National Defence committee  Thank you, Chairman, and good afternoon to members of the committee. It's my pleasure to be here, and I thank you for inviting me. I'm just going to say a few words, mostly extemporaneously. I look forward to your questions and to any discussion you might wish to have on this m

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, identifying enemy forces in this kind of situation is difficult, and everybody understands that. It's forcing me to go back and read the stuff I used to like to read in the 1970s, of revolutionary warfare and so on. It's very interesting. There are many factions withi

National Defence committee  I agree with almost everything David had to say, and I'm sure he knows that. I take a slightly different academic look on that. I don't think the government is responsible for Canada's national defence or the civil control of the armed forces. Parliament is responsible for the c

National Defence committee  Well, we're academics, but we'll try. I agree with you. I think the policy of the government is not single-minded combat operations and chasing the Taliban. Once the Taliban stops shooting at our guys, they'll be building schools and houses. If it is a fact that terrorism and th

National Defence committee  I won't add a lot to that. There are experts in this town, military people, who would give you the story in great detail. All I would say is, as Dr. Bercuson has said, this is a NATO mission that we're involved in. There are large American units within the NATO mission. The NATO

National Defence committee  I will say briefly that it's democracy in action, I'm afraid. These independent nations within the alliance can determine what they want to do; they have their own ways of going about doing things. There's also I think in this discussion of burden sharing—that's the code word in

National Defence committee  Well, having had the misfortune in my other life of being an ADC to a general officer, I wouldn't wish it on any Canadian officer. It just struck me as enormously odd that anybody in Canada, political leaders especially, would be taking a very junior officer, who is in effect a

National Defence committee  If I could just make a short statement to back up what we're saying here, I think the authors of that study, when they finished, ought to have recommended that Canada withdraw from all UN missions. If you use the same statistics, you'll recall that about a month ago a Canadian of

National Defence committee  I would simply say that there is a military logic to that kind of question and answer, but we ought not overplay it. I think the Taliban in the region we're in are attacking Canadians because we're the closest target, so they're shooting at us because we're there. But certainly t

National Defence committee  Well, I don't deal in hope, I don't think. I think the mission is doable. As I said, there will have to be adjustments as circumstances change. It's interesting that the focus is on NATO, and I think we should have some pressure on NATO to do things, but this is a UN mission. The

National Defence committee  I think it is of national interest to Canada because a stable global environment made up of liberal democratic states seems to be the most peaceful composition for the international community you can imagine. The more that states are free, elected, and democratic—as they are beco

National Defence committee  I'm not an expert on the region, but I would say evidently not, simply because of the criticism that is coming to Pakistan from the major leaders of other countries. The Pakistanis will explain that it's a very tough nut and they're working on it. But I really don't know the answ

National Defence committee  Yes, I have seen the testimony. I read it in detail, and Mr. Staples and I were engaged in a public debate two Fridays ago at Queen's University's homecoming. The debate was attended by 300 or 350 people: students; older folks; grey-haired men in suits. We talked for two hours wi

National Defence committee  No, I can't answer all your questions. However, the first question on the number of casualties in other forces operating in Afghanistan is readily available, and I think the research staff can find them. If they can't, would somebody send me a message and I'll put them onto a web

National Defence committee  Can I add a point to that? I agree, and I don't think talking about Canadian casualties as a measure of success or what we're doing is all that useful either. The research staff here might actually be able to go and find out how many members of the Canadian Forces have been ki