Not A Clue

Two months ago today I e-mailed the Department of National Defence in Ottawa with three, simple questions:

1. What are the estimates of the strength of insurgents in Kandahar province?
2. Is it known how many of these are Taliban and how many al-Qaeda?
3. How is the insurgency organized and how does it operate in Canada's region of control?

Here's the reply that arrived today from Paul Villeneuve at NDHQ:

"Unfortunately we have no information available concerning the Taliban and al-Qaeda's organization or numbers."

Say what? This isn't 'secret' information. The bad guys already know their numbers and organization and I'll bet they know that we know too.

This is something we're going to have to keep an eye on because, in neighbouring Helmand province, a tight lid is being kept on what the military can reveal to the British public, not by the military for security reasons, but by the Blair administration for political reasons.

British TV crews are being kept out of the action in Helmand, journalists being restricted to military briefings at headquarters in Kandahar. What video does come out is either from the Ministry of Defence or from soldiers' cell phone cameras that is fed out surreptitiously.

As The Guardian's Alex Thomson puts it:

"The politicians appear to have concluded that the media are welcome to come along for the ride when things are fine and effectively put out good PR videos - but if it all goes a bit rum then we can just get lost."

We all know that the Harper government is no booster of free and open journalism. It controls the message very narrowly, very tightly. Lately there have been signs that our media is beginning to get as cowed as their colleagues in the U.S. and that's very dangerous for our democracy.