Many, many months ago, I wrote a piece for MediaScout about the war in Afghanistan that prompted an angry response from a certain CanWest reporter. I had argued that the media had done a poor job of explaining Canada’s role in Afghanistan. There are two separate missions in Afghanistan right now, a NATO-led mission and a US-led mission, and the bulk of Canadian forces continue to operate under the US command.
I was told, in a rather condescending way, that Canada was fighting with NATO and that I was simply seeing the world through anti-American glasses.
I pointed the reporter to DND’s breakdown of overseas missions which shows the bulk of Canadian soldiers serving in the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom. Now, many months later, Paul Koring of the Globe and Mail has finally offered up what is, in my opinion, the best explanation of the nature of the mission.
To my knowledge, and I stand to be corrected, the CanWest reporter in question still hasn’t published anything like this, though he has been a lot more careful in noting the differences in recent reports.