Canada's future in Afstan

A not unreasonable editorial in the Toronto Star:

...
By 2009, Canadian troops will have fought in Afghanistan for seven arduous years. We have spent $3 billion on the military, committed more than $1 billion for aid and suffered more than our share of casualties. If we quit Kandahar, or draw down our forces, blame for a security vacuum should be laid squarely at our NATO partners' doorsteps, not ours. NATO has had time to fill any gap.

If Harper opts to stay in Kandahar until 2011, as he prefers, and Parliament agrees, it must be out of conviction that Canadian troops are making a measurable, positive difference stabilizing the place. We must also be convinced that the Afghan people want us to remain, that the Afghan government is building up an effective army and police, and that development aid is getting through to those who need it,

Those are credible reasons for Canadian lives to be put at risk. But it is past time that others, including Germany, Spain, France and Italy, shouldered a comparable share of the risk. This is not a short-term project. Even by Harper's own impossibly optimistic forecast, President Hamid Karzai's government won't be able to defend itself until 2011. More realistically, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier believes it will take 10 years. Still others guess 25 years or more.

NATO, a powerful 26-country alliance, cannot expect the United States, Britain, Canada and the Netherlands to pull the most dangerous duty forever in Afghanistan's hot spots while the bulk of the club stays safely on the sidelines, paying lip-service to burden-sharing.

That is a message the Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan, headed by John Manley, should send when it reports in January. And when Parliament votes on our next role, it should condition any future Canadian involvement on greater NATO input.

One factual point: by 2009 the CF will not "have fought in Afghanistan for seven arduous years." They will have had a combat mission for six months in 2002 and then from February 2006. That's three and half fighting years. The two and a quarter years in Kabul (2003-2005) were not a combat mission.

The National Post, as might be expected, takes a rather tougher line:

Roland Paris, a University of Ottawa professor and former Privy Council Office foreign-policy analyst, told the Toronto Star Wednesday that the chances of finding a NATO country to take Canada's place in the dangerous southern Afghan province of Kandahar are "quite low." He added that if a replacement military force cannot be found before next spring, our deadly mission (73 Canadians dead to date) will likely have to continue well beyond our planned withdrawal date of February, 2009. While that may be frustrating to those who would have us leave sooner than later, the alternative--leaving Afghanistan to be overrun by the Taliban--is even worse.

Mr. Paris told the Star that even a "partial drawdown" would be disastrous. We agree. Even though we wish one of our NATO partners would step up to relieve us, it would be the people of southern Afghanistan who suffered if we left before reinforcements were ready. Taliban militia would feel free to step up their roadside and suicide bomb attacks. They would close schools again, and confine women to their homes. They might even let al-Qaeda set up protected training bases again...

Without our troops, all the progress made in the past five years could be lost. After 30 years of upheaval, Afghanistan's fragile emerging democracy could not handle the strain. We owe it to the people of Afghanistan to stick by them for the long haul.

My own views are here.

Meanwhile the Marines aren't going to Afstan in big numbers.