Hillier's "Mission Accomplished" Moment

General Rick Hillier has told the Toronto Star that Canada's soldiers in Afghanistan will be handing over their combat role in Kandahar to the Afghan army as early as next spring. The mission will then focus on training and supporting the Afghan soldiers to prepare them for taking on the Taliban.

With the Taliban resurgent in Kandahar province and our tactics utterly incapable of providing essential security to Afghan villagers supposedly under our protection, it makes sense to try something else.

Bear in mind that Canadian soldiers haven't sustained a lot of casualties in actual combat. We tend to get whacked by IEDs and suicide bombers while patrolling and simply driving down the wrong road once too often.

Still, giving up a relatively unsuccessful combat role is a good prelude for either bailing out of Afghanistan altogether or moving along to some more peaceful locale.

Will the Afghan army hold up without us? Not if history is any guide. Military power in Afghanistan seems to be best fielded in ethnic militias but you can't get to that point without in-fighting. Remember the "northern alliance"?

At least shifting to the training mode distances us from the smear of "cut and run". Like the Americans in Vietnam, we never lost - we just didn't win.