Christie Blatchford answers G&M readers’ questions on the mission in Afghanistan. It’s a couple of weeks old, but still worth your time.

But as for the nut of your question, reservists here got the very same training, including live-fire exercises, as did soldiers of the regular force. I don’t believe Cpl. Boneca was ill-trained. I don’t know what his state of mind was either, unlike some of my colleagues back home, who appear to know all too well from the comfort of their armchairs.

Nice shot, Christie.
Via ATC

A map showing the range of Iranian built missiles that Hezbollah may have possession of.

A variant of the buffer zone solution was tried in the past, when Israel occupied southern Lebanon after the 1982 invasion and supported the South Lebanese Army. Israel maintained a force of several thousand troops in southern Lebanon, with the brunt of the security provided by the SLA. In May of 2000, Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon without warning, and the SLA was overrun by Hezbollah. The Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon handed Hezbollah its greatest victory to date, as it could claim it drove the “Israeli occupiers” from the country and promoted itself as a legitimate “resistance force”.
Six years later, Hezbollah is a state within a state, with the ability to start a war and conduct missile strikes deep into Israeli territory. Hezbollah possesses an arsenal of over 11,500 missiles, supplied by Iran. Asharq Al-Awsat gives additional information of Hezbollah’s capabilities and Iran’s involvement in funding, arming and training Hezbollah to use advanced weaponry:

The rest of the discussion at Counterterrorism Blog. Map courtesy Kathryn Cramer. (Click here to view a full size version).

Story here.
Rich Lowry;

Was talking to a friend who follows missile defense closely about it just now. He recalls that THAAD suffered something like seven straight failures back in the 1990s. Clinton defense official John Hamre was going around Capitol Hill telling people the program was going to be cancelled. A bunch of Republican senators pushed back and the program stayed alive, achieving its first intercept in June 1999. It’s been onwards and upwards from there as the interceptor has gotten smaller, more reproducible, and more technologically sophisticated. Impressively, THAAD can operate both inside and outside the atmosphere.

A Canadian soldier serving in Afghanistan speaks out;

I knew Tony. I’ve kept my comments to myself until I could calm down my outrage over the media coverage of his death. We weren’t great friends, but buddies. Other soldiers know what I mean. I spoke to Tony a couple weeks ago out at one of the FOB’s. Not much said, just that there was a job to do, some bitching about the heat and the food, reminders that it would soon all be over, discussions of plans upon returning to Canada, the promise to drink some beers together on our way home. Normal soldier stuff. There is nothing in his first and last letters as published in the newspapers to suggest he was any more miserable than any other soldier, in any army, in any theatre in the world. It is our right to ***** and complain. A soldier who is not doing either, is upset or distressed and needs attention. A soldier who is not scared out there is a liar or crazy. As a soldier you do not ignore fear, you manage it. Welcome to war.
[…]
Mr / Ms reporter ; Please, suggest to my face or that of my military family that we do not possess the mindset or the skills needed to engage in combat. I don’t think you have the parts or the qualifications to make such a statement. You do however have the parts and the audacity to drag the family, friends and colleagues of Tony Boneca through the mud so you can sell papers and airtime and generate controversy. You do your country and your military a disservice but also have undoubtedly cause Tony’s parents a great deal of unneeded and unwanted stress. . You also do the general public a great disservice because you corrupt the truth and cloud the heroic activities of our soldiers, and you fuel the rhetoric spewed forth by the anti everything wackos out there.

Read the rest, at The Torch. Then, if you’re so inclined, pass a copy on to your friends.

Knowing the dangers involved in the drive from Kabul to Qalat, Tim decided to take the risk and drive down in a convoy of one vehicle. He needed to get his personnel to Qalat and had intended to drive down in a convoy last week, but problems occurred and the personnel was not in country for the move. Driving in a single vehicle gave us the advantage of anonymity, as large convoys are easily spotted and make for large targets. But driving alone entails the risk of not having backup in case of attack.
We armed ourselves with automatic weapons and chose the armored 4×4 Toyota pickup with red markings. The Toyota pickups are virtually everywhere in the Middle East and Central Asia, and because of this provides a level of camouflage. Haji, our Afghani driver who fought the Soviets with the Mujahideen, weaved through the rough rodes and chaotic early morning traffic in Kabul, then gunned it on the open road to Qalat. Haji is unmatched in his mastery of the Afghan roads, passing convoys of jingle trucks, farming vehicles, taxis, military convoys and local traffic. The 300 mile drive to Qalat took less than four hours, not bad on a two lane highway that weaves through mountains and towns. Along the road we passed the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Ghazni, several Afghan National Army bases and numerous police outposts and checkpoints. We also encountered several U.S. Army and Afghan National Army patrols. Tim noted this is a marked increase in a security presence over the past few months.

Bill Roggio is on his way home. You can read his last dispatch from Afghanistan here

Bill is interviewed by Richard Fernandez of the Belmont Club, on Operation Mountain Thrust.
Download the file at Pajamas Media.

Bill Roggio has another report on the progress of Canadian Forces in Afghanistan;

The battle group receive their orders: the Zari and Panjwai regions south of Highway 1 are to be swept of large concentrations of Taliban believed to be in the area. Charlie Company and the Afghan National Army are the hammer, and Bravo Company and the Afghan National Police are the anvil, setting up blocking positions in an effort to seal the Taliban’s escape. Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah and two other senior leaders are thought to be in the area. Intelligence indicated the Taliban are armed with small arms, RPGs and mortars and there is the possibility an anti aircraft gun and even Stinger antiaircraft missiles are in their possession.
[…]
On Sunday, the battle group broke from lunch and proceeded east to begin the operation. The Canadian effort is part of an overarching operation called Mountain Thrust, which is designed to decrease the Taliban’s influence and military power throughout southeastern Afghanistan. Military operations are followed with an increased security presence and aid programs designed to win back local support. Mountain Thrust has been in action for several weeks now in Zabul, Helmand Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces. Over the past few days, Mullah Omar’s brother in law, Mullah Amanullah, was killed along with fourteen other Taliban fighters in Uruzgan. Ten Taiban were killed in the Sangin district of Helmand province

Bill’s work in the field is especially valuable, for it frees a Canadian media already stretched thin covering both the death watch and weekly opinion polling on the Canadian mood towards Conservative warmongering.

By US airforce strike.
Roundups at Instapundit and Pajamas Media. They are hosting a podcast of “Richard Fernandez of the Belmont Club interviewing Omar from Iraq the Model – direct from Baghdad.”
Comments open for celebration.
From the comments, this – On the CBC 6:00 a.m. radio news, the commentator called this an “alleged victory”.
Well, to be fair – not everyone is celebrating.
More reaction from Iraq, IraqPundit

Iraq improved today, though true peace is obviously still far off. There are already reports of more deaths at the hands of terrorists who are now killing only for the sake of murder. Zarqawi’s death is another setback for a campaign that is only about death. The Zarqawi movement has failed to achieve any of its goals. Obviously, it has failed to stop the (often painful) development of Iraqi democratic institutions. Yes, there has been much sectarian violence, more than enough to satisfy those vultures who have been circling what they hope is Iraq’s corpse. But that violence was far from what Zarqawi’s band of killers sought to foment. Indeed, the last time we heard from Zarqawi, in an audiotape released this month, he had been reduced to pleading for an all-out civil war, ordering Iraq’s Sunnis to kill Shiites. But it’s Zarqawi who is dead. Iraq lives. As the Baghdadi man said from his heart, “It has to.”

Meanwhile, Bill Roggio is on the scene;

Tonight I had the displeasure of witnessing the Death Watch in action. An Al Jazeera report, based on an unsubstantiated claim from an unnamed Taliban source, indicated a Canadian soldier was kidnapped in Afghanistan. Reuters repeated the unsubstantiated claim, which later morphed into an unspecified number of Coalition troops. Canada’s Globe and Mail, in a rush to press, misidentified the lead Canadian Public Affairs Officer, Major Scott Lundy, as the “spokesman for NATO Special Forces” (the webmaster later corrected this and removed the reference to Major Lundy altogether.)
The Canadian media rushes into action, trying to get to the bottom of the story which very likely is a Taliban information operation. Cell phones are buzzing, reporters are pressing the public affairs officers for quotes. The Death Watch is in full news-gathering mode. Media outlets in Canadian are requesting live interviews and quick columns from their reporters at the airfield. The Canadian forces are in turn conducting a headcount but discount the reports, as this have happened in the past. If this is a false report, as it likely is, the propaganda machine of al-Qaeda and the Taliban has succeeded yet again in manipulating the Western media into doing their bidding. The DeathWatch continues as I submit this post, and Al Jazeera is downplaying the reports of the kidnapping.

He has more. Unsurprisingly, it involves real news about the operations there.

CTV;

Al-Jazeera television earlier quoted unnamed Taliban sources as saying they had abducted some Canadian soldiers.
The military is aware of the al-Jazeera news reports, Department of National Defence spokesperson Jay Paxton told CTV.ca on Wednesday afternoon.
“However the Department of National Defence does not have information that would validate that report,” he said.
“Further I can tell you that Task Force Afghanistan is investigating the status of personnel in Afghanistan,” he said.
CTV’s Steve Chao told Newsnet in a phone interview from Kandahar that the military has told him they have no indication that the report is true.

Gen. Rick Hillier refutes claim
Another update – Bill Roggio reports on the death watch reporting.

The line between man and Marvel Comics character blurs;

Via Drudge

“Help me, Canada”.

Damian Brooks takes apart the latest disingenuous reporting ( Paul Koring, Globe and Mail*) on the Canadian mission in Afghanistan;

Contrary to the impression left by some journalists, the CF has put some thought and effort into the question of combatant status. It’s a safe bet that not all of that deliberation has been made public, but some of it is in the public sphere: JAG’s Law of Armed Conflict Manual.
Of particular relevance to this discussion is Chapter 3, titled appropriately enough as “Combatant Status.”

The Torch is a good read from start to finish.

A followup on the Kabul rioting;

The violence was not Taliban-inspired, but composed mainly of Hazaris. The Haziris are an ethnic group that fought the Taliban under the banner of the Northern Alliance and followers of Ahmad Shah Masood , who was killed by al-Qaeda two days prior to 9-11. Masood’s image is prevalent in Kabul. The Hazaris have recently been marginalized by the Karzai administration after they lost their last cabinet post. The rioters were largely young, unemployed males, and there was a significant criminal element involved.
I spoke to several aid workers, contractors and Afghanis about the violence, and their conclusion was the demonstrations were organized, and the traffic accident was merely a catalyst. While there is frustration with driving habits of Western contractors and the military (particularly with the aggressive driving of some security company employees), the subsequent violence was primarily directed at the Karzai administration The neighborhood was targeted because of its relatively light security and the high-profile institutions that are housed there. There is concern among the community about the current security situation in Afghanistan, particularly with the increase in violence in southeastern Iraq and the murder of eight aid workers.

Bob On The FOB;

Now, I don’t care if you like or don’t like country music, or what your politics are regarding the war, I think that at the very least you need to respect the man for having the guts and courage of his convictions to stand up for what he believes is right (being patriotic is, sadly, not politically correct, apparently) and puts his money (and his body) where his mouth is by repeatedly coming over here to visit the troops in harm’s way. Not only that, but in talking to the troops organizer, I found out that Toby actually requested to visit the small, out-of-the-way FOBs that don’t get many visitors or tours. That says a lot about the man, to my mind.

Via Instapundit.

Bill Roggio;

The news reports of a major Taliban offensive in southeastern Afghanistan are inaccurate, as Coalition offensives and Taliban attacks have been lumped together to give the impression of a coordinated Taliban assault in multiple provinces. A reading of the various reports indicates that while the Taliban has launched a major strike on a police station and government center in Helmand province and a small scale attack on a police patrol in Ghazni, as well as two suicide attacks against U.S. contractors in Herat and an Afghan army base in Ghazni, the fighting in Kandahar was initiated by Afghan and Coalition security forces during planned operations. Over 100 have been reported killed during the fighting, with 87 being Taliban. Well over half of those killed were killed during the Coalition offensives in Kandahar.
There were two separate major engagements in Kandahar province, and both were initiated by the Coalition. Coalition forces conducted a raid and subsequent air strikes against a Taliban safe haven in the village of Azizi. As many as 27 Taliban are believed to have been killed during the operation. A joint Canadian and Afghan security force conducted a sweep in the Panjwai district of Kandahar, and killed 18 Taliban and captured 26 in the process. One Canadian officer was killed and three Afghan police were wounded during the operation.
[…]
It is important to understand how the fighting was initiated, as the current reporting is giving the impression of a coordinated Taliban uprising. This provides the Taliban with a propaganda victory, as their power is perceived as far greater than it actually is, which can negatively influence the government and peoples of the Coalition forces serving in Afghanistan. The narrow passage of the extension of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan (by a 149-145 vote in Parliament) illustrates the fragile nature of the support for the mission in some Western nations.

Emphasis mine. More on Afghanistan at Strategy Page.
Bill goes to Afghanistan to embed with the Canadian Forces next week. Be sure to bookmark him.

RightGirl;

I have launched a new program called Canadian Angels, which seeks to support our
Canadian Armed Forces overseas. As you may know, I am a member of soldiers Angels in
the United States, and have always felt the lack of such a program here in Canada.
My main goal right now is getting the word out to our Armed Forces, as going through
military channels hasn’t worked in the past. So please help spread the good news.
I hope you will stop by and check out Canadian Angels.

Those darned Liberals were right after all.

“Hey, I shoulda known: I didn’t choose my Canada.”

Bill Roggio;

The plan to embed in Afghanistan has come to fruition. Late next week, I will be headed to Kandahar, Afghanistan, and will embed with the Canadian Army, and will spend about three weeks in country. The activity in and around Kandahar has been intense as the Taliban are attempting to reestablish control of southeastern Afghanistan. There is still a chance I may meet up with a U.S. Army unit operating in Afghanistan (the Marine unit I wanted to embed with is rotating out of country.)
I need your help to cover the costs of the embed. We do not have the ad revenue that the major media can draw upon to fund their reporters. We’re counting on your generosity and your desire for an independent media source for news on the Global War on Terrorism. Please support the Afghanistan embed, as well as future embeds in Africa and Iraq later this year by donating to the Counterterrorism Foundation.

America’s loss is our gain. More respected than the CBC, more meaningful than a Globe & Mail poll – as a bonus, Bill actually knows of what he writes. Imagine that – a war reporter with knowledge of the subject matter that rises to the level expected of sports broadcasters!
For those wanting to help out, you can learn more here.

CNN;

By routing signals from helmet-mounted cameras, sonar and other equipment through the tongue to the brain, they hope to give elite soldiers superhuman senses similar to owls, snakes and fish.
Researchers at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition envision their work giving Army Rangers 360-degree unobstructed vision at night and allowing Navy SEALs to sense sonar in their heads while maintaining normal vision underwater — turning sci-fi into reality.
The device, known as “Brain Port,” was pioneered more than 30 years ago by Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita, a University of Wisconsin neuroscientist. Bach-y-Rita began routing images from a camera through electrodes taped to people’s backs and later discovered the tongue was a superior transmitter.

It’s kind of unsettling to realize the technologies of 2006 are outpacing the imaginations of 1977.
(h/t America’s #1 Kelly Pickler blog!)