Harper, Afghanistan and Do the Right Thing

Harper,

Afghanistan

and

Do the Right Thing

Michael Ignatieff driving his invisible car...which has nothing
to do with the column, but it is funny

Politics for Joe 11

by

Hubert O'Hearn

The instinct is to crush Stephen Harper for his announcement today, in the form of an interview with CTV's Lloyd Robertson, that Canada will likely be staying in Afghanistan until 2014; just training and not combat, the Prime Minister stresses. The interview directly contrasts earlier interviews Harper had given. On January 5^th of this year, he told CTV's David Akin and John Ivison:

We will not be undertaking any activities that require any kind of military presence, other than the odd guard guarding an embassy. We will not be undertaking any kind activity that requires a significant military force protection, so it will become a strictly civilian mission. It will be a significantly smaller mission than it is today.

In contrast, Harper said to Robertson today (this being written on November 10):

As you know Lloyd many of our allies would like to extend the combat mission. I've been extremely clear that the combat mission is ending. I haven't made a secret of the fact that I'd like to see all of our troops come home. That said, as we  look at the facts on the ground, I think the reality is, there does need to be some additional training of Afghan forces. So we are looking at some training options for a smaller number of Canadian troops but this would be a strictly non-combat mission.

What is equally interesting as background is that three days ago The Globe & Mail reported that Harper is essentially an Afghanistan dissenter, wanting results and not finding them. Why then run the political risk of announcing an extended or – ahem – new mission that is not likely to be favourably received. As Harper himself notes, Canada has very nearly been in Afghanistan as long as both World Wars combined. According to an on-lined poll begun on October 25^th by The Globe & Mail 74% of respondents does not believe that Canada's mission has been a success. On-line polls are far from a standard of scientific accuracy, but that number does conform to gut instinct. Hearing there may be three more years of death – and there will be; and cost – and there will be...this won't go over well with the country.

Even though he is doing the right thing.

You expected me to write the opposite, didn't you? There's that lying sumbitch Harper deciding a policy in secret that's going to cost this country the lives of its men and women! Something like that. Perhaps leaving out the sumbitch part. Noty truly my style.

But there will be ample voices who will say just that. Question Period on Monday should be a verbal bloodbath. It will probably be worth watching. There will be ample fire from the NDP and Bloc benches on the hypocrisy issue, with Harper retorting that as there is no combat component, he has not changed policy – Stephen Harper changes policies as often as he changes hairstyles – and furthermore this is an honourable thing for Canada to do.

Ignatieff and the Liberals will argue the secrecy angle, as I suspect that in his heart of hearts Ignatieff agrees with Harper's call. He absolutely cannot say that aloud, else the result will be that the Liberals will once again look like lapdogs to the government, closet Tories in red ties.

If there is a game for this in Harper's thinking, that might just be it – a Liberal trap. But for once I prefer to think honourably of the Prime Minister. That the reasons I suspect he will state as his rationale are in fact the real reasons. That Harper is skeptical about the Afghanistan Mission I equally believe. But that does not mean that he is necessarily skeptical about the Afghans.

As the Western war that claimed the past Empires of Britain and the USSR clatters and heaves its way to its unsavory, staggering withdrawal we do at the least owe its people some semblance of hope for stability. Will it work? Oh undoubtedly not, unless absolutely every historical and social precedent in the region suddenly – and I mean suddenly – changes. But what were we in the West between Pericles and the Roman Senate? And from then until Magna Carta?

I grant you, political change is rarely, rarely effectively enforced from the outside – post-World War two Japan being the big exception – but maybe we can at least offer a tinder and the flash paper for the Afghans to make their own better world.

Be seeing you.

Hubert O'Hearn

For Lake Superior News