CANADA'S AFGHANISTAN MISSION UNDER FIRE

Soldiers Dying For U.S. Drug Policy: European Report

PM, Military Brass Lash Out At Claims From Think-Tank

LONDON--The Canadian government is in denial over the true perception
of its troop deployment to Afghanistan's troubled Kandahar province,
says the head of a European drug policy think-tank.

Emmanuel Reinert, executive director of the Brussels-based Senlis
Council, said he was taken aback by the virulent reaction to the
group's report, which said Canadian soldiers and Afghan civilians are
paying with their lives because of failing U.S. policies that focus
on eradication of the poppy crop

Military officials and politicians accused the think-tank of being
anti-American and outright wrong in its assessment of the state of
the 10-month-old Canadian-led mission.

"It makes me angry because it trivializes the efforts of soldiers on
the ground who are doing the right thing every day," said Lt.-Col.
Ian Hope, commander of the Princess Patricia's battle group in
Kandahar. "They try to take those efforts and use them for political purposes."

And Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada is working to eliminate
the threat of terrorism, but also wants to eliminate drug trafficking
that's causing problems on our streets.

"For that reason we support the efforts of the international
community to eradicate drug production," Harper said.

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said Afghans appreciate what the
Canadian military is doing there.

"The reports I've been receiving from the Kandahar area is that
Canadians are quite popular there and the villagers accept us quite
readily," O'Connor said. "We're trying to do whatever we can with our
aid to try and make their lives better."

But Reinert said his group is not casting lofty accusations from
afar, but rather relaying what is being said by the team of 30-plus
workers who conducted the recent field survey.

He said that whether it is hard to hear or not, the perception is
that Canadian troops, like the Americans, the British and the
privately hired security guards, are widely viewed as the enemy.

"Our competitive advantage, our added value to this debate ... is
that we are not identified with any military or government
organizations..." he said.

"What we are bringing to the table is the perception of people in
Afghanistan ... and our people on the ground are telling us that they
see the troops as invaders, they are telling us that the patience of
Afghanis is running out almost five years after the war."

The report urges the Canadian government to distance itself from U.S.
military strategy, and to re-establish its reputation as a country
that's in Afghanistan to help the people recover from war and hardship.

Reinert said the goodwill built by Canadians since the U.S.-led
invasion in 2001, and Canada's longstanding reputation for
fair-minded peacekeeping, is being squandered in Kandahar as Afghanis
tire of years of desperate poverty and see their only source of
income -- the poppy trade -- eradicated.

The Senlis Council is an umbrella group created in the 1970s to bring
together some of Europe's biggest philanthropic organizations to fund
projects that "propose new ways of bridging security with development."

The council's goal is to devise new public policy around the illegal
drug trade, and it believes Afghanistan's poppy industry should be
allowed to continue, with a strictly controlled legal mandate to
supply medical opiates such as morphine.

The council points to Turkey, which has a licensing agreement for
poppy cultivation with the U.S. that sees America buy 80 per cent of
its medicinal opium from Turkey and India, countries where the crops
were largely feeding the illegal heroin trade.

With Files From Canadian Press