The Manley Thing To Do

The report from John Manley's independent inquiry into Canada's mission in Afghanistain is in. Judging from the commentary surrounding the release of the Manley report, this page is left with the impression that nobody comes out of it looking that terrific, particularly the architects of this enterprise, the Harper administration. What this page finds annoying is that while media outlets will repeat the revised mandate for Canada's military presence in Afghanistan as 'buidling democracy', nobody's picked up on the Strategic Counsel poll taken last week which shows only 17% of Canadians support continuing a combat mission in Afghanistan (pg. 23). If the Harper government is serious about showing Afghans about how to govern according to the will of the people, now would be a good time for a serious discussion with Canadians rather than telling us to shut up and Support our Troops (tm).

The key points in the Manley report appear to be 1. Our government hasn't been straight with us about what's going on in Afghanistan, and 2. Simply pulling out of Afghanistan is harder than the critics think. This page is a critic of the current combat mission on principle: I think war is a moral failure of diplomacy and humanity that shouldn't be inflicted on anyone. However, I also realize that Canadian forces have also been involved in peacekeeping and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan which shouldn't simply be abandoned by bringing the troops home.

At this point, the best thing to do with the Manley report is for to sit on it, for two reasons. One, this is not Canada's mission in Afghanistan, it's NATO's. Canadian forces went in with the Allies to overthrow a government that sympathized with Al-Qaida and was sheltering Osama Bin Laden. Unless other NATO countries are willing to take up a combat role, there is no reason why Canadian soldiers should be put at risk in perpetuity. As for reason two, whatever happens in Afghanistan is going to revolve around what happens in November's U.S. Presidential election. The McCain administration may be prepared to live with whatever thugocracy is running Afghanistan as long as they promise secure pipeline access from Iraq. The Obama administration might want to push the War on Terror (tm) into Pakistan where most Al-Qaida forces are actually based. Either way, the pieces on the board will have changed or knocked all over the desert floor, and Canada will need to come up with a new plan.

Running the Afghanistan mission on misinformation and polarizing patriotic bombast might let Stephen Harper beat the Liberals, but it's not going to beat the Taliban or Al-Qaida.