Should Canada Be In Afghanistan?

Candadian “lefties” Stan Persky and Terry Glavin discuss why Canada should (or shouldn’t?) be in Afghanistan:

I do find it very curious, and not a tiny bit dismaying, that otherwise intelligent Canadians don’t know much of anything about Afghanistan. For starters, it’s far and away the most important recipient of Canadian “foreign aid” at the moment, and the mobilization of our soldiers there is as robust as anything our military has done in half a century. You’d think that by now we’d at least have the semblance of a consensus about an answer to the first question-the question of why we’re there.

If I were to try to try to answer that question in a way that was intended as a kind of contribution to a proposed consensus, I’d want it to be as uncontroversial as possible. So it would look something like this:

We’re there because history put us there.

Canada is a member of NATO. Following the events of September 11, 2001, NATO invoked the self-defence clause (the all-for-one clause), and we remain in Afghanistan because we’re a member of the United Nations (and we’re one of the UN’s richest members) and the UN wants us there. The UN has explicitly asked us, in several Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, to be there, and to continue doing what we’re doing there.

Canada is in Afghanistan because we’re a member of the UN-sanctioned International Security Assistance Force, which consists of close to 40 NATO and non-NATO countries with soldiers in Afghanistan. We’re there because Canada is among the 50-or-so countries that signed the terms of the Afghanistan Compact, which sets out specific commitments in the rebuilding of Afghanistan, and in providing security in the country. We’re there because the Government of Afghanistan has asked us to be there.

That much should be without controversy. It should at least provide the basis of a conversation, before any “yes, but” chorus proceeds. If the basic facts aren’t the basis of a conversation, then there’s nothing to discuss.

Check out the rest of this fascinating conversation at Dooney’s Cafe