"Our Mission was the people of Kandahar and keeping the Taliban from interfering with rebuilding. When we did use force, we had to be discriminate Killing innocent civilians would be mission failure. I had the A-Team ad could not make it work with lesser men and women." - Lieutenant-Colonel rob Walker, Commanding Officer, 2RCR Battlegroup "Our job is to create a functional government that earns the respect of its population. The people of Kandahar are not asking for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They want Canada's peace, order, and good government. We're getting there. But it takes time, Thankfully Afghans are more patient than people back home." - Gavin Buchan, Director, Foreign Affairs, Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, 2006-07 "My soliders got to know every inch of Zharey District and its people. It was our back-yard. We knew it better than the Taliban, especially the foreign fighters. People learned to trust us and started staying in their homes while we rant he enemy out of town." - Major David Quick, India Company

One of the most critical battles of the Afghan War is now revealed as never before. Lions of Kandahar is an inside account from the unique perspective of an active-duty U.S. Army Special Forces commander. As then-Captain Rusty Bradley he began his third tour of duty in southern Afghanistan in 2006, the Taliban were poised to reclaim Kandahar Province, their strategically vital onetime capital. To stop them, the NATO coalition launched Operation Medusa, the largest offensive in its history. This is the story of a two-week battle that raged in scorching heat over a territory the size of Rhode Island.--From publisher description.

Winner of the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award for Nonfiction From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars, the epic and enthralling story of America's intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11 Prior to 9/11, the United States had been carrying out small-scale covert operations in Afghanistan, ostensibly in cooperation, although often in direct opposition, with I.S.I., the Pakistani intelligence agency. While the US was trying to quell extremists, a highly secretive and compartmentalized wing of I.S.I., known as "Directorate S," was covertly training, arming, and seeking to legitimize the Taliban, in order to enlarge Pakistan's sphere of influence. After 9/11, when fifty-nine countries, led by the U. S., deployed troops or provided aid to Afghanistan in an effort to flush out the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the U.S. was set on an invisible slow-motion collision course with Pakistan. Today we know that the war in Afghanistan would falter badly because of military hubris at the highest levels of the Pentagon, the drain on resources and provocation in the Muslim world caused by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and corruption. But more than anything, as Coll makes painfully clear, the war in Afghanistan was doomed because of the failure of the United States to apprehend the motivations and intentions of I.S.I.'s "Directorate S". This was a swirling and shadowy struggle of historic proportions, which endured over a decade and across both the Bush and Obama administrations, involving multiple secret intelligence agencies, a litany of incongruous strategies and tactics, and dozens of players, including some of the most prominent military and political figures. A sprawling American tragedy, the war was an open clash of arms but also a covert melee of ideas, secrets, and subterranean violence. Coll excavates this grand battle, which took place away from the gaze of the American public. With unsurpassed expertise, original research, and attention to detail, he brings to life a narrative at once vast and intricate, local and global, propulsive and painstaking. This is the definitive explanation of how America came to be so badly ensnared in an elaborate, factional, and seemingly interminable conflict in South Asia. Nothing less than a forensic examination of the personal and political forces that shape world history, Directorate S is a complete masterpiece of both investigative and narrative journalism.

This collection of essays explores how fighting in the rugged, hostile lands of Afghanistan is no easy task. Afghanistan has long been considered the graveyard of empires. Throughout their history, Afghans have endured the ravages of foreign invaders, from marauding hordes and imperial armies to global superpowers, while demonstrating a fierce independence and strong resistance to outside occupiers. Those who have ventured into Afghanistan with notions of controlling its people have soon discovered that fighting in that rugged, hostile land is no easy task. Afghans have proven to be tenacious and unrelenting foes. No Easy Task examines this legacy of conflict, particularly from a Canadian perspective. What emerges is the difficulty faced by foreign forces attempting to impose their will over Afghans who, for their part, have consistently adapted tactics and strategies to stymie and defeat those they perceive as invaders and interlopers. It is within this complexity and challenge that the difficult counter-insurgency must be fought.

From the Canadian in charge of the joint military command in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan, this is the real on-the-ground story of one of NATO's bloodiest, most decisive and misunderstood operations: The battle of Panjwayi, the defining moment of "Operation Medusa." In the summer of 2006, David Fraser was the Canadian general in charge of NATO's Regional Command South, a territory spanning six Afghan provinces surrounding the Arghandab Valley. Birthplace of the Taliban decades earlier, this fertile region had since become Afghanistan's most deadly turf. It would soon turn deadlier still. Advised in the night by his intelligence officers that the Taliban had secretly amassed for a full-scale military assault, Fraser knew it would fall to him, his Canadians and their allies to avoid the wholesale slaughter of NATO troops, keep the Taliban from laying siege to Kandahar and restore control of the south of the country to a newly formed, democratic Afghan government. The odds were solidy against Fraser's forces. The Taliban knew every millimetre of their own terrain. During the months of secret manoeuvres they had stocked every farmhouse, school, grape hut and tunnel with weapons and ammunition. They had drilled Soviet-era landmines into all of the marijuana and poppy fields, and dug IEDs into every roadway. Protected from detection by corrupt officials, their sophisticated warfare schools had successfully readied an army of zealous fighters to attack and fight to the death. And now their top commanders were poised to launch decisive military operations against freshly arrived troops who had never seen combat. The bloodiest battle in NATO's history was about to begin.

Canadian Forces, including Special Operations Forces, have played an outsize role in the conflict in Afghanistan, often under a cloak of secrecy. For the first time, Col. Bernd Horn reveals the stories of the troops and operations behind Canada’s pivotal involvement in the Afghanistan conflict. No Ordinary Men Peels back the cloak of secrecy and reveals four untold special operations that Joint Task Force 2, an elite counterterrorist unit, conducted in 2005–06 in which their courage, tenacity, and impressive capabilities meant the difference between life and death. No Lack of Courage The story of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Operation Medusa, the largely Canadian action in Afghanistan from 1 to 17 September 2006, to dislodge a heavily entrenched Taliban force in the Pashmul district of Afghanistans Kandahar Province. No Easy Task Afghanistan has long been considered the graveyard of empires. Those who have ventured into Afghanistan with notions of controlling its people have soon discovered that fighting in that rugged, hostile land is no easy task. This collection of essays examines this legacy of conflict, particularly from a Canadian perspective.

Scarce Heard Amid the Guns tears the curtain of myth away, providing a rare, visceral inner perspective of the various Canadian peacekeeping missions. “In the Service of Peace” — simple words that adorn the obverse of every United Nations medal, yet behind this eloquence lurks violence and an unheralded heroism invisible to an often misunderstood quarter of Canada’s military history. The Canadian contribution to peacekeeping is enormous but ensnared in a lethal mythology that has seen it abandoned to popular folklore. From the early and intrinsic Canadian contribution to the U.N. Emergency Force in 1956, through the blur of the frenetic 1990s down to the anemic level of contemporary Canadian participation, it is difficult to make sense of the wide circumference of this significant legacy. Until now. Scarce Heard Amid the Guns provides an incisive perspective on the various Canadian missions: their omnipresent doubt and un-telegraphed terrors. This insider’s guided tour of our military at war in peace introduces us to some of the men and women who carried the day — ordinary Canadians who did extraordinary things and continue to bear the scars of forgotten fields in their bones.

When the Canadian government committed forces to join the military mission in Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, little did it foresee that this decision would involve Canada in a war-riven country for over a decade. The Politics of War explores how, as the mission became increasingly unpopular, Canadian politicians across the political spectrum began to use it to score points against their opponents. This was “politics” with a vengeance. Through historical analysis of the public record and interviews with officials, Jean-Christophe Boucher and Kim Richard Nossal show how the Canadian government sought to frame the engagement in Afghanistan as a “mission” rather than what it was – a war. They examine the efforts of successive governments to convince Canadians of the rightness of Canada’s engagement, the parliamentary politics that resulted from the increasing politicization of the mission, and the impact of public opinion on Canada’s involvement. This contribution to the field of Canadian foreign policy demonstrates how much of Canada’s war in Afghanistan was shaped by the vagaries of domestic politics and political gamesmanship.

Infantry, combat engineer, armour, and psychological operations: Seven soldiers represent the breadth of Canada’s longest, most complicated and challenging operation in Kandahar Province.

Anthropology is particularly well suited to explore the contemporary predicament in the coming of age of young men. Its grounded and comparative empiricism provides the opportunity to move beyond statistics, moral panics, or gender stereotypes in order to explore specific aspects of life course transitions, as well as the similar or divergent barriers or opportunities that young men in different parts of the world face. Yet, effective contextualization and comparison cannot be achieved by looking at male youths in isolation. This volume undertakes to contextualize male youths’ circumstances and to learn about their lives, perspectives, and actions, and in turn illuminates the larger structures and processes that mediate the experiences entailed in becoming young men. The situation of male youths provides an important vantage point from which to consider broader social transformations and continuities. By paying careful attention to these contexts, we achieve a better understanding of the current influences encountered and acted upon by young people.