Canadian troops forced to start from scratch
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
September 1, 2007 at 1:23 AM EDT
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Like Sisyphus, the Greek mythological figure condemned to push a boulder up a hill every day only to see it roll right back down, Canadian soldiers here are trapped in a loop that has the fourth iteration of troops battling for the exactly the same ground their predecessors in southern Afghanistan fought to take.
“We essentially have to start from scratch, you know,” Brigadier-General Guy Laroche told The Globe and Mail this week in an interview at the main coalition base at Kandahar Air Field.
“Everything we have done in that regard is not a waste of time, but close to it, I would say.”
Gen. Laroche, the new commander of Canada's Task Force Afghanistan, wasn't being critical in any way of the regiments that came here before him – and whose tours were conducted at a frenetic, in some cases combat-heavy, pace that this rotation of soldiers has yet to experience – but rather stating the obvious.
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