The downhill slide?

If we lose in Afghanistan, this will be why:

“Commanders have also ordered troops to hold off attacking militants in some situations where civilians are at risk”.

If you can think of a statement of more use to irregular forces that have no concept of the Laws of Armed Conflict, I’d like to hear it. It gets better, too:

'Mr de Hoop Scheffer said Gen Dan McNeill, the commander of the Nato force in Afghanistan, Isaf, had also instructed troops to delay attacks on Taleban fighters if civilians are at risk.

"We realise that, if we cannot neutralise our enemy today without harming civilians, our enemy will give us the opportunity tomorrow," he added,

"If that means going after a Taleban not on Wednesday but on Thursday, we will get him then."'

I could go on and on about this, but I’ll content myself with just saying that if this is permitted to stand as NATO’s official position, we will inevitably lose in Afghanistan, and the opposition will manage to claim PR points on us every time we accidentally kill the civilians that they were hiding behind.

This leads me to the UN announcement that they want peacekeepers for Darfur. This is of course no surprise, but the uselessness of the plan is manifest (emphasis mine):

“UN resolution number 1769 will allow peacekeeping troops to use force for self-defence, to allow humanitarian workers to move freely and to protect civilians under attack.

However, they won't be able to seize and dispose of illegal arms.

A threat of future sanctions against Sudan was also removed from the resolution, which had been watered down during negotiations.

The resolution authorizes up to 19,555 military personnel and 6,432 civilian police in what is being called a "hybrid" force.”

As with pretty much everything the UN has been responsible for, this will be an expensive waste of time. Probably not an issue, as Canada has its’ hands full, but those of you who know me can smack me in the head if I ever let myself get sent on one of these missions. If I learned anything for Lt. Gen. (ret) Dallaire’s book, Shake Hands with the Devil, it’s don’t get sent on UN missions that tie your hands in such a fashion that they prevent you from doing what needs to be done.

Afghanistan is so far not at that level, but if the powers that be restrict the rules of engagement further, it’ll turn into another Bosnia. We’d then not only fail to meet our objectives, but there would be a lot more cases of PTSD (my pet hypothesis) and it would destroy the Canadian Army, again. As always, all opinions stated are my own; it's more fun that way.