The Gazette gets it right
Hear, hear:
Update: And the whole idea that "we've already done our part, time to hand off to some other undetermined country" doesn't sit well with me. In fact, as this article suggests, it strikes me as a recipe for failure:
So...back to the Canadian political opposition: what's your plan? Your realistic and compassionate plan, that is.
Because getting others to carry our burden isn't realistic, and pulling out entirely isn't compassionate.
Tread carefully here: lives rest upon your decision, both Canadian and Afghan.
In a remarkable feat of long-distance lobbying, Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai invited Canadian journalists to his palace in Kabul, where he gave them a message for all Canadians: The people of Afghanistan are grateful for Canada's effort and sacrifices, need our help, and implore us not to chain ourselves to any artificial deadlines.
...
Canadian critics of the mission must now respond to Karzai's message. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, showing the caution befitting a man heading a minority government in a country divided on this issue, has indicated that he will propose no combat extension unless at least one other party supports him.
So what do the Liberals, the Bloc and the New Democrats have to say to Karzai and the millions of Afghans, desperate for peace, who elected him? "We don't care"?
Update: And the whole idea that "we've already done our part, time to hand off to some other undetermined country" doesn't sit well with me. In fact, as this article suggests, it strikes me as a recipe for failure:
If the Dutch, whose soldiers are battling to hold Uruzgan province, adjacent to Kandahar where Canada's battle group is deployed, leave when their current commitment ends next August, they could open the floodgates to a bigger exodus.
Australia, whose troops are deployed alongside the Dutch, has warned it will pull out if the Dutch go. The Harper government says it won't extend Canada's commitment without the consensus of all political parties.
The entire NATO effort in Afghanistan - once billed as proof that the Atlantic Alliance is relevant in the 21st century and not just a Cold War relic - will seem a chimera if both Canada and the Netherlands bail out at the end of their current commitments.
"It will be a mark of shame on all of us if an alliance built on the foundation of democratic values were to falter at the very moment that it tries to lay that foundation for democracy elsewhere - especially in a mission that is crucial to our own security," U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said this week.
So...back to the Canadian political opposition: what's your plan? Your realistic and compassionate plan, that is.
Because getting others to carry our burden isn't realistic, and pulling out entirely isn't compassionate.
Tread carefully here: lives rest upon your decision, both Canadian and Afghan.
posted by Babbling Brooks at 1:28 p.m.
3 Comments:
Ultimately it's going to come down to a realpolitik argument about blood and treasure, and whether it's worth putting Canadians' lives in harm's way to protect Afghans and help them develop the trappings of a successful nation-state. How broadly or how narrowly you define the Canadian national interest will likely determine which side of this divide you're on.
The Left seems to hold a narrow view of the Canadian interest, ruling out the concept that what happens in "far-off places about which we know little" can have a profound effect on Canadian security matters. They argue that there are cultural differences between us and them, that our values are not universal values, and that we have no right to impose them on others. They also tend to be short-sighted, looking only at the immediate picture and not thinking in grand strategic terms (this is hardly an exclusive fault of the Left in Canada). Look at the comment from Dipper Olivia Chow a few months about the persistence of violence against women there, and how this is evidence that Canada, after six years of trying to curb such violence, cannot possibly achieve its objectives there and thus should come home.
I honestly believe that Harper has thrown up his hands in the air on this issue. He wants to pursue it, and much of his constituency wants him to pursue it, but he's got it in his head that no other party will support him on Afghanistan beyond Feb 2009, regardless of the pleas of Hamid Karzai or any other members of the Afghan population.
A football analogy for the Canadian mission:
Suppose you are on a football team playing in a close game. Some members of your team aren't exactly playing hard, increasing the chance that the team will lose. Do you then decide to dog it too, or do you keep playing as hard as you can, still working for the win? And increasing the chance that you'll be injured.
It all depends on your attitude.
Mark
Ottawa
Based on what happened to us when we went to visit a head of state... I must declare those journos who accepted the invitation and didn't take the opportunity to denounce everything around them... sycophants.
If I was Andrew Sullivan, effing sycophants.
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