Afstan: Reality vs. politics

Don Martin of CanWest News reflects at the end of his assignment; pretty fair I would say--and his comments on Prime Minister Harper are interesting (to say the least):

Right off the bat, let me argue that Canada cannot impose a political timetable on successfully ending this military mission.

It's like picking a date before the Normandy invasion for Canada to withdraw from the Second World War, yet we're just 18 months from a House of Commons vote to retreat with no obvious heir to our United Nations responsibility for the dangerously volatile Kandahar province.

Canadian-assisted progress on redevelopment, political reform, army training, police education and humanitarian relief will be terminated for political expediency, not measurable accomplishment...

Prime Minister Stephen Harper should not revisit Kandahar any time soon.

His sudden wimpiness on the file, replacing unconditional support for the mission with a shrugged surrender to a fix-is-in consensus of Parliament, is seen as inexplicable here. Soldiers who believed they had a Churchillian prime minister now know he's just another political weather vane, twisting in response to the winds of public opinion...

I left the brightest development for last, but Kandahar City is on an economic roll, booming in population and bursting with building activity.

The lineup of truck traffic outside the city's customs terminal is a sight vaguely reminiscent of a Windsor border crossing, albeit with colourful jingle trucks in lieu of 18-wheelers. There are billboards extolling the virtues of a university education over becoming a suicide bomber.

It is, veteran observers say, an echo of what happened in Kabul several years ago when the capital prospered and security concerns abated. If the south's largest city can thrive in spite of chronic security problems, hope springs anew the entire region will stabilize and revitalize.

But know this for sure: If Canada pulls out in early 2009 as expected, hope for Kandahar will fade.

As Lieutenant-General Michel Gauthier, commander of Canadian expeditionary forces, told reporters yesterday: "I don't think anybody believes the job is going to be done by February '09 from an international community perspective. Nobody's under any illusion that Afghanistan will be self-sustaining and self-sufficient by February '09."

He won't say it, but that reality makes it imperative that Canadian forces stay here until the job is done, even if the surrender monkeys in Ottawa think it's politically convenient to leave.