Canada and Afstan: I cringe for my country

Read these excerpts and weep; our best and brightest (hah!) still see and, as far as I can see, always have seen our mission as pure and simple politics. Fie:

Obama Democrats have quietly sounded out power-brokers in Ottawa looking for advice on how to convince war-weary Canadians to keep military forces in Afghanistan after 2011.

Conscious of the deep political and public opposition to extending the mission further, American officials - political and military - are struggling to understand those concerns and identify the right arguments to make to the Harper government to "keep Canadian boots on the ground," said defence sources.

The U.S. has not formally - or even informally - requested Ottawa extend the deployment of 2,850 combat troops, trainers and aircrew in volatile and bloody Kandahar, where 120 soldiers and one diplomat have died over seven years.

The questions being asked are meant to lay the groundwork for a potential request, which the administration could make late this year or in early 2010, said one source familiar with the process.

It's unclear whether the U.S. would ask Canada to stay on in Kandahar or elsewhere in the country...

President Barak Obama has made it clear Afghanistan is the central front in the war against al-Qaida and terrorism.

Any discussion of Canadian involvement beyond 2011 will likely make Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority government squirm because there's no appetite for extending such a costly war.

Contrary to the picture often painted by opposition parties, Harper is personally opposed to staying beyond the end date and has said privately that if Parliament "hadn't imposed a deadline" on him, he would have done it himself because an "open-ended war is not in the best interest of the country - or the army [emphasis added, see "Prime minister grumpy about Afstan"]."

Insiders say his view stems from the ever-increasing human and financial toll, where military cost estimates coming before the federal cabinet would literally make him "gulp."

Gordon Smith, a former Canadian ambassador to NATO, said Obama has skilled people now at the U.S. State Department, and tilling the ground ahead of time makes sense, even though some Canadians might look at it as manipulative exercise.

"Canadians will be horrified and there will be outrage," [emphasis added] said the former deputy minister of foreign affairs, who was quick to point out that Canada uses similar tactics in Washington to get its point across, including Harper's recent blitz of interviews with the U.S. media.

"None of the major political parties are going to like dealing with this issue."

Public opposition to the war in Canada has always been strong, with a majority telling the Defence Department last year in a wide-ranging poll that they would prefer the military return to being peacekeepers [emphasis added]...

Smith said he believes the Conservatives and the Liberals before them failed to give Canadians a compelling argument for being in Afghanistan beyond declaring that "the Americans are there - and we should be, too."..

I remember no such declaration in the last few years, i.e. since our original combat mission in 2oo2. And seeing as: in 2006, when our mission in Kandahar really took effect, we replaced Americans in the province; and that US forces were mainly in eastern Afstan at the time; and that our forces became part of NATO ISAF in the middle of the year; and that these forces have been operating under a UN Security Council mandate--one does wonder about the mentalité of the former deputy minister (note the, er, "thinker" pose--deep, what?).

Though I must confess that no "compelling argument" in terms of Canadian national interest has been given by either the Liberal or Conservative governments for the Kandahar mission. Maybe such interests are either beneath great and good Canadians; or else unspeakable in terms of Canadian political correctness (what's a terrorist, especially if Islamic, anyway?).

What a fog of thought our leaders, political, pundits and academic, perpetuate.

Update: Only to be expected:

Canada firm on Afghan deadline

The Canadian government shot down suggestions it might be arm-twisted by the Obama White House into extending its Afghanistan mission beyond 2011.

There are signs the U.S. government is preparing a diplomatic push to get Canada to stay.

But Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon told a news conference Tuesday that he has not yet received that kind of pressure, and suggested that any such effort would be futile.

"Let me be perfectly clear: Canada is abiding by the motion that was adopted in our Parliament," Cannon said.

"Our position is perfectly clear – we are not going beyond 2011."

Parliament voted last year to set 2011 as an end date, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper has repeatedly said he's not interested in an open-ended military commitment to Afghanistan...

Hell, the CF were in the former Yugoslavia for more than twelve years; by mid-2011, in comparison, they will have been in Afstan for some eight and a half years. The difference of course is the combat role (now being downplayed by the prime minister) since 2006 and the deaths. And while the Army certainly looks like being unable to continue the mission at the current tempo (more here), one could always refocus the military mission on, say, the Air Force (more here).

Upperdate: From Raphael Alexander:

Canadians Prefer To Return To “Peacekeeping” Role