What to do on Afghanistan

That’s the question anyway, I have no idea if I’ll be able to answer it. I’ve been mulling over my thoughts on the matter for awhile now, and I’m not sure I’m any closer to figuring it out.

Putting aside all politics, which is pretty well impossible to do, and putting aside a number of other considerations too, which is also impossible, in a perfect world I think we should stay. I believe the international community needs to be in Afghanistan, and that includes Canada.

It was the right decision to go in, the former Taliban regime harboured the Al Quaeda terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks. And we can’t just leave once the Taliban were overthrown, we need to help bring peace and stability to the country, and help ensure they can keep it that way themselves. While I want the focus to be rebuilding and aid, I recognize that’s impossible without the pacification of the Taliban, so I recognize continued combat operations are and will continue to be necessary.

So, in a perfect world, I’d say for sure, Canada should stay over there, and our military should keep doing its important work. However, as we all know, it’s not a perfect world. Here are some of my concerns:

*For one, just logistically, the fact is Canada is a small country, with a small military. I worry about how long we can keep cycling through troops before they start to get fatigued and burnt-out. I haven’t heard that concern addressed by the Manley panel.

*I also think it’s time for some of the other members of the NATO alliance to step up to the plate, if this truly is an alliance. And I don’t mean a token 1000 troops, that’s not going to make a major difference in Kandahar, and it certainly won’t take much burden off of our troops, or allow us to move them elsewhere. Canada stepped-up and asked for Kandahar, we wanted the tough assignment. It wasn’t government dithering, that’s a myth. The government and the military knew this was a tough assignment, and that someone had to do it. And we have. But we didn’t sign-up for an indefinite deployment in the toughest part of the country. At the very least, we should be rotating through with the other countries that are there. I’m looking at you Germany, the guys that won’t let your soldiers out after dark.

*Lately I’ve been more and more worried about just what in the heck kind of government we’re working to support in Afghanistan anyway. Last week during her speech, Pamela Wallin said we can’t impose our culture and value on the Afghans. And I agree, to a point. But covering the ass of a governor accused of torture? Standing by while a journalist is unfairly sentenced to death? You start to wonder just how different the new boss is from the old boss. Yes, we can’t impose our values. But we also can’t aid and abet torture and murder. We can’t be co-conspirators. Just leave and yes, it’s likely to get worse. But if we’re going to stay, we need to find a middle ground between imposing our values and aiding and abetting.

*I’d feel a lot better about staying if I felt we were making real progress, and had a real strategy in place. Some of the problems were identified by the Manley group, like better coordination between the countries in the mission, the need for a UN 3^rd party rep to smack some heads, and getting smarter about aid. But it’s not enough to identify the problems, actions needs to be taken. Moreover, I’d feel better about staying if we weren’t ignoring a major strategic problem: the porous Pakistani border. Pakistan provides a safe haven for the Taliban continue to cause havoc in Afghanistan and hamper the needed aid and reconstruction work. The Pakistani government has proven unable or unwilling (probably both) to do anything about it. And even if their government wanted our help, accepting it would be politically impossible for them. So, with this issue unaddressed, Pakistan becomes more and more like the Laos to our Vietnam. And there doesn’t seem to be any serious desire to address this elephant in the room. Probably about the best we can do at the moment is more heavily patrol the border region but that would take a lot of troops, which would mean the U.S., and they’re busy a little further west at the moment.

Politics

The domestic politics around this issue haven’t exactly risen to the occasion, nor provided anything resembling leadership or a way forward. The NDP seems to want an immediate withdrawal, transitioning to some kind of UN-led non-military mission. That’s not going to work;more emphasis on aid, yes, but there can’t be aid without stability. The Conservatives want an open-ended mission with no exit strategy, that’s not acceptable to me either. Their constant politicization of the war, the simplistic rhetoric and demoniztion of dissent, and their unwillingness to address strategic concerns is also unacceptable, and in my opinion has done more to hamper support for the mission than the casualty count has. And then there are my Liberals, trying to thread the needle of a caucus with strong views on both sides.

This is really a time for statesmen, but we haven’t seen much examples of statesmanship in Ottawa lately. The Liberals seems to be the swing votes at the moment and for now both sides are playing nice. The NDP wants the Liberals to adopt their position, I’m not sure if there’s any room for compromise on their end, I haven’t seen any indications anyway. And Harper has dialed down the rhetoric a tad too, and is set to meet with Dion today. How far the Cons may be willing to move is questionable too. And I don’t doubt any movement by the Liberals will quickly be exploited by both sides for political gain, no matter how nice they make.

Before I dispense with politics, let me say this. Whatever course the Liberals decide to make, we need to get behind it as a team. No freelancing, no public dissent, but one clear, united message communicated to the press and to Canadians. Leave any disagreements in the caucus room.

What compromise?

I don’t know what a potential compromise might look like. On one hand, it might be easy to say, sure, let’s extend the combat mission two more years, to 2011, as long as we get more allied support, and logistical and strategic issues are addressed. And benchmarks and targets established. I feel though like that’s as good as an indefinite extension, and wouldn’t truly be a real end date. Didn’t we think two years ago, when we extended to 2009, that that would be it? Are we going to keep doing this every two years?

I think it’s time for us to end our combat mission in Kandahar, and for another NATO or UN country to rotate in. We’ve fulfilled our commitment in the hot spot. This was never meant to be an open-ended deployment. If we’re not going to bring our troops home, as a compromise I’d support rotating them to a quieter part of the country, where they could focus more on reconstruction. But I won’t support an open-ended continued combat role in Kandahar, and I have no faith in any kind of exit date/strategy the Conservatives might propose.

And support for any continued Canadian presence should be contingent on a stronger and more organized aid effort, action to address the Pakistan border issue, a humane and fair detainee policy open to parliamentary overview, more transparent and open communication by the government and the military with parliamentarians and with Canadians, action to address the opium poppy issue, and effort to instill more democratic ideals among the Afghan people and government.

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