Taking the Tough Decision on Afghanistan

Our Liberal leader needs to confront reality and make a reality-based decision. Do Canadian troops remain in Kandahar beyond 2009 or do we leave? Those are the two options - the only options - that reality affords us.

Yet that didn't stop Stephane Dion from taking to the national airwaves yesterday going on about a "process" that, in the reality world, doesn't exist:

"It is the rotation process. You will have a country or set of countries that will do the combat after Canada doing three years, and Canada then will be able to focus its efforts elsewhere," Dion told CTV's Question Period yesterday.

"You will have a country or set of countries..." What country or set of countries? Surely if there is such a thing as a "rotation process" there must be countries' soldiers to be rotated in as Canadian soldiers are rotated out. Unless, of course, there is no process and it's merely a fictional device to allow a politician to avoid saying he'd unilaterally yank Canadian soldiers out of their combat role in Kandahar.

I think a solid case can be made for withdrawal if a leader was prepared to show the courage to stand up and argue the point. But to tie the issue to a nonexistant "process" is to reduce that argument to a level of sophistry. And for a man already perceived as weak that can only reinforce those negative perceptions.

Here's an idea. Leaving Kandahar in 2009 is already pretty much impossible. There simply isn't time for NATO to recruit a replacement force and then to have that force trained for the mission by that deadline. However 2010 should still be a viable option. And that's the year the Dutch are leaving, something they've made quite clear.

We should also make it clear that we're not going to depend on NATO finding a non-combat role for our forces somewhere else in Afghanistan. If NATO can find a suitable role for us, fine. If it can't - or won't - fine, we'll accept we're not needed in any other capacity and leave the place entirely.