mr. Speaker, we all agree that training the security forces is crucially important but there are some fundamental issues that have not been dealt with.
Within the Afghan national army, there is a very unnatural situation. The leadership in the ANA is actually made up of non-Pashtun leaders for the most part for a Pashtun-dominated army. This is a completely unstable situation. We need rectify that situation by ensuring the leadership is more representative of the tribal makeup of the country.
While the military aspect is crucially important in the scale-up of the training, we need to have an on-the-ground diplomatic mission in order to hive off elements of what is a complex insurgency made up of different groups with different motivations. There is no plan for this.
Does the member not think that in order to support our troops the government needs to work with Afghans and other groups to develop this on-the-ground diplomatic initiative to hive off elements of the insurgency?