Il faut tuer quelques amiraux

Voltaire’s advice ‘Il faut tuer quelques amiraux de temps en temps pour encourager les autres’ may be a little harsh for today, but perhaps we need some housekeeping in our military leadership. Firing a few of our generals might encourage the rest to practice better leadership in Afghanistan.

Brigadier-General Fraser seems intent on sending our troops outside the relative safety their armoured vehicles in a war zone. Some of our general officers seem to believe the fable that we are in Afghanistan on a ‘peace-keeping’ mission. Some of the general officers seem to be focused solely on rebuilding and mending relations in a country that is still at war. That they instruct their troops to carry out these noble efforts in a totally unstable situation either shows military ignorance or a blindness to reality.

For Fraser to say that the recent bicycle bomber did not fit the profile of a guerrilla fighter shows his incompetence in understanding the nature of the conflict. If the general does not comprehend the situation, how well do his troops? If Fraser or some of his officers had read Maclean’s a few months ago, they would have seen an old grizzled Taliban fighter vowing to route all foreigners out of his country. They might have realized that old men can pedal a bomb into their midst.

Peacekeeping supposes a cease-fire, something that has never happened in Afghanistan. The relative safety of Kabul does not exist in Kandahar. Fraser may think he can only win the minds of the Afghans by mingling with them, and that may be the case – once it is safe to do so. But his first duty is to his men and women serving in his command, not to the Afghan people.

The world has changed since Pearson won the Noble prize for his peacekeeping ideas. It is time our leaders (and we) came to a new understanding of how to cope with the reality of terrorists and guerrillas.

Bring the Brigadier-General home to face an inquiry in front of parliament. We do not need to follow Voltaire’s dictum to the letter and hang him, but firing him might awaken our military leadership.