With both U.S. presidential wannabes competing over who will send more troops to Afghanistan, it puts increased pressure on our forces to stay, even though prospects are bleak. Our new military chief, “General Denial,” admits things have got worse rather than, as he initially said, better.

After the Kandahar prison break, in our own backyard, Gen. Walter Natynczyk said improved intelligence would be crucial: “When something doesn’t seem right then you don’t have all the information.” The Manley commission also called for better intelligence — a fine idea. Would it be hard to achieve? You bet. Take three examples.

First, during a big Canadian offensive near Kandahar, a “tribal elder” told The New York Times that he left his village before the prison break “because he sensed the Taliban was preparing something.” Now how do you supposed he “sensed” that, and our guys didn’t, despite their courses in local customs and their intel assets? Did someone perhaps tell him — because they speak the same language and some of them may be his neighbours or kin? They’re just not going to share the same local news and gossip with those little mounds of military equipment and Maple Leaf patches on their uniforms that trundle by. We could take the traditional routes of spreading around money and threats but, er, we’ve surely tried that. It’s the occupation, stupid.

Second, in the breakout fiasco, many prisoners smuggled in cellphones, wrote The Globe‘s Graeme Smith. They badgered the Taliban, demanding an escape since it was taking so long to get to trial (seriously). Local merchants were warned a break was coming so they wouldn’t get hurt. Prison officials knew enough to collect money owed them by prisoners. The assault was timed, just before lockup, so cell doors were open. It sounds like a caper movie. Everyone seemed to know, except the Canadians. The other side had great intel, but didn’t really need assets, since it pretty much is the assets. How do you compete with that?

Third, when a huge bomb exploded outside the Indian embassy in Kabul, an Afghan official said “everything has the hallmark” of a Pakistani operation. Aha! But hold on. If you’re a spy agency and you know they know your hallmark, wouldn’t you use someone else’s hallmark so they won’t suspect you? But hold on again. If you know they know you know they know your hallmark, then maybe you would use it, so they’d think it wasn’t you. Etc. This is the conundrum of all intelligence. The better an item is, the more likely it’s faked. Everything works equally well, backward and forward. Madam, I’m Adam. It’s why legendary CIA head James Jesus Angleton was said to look in the mirror each day and wonder if he was the mole he was searching for. And it’s why intelligence work won’t get you far, since the better it is, the more dubious it is too.

How might Canada even partially catch up? Well, foreign occupiers in the past tended to “go native,” at least some of them identifying with the locals and settling in permanently. Americans and Canadians show no sign of that kind of attachment and, anyway, it didn’t really work, they all eventually departed — and, since then, the natives got even more restless, while acquiring better intelligence too.

I think of Kim in these moments, from Kipling’s novel. The British Raj in India wisely recruited locals for the Great Game of spydom, like Hurree Babu, an anglophile who yearned to join the Royal Society in London, and Kim himself, who was drawn to the adventure and was half-English though entirely assimilated to Indian life. It was all no use in the end, since the Brits got booted out, and Kim chose to quit the game (which involved Afghanistan) to go back out on the road as a faithful disciple to his wonderful master, the “Teshoo Lama.” That’s human intelligence of a very different kind.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.