Cpl. Nathan Hornburg: killed during Taliban mortar attack on armoured patrol in Panjwai

Canadian officers Tuesday confirmed the loss of their forces’ seventy-first soldier killed in Afghanistan, 24-year-old Cpl. Nathan Hornburg of Calgary, Alberta.

Cpl. Hornburg was killed Monday in a Taliban mortar attack on his armoured column in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province. Three other soldiers were wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade in the exchange of fire that followed the attack.

While Canada’s troops have grappled head-on with Taliban forces since taking up their combat role in February, 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his minority Conservative government have deferred to the Bush administration’s lacklustre attempts to address the most urgent strategic consideration of the Kandahar theatre of operations: Pakistan.

Ultimate command and control of Taliban units such as the one responsible for Cpl. Hornburg’s death is exercised from safe havens in Pakistan's border regions.

Pakistani forces are currently disengaging from their face-off with Taliban and al Qaeda militants in Waziristan, further to the east, but have yet to take any meaningful action against the Taliban’s leadership and combat support assets in Baluchistan province, on Kandahar’s southern border.

Elements of Pakistan's military intelligence service, the ISI, continue to shelter the Taliban’s top leadership in Baluchistan. Taliban fighters pass freely from Pakistani territory into Kandahar, and Helmand province to the west.

On Monday, as Hornburg’s unit fought in Panjwai, Harper and his key ministers were half a world away in New York and Ottawa, and not bringing pressure to bear on their Pakistani counterparts over the Taliban’s sanctuary and support.

Harper was addressing climate change in New York, while his freshman Foreign Minister was signing up to the U.N.’s breathtakingly vague “joint communiqué” on Afghanistan. Defence Minister Peter MacKay, meanwhile, was in Ottawa, clarifying the government’s plan to notify its NATO partners by April of next year whether Canada will cease its combat role in February of 2009, as demanded by parliamentary opposition parties.

It was MacKay who undertook the government's last significant face-to-face meeting with Pakistani officials – more than eight months ago. During a visit to Islamabad in January, MacKay stressed Canada’s opposition to the building of a security fence on the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Since then, 27 Canadian soldiers have died in Kandahar, while the government has forwarded no other meaningful initiatives on the Taliban safe havens issue.

The Prime Minister has not appointed a special envoy to Pakistan – a statesman, for example, of former Prime Minister Joe Clark’s stature – to increase pressure on President Musharraf for results. Pakistan’s ambassador to Canada has not been carpeted on these concerns, much less sent packing back to Islamabad with clear and coherent messages for his government.

Neither has Stephen Harper taken steps to encourage Canada’s NATO allies to adopt new Pakistan strategies. Even in the face of growing impatience from the US intelligence community and the Pentagon over the absence of leadership from the White House, Harper and his closest aides have chosen to acquiesce to the status quo on the sanctuaries issue.

Sadly, this is a luxury not afforded the men and women of Canada’s mission to Kandahar, where Canadian troops continue to demonstrate great determination and courage under fire – despite the complete absence of responsible war leadership from Ottawa.