The US Defense Secretary’s Cindy Sheehan moment

The next time US Defense Secretary Robert Gates gets a Cindy Sheehan moment against NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, accusing them of being ill-prepared to fight off an insurgency, he should keep it to himself. Gates, who unleashed a storm in harsh NATO criticism on Wednesday, was already back-pedaling on Thursday. But by the time he was rephrasing his intemperate remarks, Canadian, anti-troop, publicity hound New Democrat Party (NDP) leader Jack Layton had already seized upon the moment.

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“I think Canadians, just as they rose up and spoke around the war in Iraq—ultimately provoking Mr. Chrétien to do the right thing at the last moment on the eve of the invasion—the Canadian people need to speak out now,” Layton said. “We can change the direction of Canadian foreign policy.” “I’m worried we have some military forces that don’t know how to do counter-insurgency operations,” Gates told the Los Angeles Times. “Most of the European forces, NATO forces, are not trained in counter-insurgency.” Important intelligence right off the front pages of daily newspapers for the Taliban; a blow to the morale of troops in harms way in Taliban plagued Afghanistan. Troops mainly from Britain, Canada and the Netherlands are deployed in southern Afghanistan bearing the brunt of a fierce resurgence by the Taliban Islamic militia, which left approximately 6,000 people dead, including some 220 international soldiers. Gates’ timing was up at Code Pink level, as his rant came one day after the United States decided to send 3,200 extra troops to Afghanistan and on the same day that former Michigan congressman Mark Siljander was indicted for his part in an alleged terrorist fundraising ring accused of sending more than $130,000 to an al-Qaeda supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan. The Dutch government summoned the US ambassador in The Hague to explain the comments made by Gates. “We do not recognize ourselves in the image conjured” by Gates, Dutch Defence Secretary Elmert van Middelkoop said, arguing that Dutch troops had acted with experience and professionalism. Nearly 1,665 Dutch soldiers are deployed in Uruzgan in Southern Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Canadian Defense Minister Peter Mackay on Wednesday was playing down the criticism, saying Gates had just told him by telephone the remarks were “taken out of context”. “They were comments made of a general nature about the need to focus training of NATO and the alliance on counter insurgency,” MacKay said of Gates’ explanation, adding: “His comments were certainly not directed at Canada.” That’s not what Canadian award-winning filmmaker Garth Pritchard told Canada Free Press (CFP) yesterday. “Every soldier in Afghanistan is downcast today,” said Pritchard. “I have been inundated with emails from the troops today, all of them asking the same question: `Why?’” Pritchard, who has twice been to Afghanistan in recent years and is currently working his way through bureaucratic red tape to return in early February, is the kind of guy neither Gates nor Layton would hope to run into at a meeting. The outspoken who has been a camera lens away from skirmishes with the Taliban says the Gates rant could be turned around to get out the true story of what is “happening on a daily basis in Afghanistan”. “Canadian troops are doing an incredible job in Afghanistan but nobody is telling their story.” “Our media is on death watch and writing reams about ramp ceremonies. Jack Layton is seizing the headlines. “Recently the layers of red tape in getting into Afghanistan have made it all but impossible. They will tell you, come and tell the story, but when you actually try to do it, they put you through hoops that get you nowhere.” Pritchard sends this message to those in charge: “You want the story of the incredible job Canada is doing in Afghanistan out to the public? Then open the gates.”