Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Leaving in 2007? No. Leaving in 2009? No. Leaving in 2011? No. Leaving in 2014?

A: Canada’s new Afghan mission bolsters hope for 2014 end to war
B: Afghan handover could run past 2015 in areas: NATO

Though the Star's report is really quite subversively truthful, if you read to the end. From Colony to Nation to Colony:
Canadian officials in Washington declined Wednesday to discuss the politics behind the decision. Among D.C.-based Afghan experts, however, there was consensus that Ottawa made its move in the context of what one analyst described as “quiet but rather insistent U.S. pressure on Canada not to withdraw.”

“Washington would regard Canada’s continued participation in Afghanistan as a fairly high diplomatic objective,” said Ted Galen Carpenter, vice-president for defence and foreign policy studies at the CATO Institute.

“Frankly the U.S. is just grateful for the semblance of any support, because in Washington today there is a pervasive fear that one by one the allies will desert.

“For Canada to have left Afghanistan outright, it would have really underscored the waning U.S. ability to influence its allies. And that problem is becoming more and more evident in any case.”

Andrew J. Bacevich, a foreign policy scholar with Boston University and author of The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, told the Toronto Star he was deeply disappointed in Ottawa’s decision.

“Canada’s move may provide affirmation inside Washington, but I would hazard a guess that 80 per cent of Americans are unaware of the fact that we have any allies with us in Afghanistan, let alone Canadians,” said Bacevich.

“As an American who greatly admires Canada, it baffles me that the Canadian people would go along with this because I fail to understand that Canada has interests in Afghanistan worth a single Canadian life.

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