A difficult decision, given Canadian politics and public opinion, but the right one:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper used a Remembrance Day ceremony in Seoul Thursday to explain his rationale for keeping Canadian troops in Afghanistan beyond the scheduled withdrawal deadline of 2011.
“The facts on the ground convinced me that the Afghan military needs further training,” Harper said following the ceremony at the Korean War Memorial.
“I don’t want to risk the gains that Canadian soldiers have fought for and that they have sacrificed in such significant numbers for by pulling out too early, if we can avoid that,” he said.
Harper did not offer specifics about numbers of troops [more here]…
From left, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde walk together as they visit the War Memorial of Korea in Seoul on Thursday. (Darren Staples/Reuters) [the three Commonwealth countries joined in one Commonwealth Division during the Korean War]
Update: The conclusion of a very informative post by BruceR. at Flit on the possible impact of the planned new CF role on the NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan:
…Just some ballpark figures [do check the link]. As of Oct/10, NTM-A had a requirement for about 180 ANA OMLT teams (say 20 personnel each) and 475 ANP POMLT teams (again, say 10 each). Say the total NTM-A total strength is 10,000. So at absolute most you’re looking at 1,500 “inside the wire” jobs in the entire country. If the proposal is to lay claim to over half of those, basically the majority of all the “behind the wire” training jobs in the Kabul area in other words, in competition with the rest of NATO, that would seem likely to meet some kind of pushback.
It is a sad reflection of Canadian realities that this country of 33 million will not fight for more than five and half years, can only deploy just under 3,000 CF personnel to do so, and cannot tolerate it when the death toll moves past 100.
Mark
Ottawa
[...] Afstan: Good on Prime Minister Harper/Impact on NATO training Update [...]
“…. It is a sad reflection of Canadian realities that this country of 33 million will not fight for more than five and half years, can only deploy just under 3,000 CF personnel to do so, and cannot tolerate it when the death toll moves past 100.”
Perhaps it is but the warning(s) came years before:
- Conscription I
- Conscription II
- Somalia air born ‘incident’
I actually think that Af’stan has had a trans-formative effect on Canada that may slowly take root.
Michael St. Paul’s
[...] rather it’s been trying desperately to find a way out for some time. Thankfully it has been unable for now to do [...]
[...] they are*. Now, first off, it seems I was off on my previous SWAG [Scientific Wild Ass Guess--see Update here] of the “behind the wire” strength of NTM-A, but not by a huge number: total current [...]
[...] that most Euros, Danes aside, are any different. The conclusion of an earlier post: … It is a sad reflection of Canadian realities that this country of 33 million will not [...]