As the U.S. rethinks its strategy on Afghanistan, pressure is mounting on Canada to make a clear decision regarding the future of its hard-fought mission there.
Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama met with his top advisers on the war to decide how to proceed next. That meeting came days after Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the chief U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, issued a report saying the war will be lost unless 30,000 to 40,000 additional troops are sent there.
"We are going to have to do things dramatically differently, even uncomfortably differently," McChrystal said during a speech in London, England, a day after his meeting with Obama. "We must redefine our fight."
The U.S. review of the war is causing political fallout across its NATO countries, particularly in Canada, which has the fifth-largest number of soldiers deployed there.
Politicians on Parliament Hill have been saying they would bring Canadian forces home by the end of 2011, upholding a House of Commons motion from last year. But in recent weeks, Conservative leaders have suggested that Canada's Afghanistan mission will continue, in some form, into 2012 and beyond.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay said on Tuesday that Ottawa is considering "a number of options" on how to assist Afghans after 2011, including keeping Canada's provincial reconstruction base in Kandahar.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a similar statement during a press conference with Obama in Washington on Sept. 16.
"Canada is not leaving Afghanistan," Harper said flatly. Instead the mission will move from a predominantly military one to "a civilian humanitarian development mission," he said.
Ottawa can expect a range of requests from NATO about extending its mission, retired Maj. Gen. Lewis MacKenzie told CTV.ca. And not all of them will be for development purposes. On top of Canada's 300-member provincial reconstruction team, the alliance may ask for the 150 infantry soldiers who protect them to stay, he said, as well as a helicopter battalion.
As many as 800 Canadian military personnel could continue serving there past 2011, MacKenzie estimates.
Surveying the damage
Yet there's growing proof that Canadian soldiers, like the rest of the international force there, aren't just fighting the Taliban or al Qaeda. They're tackling problems that appear to be cascading with historic force.
The latest report to Parliament on Afghanistan, which was presented last month and covers April through June of 2009, paints a bleak picture. Security conditions "continued to deteriorate." The number of insurgent attacks during May and June was greater than at any time since the 2001 invasion toppled the Taliban.
The report said Kandahar province, where most of Canada's soldiers are stationed, experienced an "exceptionally high" number of security "incidents." And the number of "incidents" with improvised explosive devices jumped by 108 per cent compared to the same period a year earlier.
Underpinning the violence is the country's spectacular narcotics industry, which has flourished since the war began. Hilmand province alone produces more illicit drugs than any other country in the world, according to the United Nations.
Some experts fear Afghanistan is becoming a "narcostate" ruled by its opium industry. Narcotics exports are believed to fund the Taliban, at home and in neighbouring Pakistan. Drug money may also be feeding corruption in the Karzai government, which helped derail the country's recent presidential election.
"How do you fight a war like that with conventional military forces? You can't," said Sunil Ram, an international defence and security analyst. Ram doesn't believe development efforts have been working either, citing NATO's own assessment.
"It's fine to show happy Kabul, but the rest of the country is in chaos," Ram said. An "out of control" rise in drug use among Afghans, he said, is evidence that international forces have failed to rebuild the country.
Searching for purpose
Over the summer, the U.S. more than tripled the number of troops it has stationed in southern Afghan provinces such as Kandahar.
That has allowed Canadian forces to scale back the territory they cover by about 60 per cent. Now there's an opportunity to more effectively root out the Taliban, keep them from returning and engage in reconstruction, albeit over a smaller area.
But questions linger about the mission's overall purpose. Former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy told CTV.ca that the goal of helping to protect civilians has "been mixed up with 'we've got to defeat the Taliban."
Axworthy said he went to a fundraiser on Sept. 26 for a Canadian woman whose son died in Afghanistan last year. She still wanted to help, and was collecting money to send over a dog trained to de-mine roads.
"You could just tell the tragedy was so deep in her, but she still felt she could do something constructive," Axworthy said. "I think there are a lot of Canadians who would like to think that they could do that, but I'm not sure what we're putting out there right now offers that opportunity."
Axworthy said he would like to see Parliament take a closer look at what Canada is doing in Afghanistan.
"Not in a partisan way, not in a finger-pointing way. But just say, 'we've stuck it out this far, we've got a commitment to pull our troops out. But Afghanistan's not going away. There are things that we may be able to contribute. Let's find out what they are.'"
