There is no stream of independent dispatches from embedded reporters, as was the rule during the 2002-14 Afghan campaign because there is no embed program. The truth is much simpler, as it has been since the Conservative government launched the mission in 2014: Canada is at war. Humanitarian work and training require force protection; force protection requires intelligence; intelligence applied requires pre-emptive action, which sometimes mean bombing. There can be no effective training of ground troops in a shooting war without accompanying those troops into combat, a point made during the election campaign. This was a central lesson of the Afghan war.

Source: National Post October 18, 2016 20:20 UTC