Trainers against ISIS could make a major contribution, says former Afghan trainer

This week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Canada's allies that warplanes operating in Iraq and Syria will be coming home, but Canada would be sending more military trainers to assist in the fight against ISIS.

But what does being a military trainer mean, and what can they accomplish?

Mark Lundie, who is a warrant officer with the Seaforth Highlanders and an RCMP sergeant, trained local Afghan counter-terrorism police officers how to do their jobs better for 11 months in 2011. He says trainers can do a lot.

"They are the cutting edge, the sharp end of the [Canadian Forces]," he told On The Coast host Stephen Quinn. "They bring a lot to the table with their training and their expertise and the respect they've garnered around the world for conducting such operations."

Worked in counter-terrorism

Lundie was assigned to work with counter-terrorism units in Afghansitan because of his national security experience in Canada.

He says he worked on improving the standards of the work being done within the Ministry of the Interior and also mentored Afghan soldiers on carrying out operations.

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One problem he says he was able to improve was the lack of paperwork at the detention facility that often left officials baffled about the backstories of prisoners.

"What I came up with was basically a prosecutor information sheet, a document that translated in both Dari and Pahsto the synopsis of how these folks were picked up, who arrested them, why they were arrested, and what the circumstances or evidence behind it was," he said.

Lundie feels that Canada will be able to make a real contribution through trainers because of what he and others did in Afghanistan — even if there won't be a large number of trainers working against ISIS.

"Canadians are pretty effective at what they do, and we're requested around the world by our partners, not just the military, but the police and the whole of government," he said. "Yeah, we're a small military, but we have the capability to go over there and carry out a bigger job than what is expected of a nation our size."

But he also says that no one should consider trainers to be totally safe just because they aren't engaging in operations against ISIS. In fact, in Afghanistan, Canadian trainers would sometimes fight alongside Afghan troops as mentors.

"People thought Kabul would be a pretty safe environment. It wasn't," Lundie said.

To hear the full story, click on the audio labelled: Former trainer says people like him make a major contribution