The last few weeks have seen a flurry of promises, dates and opinions regarding the potential withdrawal of ISAF troops from Afghanistan.  While both President Obama and Gordon Brown have publicly declared a surge in troop numbers for their respective countries’ armed forces, Canada has stuck to its guns.

Wednesday’s announcement by foreign minister Lawrence Cannon that Canada’s government would not change its planned withdrawal in 2011 seemed to show solidarity with Obama’s pledge, repeated this week, that the withdrawal of American soldiers would begin in mid-2011 despite an additional 30,000 being deployed in the coming months.  The question though, is whether a strict end date can be placed upon an operation that has seen its objectives muddied and targets missed time and time again?

The voices of discontent are already being heard in Britain with Bob Ainsworth, Labour’s defence secretary, claiming “You can’t put a time on it. You’ve got to look at conditions” in an interview with The Times. He said that it would be wrong to set a date for the start of troop reductions, something that seems not to have troubled Stephen Harper. This comes at a time when Gordon Brown has also just committed to sending a further 500 troops to the war-torn country, seemingly reinforcing his defence secretary’s opinions and bringing the total of British troops to over 10,000.

While Canada may only have provided the fifth largest deployment of troops within Afghanistan, its efforts have far outweighed mere statistical contributions. The Canadian army, as with the British, has suffered an inordinately large number of casualties in comparison to the size of its deployment in the country. And in the Kandahar and Helmand provinces they have been exposed to some of the most heated and relentless combat in the entire country. The past year in particular had seen some of the bloodiest fighting and a renewed doubt over whether Afghanistan’s internal security forces are up to the job. It is hard to agree with Lawrence Cannon’s assertions that the task of training the Afghan police and military to cope with a post-ISAF country are “going the course” when incidents such as the slaying of five British soldiers in early November by a member of the Afghanistan police force are occurring.

It is therefore particularly galling to hear from Cannon that “the objectives of the US policy are complementary to Canada’s own priorities.” This is true, in the fact that this current US policy allows Canadian troops to leave come 2011 without condemnation from the American government. While it is without argument that troops, regardless of nationality, need to be removed as quickly as possible from operations in Afghanistan, it is also irresponsible to rush a process of redevelopment that was instigated by the ISAF forces. And as the British government is highlighting, timetabling this process is deeply troubling.  If, and more likely when, the American government realizes that their timetabling is flawed, will Canada be asked to acquiesce to their neighbour’s new schedule?

Canada will then face the problem that the U.K is already in the midst of.  How to sate the public’s displeasure at the continuing engagement in the middle-east while attempting to maintain a cordial relationship with the U.S?  Harper currently sees the 2011 date as a light at the end of the tunnel to try and silence the already vociferous anti-war critics. If the Conservatives were to go back on this seemingly definite declaration, it would create an extremely delicate issue come election time.

Therefore, the conundrum remains. A swift withdrawal would appease the voters at home whose voice of discontent grows louder with every soldier’s death, but the Conservatives must also consider the consequences of abandoning a country that is integral to future foreign policy and global stability. Would impatience and haste now lead to greater suffering and losses in the not too distant future?

While the answer to this may not be as vital to Canada as it is to America and the U.K, it should still be a conclusion that is reached with deep thought and respect for the possible global ramifications, the people of Afghanistan and the soldiers who have fought and died in an attempt to bring safety and stability to the country.

Related posts:

1. Will the real Success in Afghanistan be the Acceptance of a Timely Withdrawal? As Operation Moshtarak continues at this very moment it is...
2. 127th Canadian Soldier Killed in Afghanistan One hundred and twenty-seven soldiers dead. That’s the causality count...
3. Bloc, NDP Challenge Mackay on Afghanistan Testifying before Canada’s national defence committee on the Hill two...
4. Canada and Afghanistan; Strange Bedfellows That Are Soon to Part Company Just a week after refusing to entertain the idea of...
5. Fading Ideology of Justice from Government Partially to Blame for Recent Torture Implications in Afghanistan Once upon a time, many years ago, Canada was a...

Tags: afghanistan, canadian troops, lawrence cannon, taliban

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Canadian Armed Forces. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.