Canada won’t cut and run, Prime Minister Stephen Harper boldly declared in 2006 when his government was new to power and brimming with enthusiasm for the Afghan mission.
Four years later the Harper government is preparing to do just that. The official line is that, come what may, every last Canadian soldier, other than those assigned to protecting embassies, will be out of Afghanistan by December 2011.
Or will they?
This week, while on a visit to Canadian Forces Base Meaford, near Owen Sound, Ont., Defence Minister Peter MacKay appeared to significantly soften the government’s stand against extending the military mission in a new form.
Asked whether Ottawa would be open to keeping some soldiers in Afghanistan as trainers, MacKay said: “I know that (Michael) Ignatieff and (Bob) Rae have made comments recently about training, and extending the mission. That’s all very interesting.”
He added, in answer to my question about an “inside the wire” military training mission in Kabul: “All options are being considered.”
In the past, senior government ministers have always fielded such queries with a flat “no.”
Soon after MacKay’s remarks were published, his handlers moved to erase and minimize.
MacKay asserted Wednesday that he was referring only to a non-military mission to train police, jail guards and the like. Well, that’s not what he said. But, whatever.
Anyone who has followed this man’s career knows he is prone to periodic excesses of zeal, followed by hurried denials, sometimes accompanied by a knuckle-rapping from the PMO. So perhaps there’s no internal talk of a policy change. Or perhaps there’s discord about which course to take – MacKay and the defence brass privately favouring a new mission, Harper against.
The interesting question though, is why.
The Liberals have made it clear, most recently Wednesday, that they’re open to continuing the military mission in a non-combat capacity.
Likely that would involve Canadian soldiers, fewer than 200, being attached to a U.S. unit at Camp Julien, in Kabul, where Canadians have long had a role in training Afghan National Army officers.
The Americans and NATO are pressuring Ottawa to do something, anything, other than a full pullout.
With Liberal support the Conservatives could easily oblige. The parliamentary motion calling for a pullout next year, MacKay official Jay Paxton pointedly told me the other day, refers specifically to Kandahar – not to Afghanistan.
So why the obdurate resistance to any discussion of a continuing mission?
In this government, it comes down to Harper.
It could be political calculation on his part. Or it could be that he has concluded that the Afghan project is beyond saving. Politically, Afghanistan is a loser. Canadians are tired of the mission. Harper effectively took the debate off the table before the last election by announcing a firm pullout.
That was cynical but politically smart. It worked for him.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is widely known to be corrupt and incompetent.
Since even the Americans have said they will begin drawing down their forces next year, it’s difficult to see how this ends well. What prevents the Taliban from taking over again once the Americans leave?
Set against this is the need for Canada to stand by our allies, as long as they are collectively in this fight.
The right thing? A training mission would help our allies, who are in a tight spot, and is a fair compromise.
We should stay and see that through, helping to finish what we helped to start.
michael.dentandt@sunmedia.ca
