The Afghan Mission Dance: What are we waiting for?

CBC's James Cudmore had two minutes with Defence Minister Peter MacKay this week to explore the daylight between the CDS's orders to start packing to get out of Kandahar by the summer of 2011 and statements by the Defence Minister and other politicians about some sort of CF presence post-2011.

Here's what the Minister told CBC (2 minute video):

The military mission as enunciated in the parliamentary motion calls for an end to military operations, so that is clear.

I think I said many, many times we are living within the spirit of the parliamentary motion. We are respecting the democratic decision that was made by a majority of parliamentarians here.

I’m saying we’ll live within the spirit of the parliamentary motion.

Oh, now I get it - all we need to so is channel the SPIRIT of the motion.

The dance continues...

Meanwhile, Senator Colin Kenny suggests something else at work here:

Kenny acknowledged that Canada may be delaying any post-2011 pronouncement until after the American strategy becomes clearer.

U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to decide imminently whether to send a troop surge to Afghanistan.

The reality is, Canada has no natural allies in Congress and must always rely on the administration to be positively disposed to it.

Thus, any request for help in Afghanistan from the Obama team would have to be carefully considered.

“Canadians don’t like to hear that too often, but it’s a reality.”

A bit more on this here, as well as a bit of history:

Post-2011: MND MacKay still dancing the Afghan fling

CDS serves a hard Afghan ball to the government

Afstan: Planning to end (most of?) the CF's mission/Update: Dutch and Aussies