Afstan: Prime Minister as, er, brave (or is that principled?) as his Dutch counterpart?

News from a former front (more on that here and here):

Dutch Afghan experience a lesson for Harper?
You can't leave trainers behind without combat troops, Dutch PM says

BERGEN-OP-ZOOM, THE NETHERLANDS—Dutch Prime Minister Jan Pieter Balkenende has offered some telling advice to Ottawa as Canada prepares to pull its soldiers from Afghanistan — you can't do training without troops.

The Netherlands is poised to withdraw a force of about 2,000 from Afghanistan's Uruzgan province, starting this summer, and is debating what to do next.

“At this moment there is some room for talking about a police training mission. Of course these trainers must be accompanied by people who will protect them,” Balkenende said.

That, too, has emerged as one possibility for Canada's future role – with a caveat. Stephen Harper's Conservatives have bluntly said all soldiers will be brought home next year, leaving behind a civilian mission, likely to take on development, perhaps a training mission [more here] .

Harper drove home that point Thursday here as he all but ruled out a parliamentary debate on Canada's future in Afghanistan [emphasis added], saying the new “civilian” mission doesn't need to be discussed in the Commons.

“Our plan is for Canada's military mission to end next year, and we will be pursuing a humanitarian and development and governance mission after that,” Harper told reporters...

Balkenende's Christian Democratic Alliance wanted to agree to a request by NATO to stay on another year. The Labour party refused. Unable to reach a consensus, the coalition government fell apart, putting the country on course for a complete withdrawal.

But a curious thing has happened on the way to next month's election — second thoughts...

...there's now an emerging consensus among the political parties to agree to deploy police trainers, protected by up to 300 Dutch soldiers...

About time our major media paid some attention to developments in the Netherlands, the closest parallel to Canada in terms of Afghan missions. Earlier on the Dutch:

Afstan: Dutch withdrawal planning--but maybe not completely/Canada?

As for second thoughts, note the irony at the penultimate paragraph of this post:

Afstan: Informal Conservative/Liberal talks on post-2011 CF mission