Layton's exit to nowhere
National Post ^ | 2006-09-02 | Andrew Coyne
As they prepare to engage the Taliban in a major battle for control of the Panjwaii district in southern Afghanistan, Canadian soldiers can take heart: Jack Layton's got their back. Well, in a manner of speaking. The NDP leader says the whole mission is misconceived, and they should come home at once -- by February at the latest.
How's that for a pep talk? We're behind you all the way, boys. We just think what you're doing is pointless. Oh, and if you're wondering whether it's worth risking your life in the service of your country -- it isn't. In six months there'll be nothing left of the Canadian presence. Might as well never have bothered.
Whatever Mr. Layton's exquisitely timed outburst is likely to do for Canadian morale, it could only be encouraging to the Taliban, were it ever to form the basis of Canadian foreign policy. For not only is he demanding the immediate withdrawal of Canadian troops from the south -- a token force of 50 troops would be left in the north -- but the opening of negotiations with the Taliban.
It's not clear whether Mr. Layton believes the Canadians should pull out on their own, and leave the fighting to others, or whether the entire NATO-led, UN-sanctioned contingent of 37 countries should also depart. Presumably, if Canada's contribution can be faulted, as he says, for placing too much focus on fighting the enemy, the same analysis would apply to the whole mission; if our forces' efforts are so misdirected as to require not just that they cease combat, but physically remove themselves from the country, so must be those of other nations' forces. In which case, it's not clear what incentive the Taliban would have to negotiate.
But perhaps he really does mean that Canada should be the first, if not the only, country to abandon the mission, its allies and the Afghan people. Indeed, Mr. Layton claims this could be accomplished "working with our international partners to ensure a safe and smooth transition." One supposes this is what he means by an "exit strategy."
Is it? Leave aside what there is to negotiate with the Taliban. (Perhaps we'll only stone some of the homosexuals to death? Every third school to be burnt to the ground?) Is it to be imagined that they would be content with a share of power, a portion of the territory? The most extreme exponents of an apocalyptically extremist sect, a movement absolutely devoted to the absolute necessity of absolute rule, in which the church-state regulates everyday life down to the most insignificant detail? That Taliban?
Or would they, having absorbed the initial round of gains, simply resume fighting the minute the opportunity presented itself? In which case, would any negotiations not require the continued presence of international troops to enforce the results? And what if the Taliban refused to abide by the terms even then? Why would they be likely to accede to the demands of the international community in that event, when they have been so unwilling to date? In which case, would we not have to, you know, fight them?
I think Mr. Layton is canny enough to know all this. As his gratuitous accusation that Canada is "blindly following... the U.S. into wars" suggests, there is more than a whiff of opportunism to this proposal, coming just a week before the NDP's national convention -- in Quebec, as it happens, where isolationist sentiment runs strong. But there's no getting around the implications. A Canadian pullout would not, of itself, mean consigning Afghanis to the Taliban's tender mercies -- but only so far as other countries picked up the slack. Our slack. Is this what Mr. Layton means by "reclaiming Canada's place in the world"? And where exactly would that place be? NATO meets in Riga, Latvia, in November to debate its future role. Why would our allies pay us the slightest heed, when we had just proved so unhelpful in Afghanistan? Or is this but a step toward the NDP's larger dream: pulling out of NATO?
Still, at least Mr. Layton is forthright about his intentions. What, by contrast, are we to make of the positions of the Liberal leadership contenders? For example, Gerard Kennedy, who now says that Canada should pull out of Afghanistan -- unless the mission is broadened to include some of the sorts of developmental pursuits Mr. Layton would doubtless prefer. This has the cart precisely before the horse. Extinguishing the Taliban threat is not an alternative to development: It is the prerequisite. Indeed, Canada's mission was always supposed to be based on the "three D's" -- defence, development and diplomacy. But it's hard to get much development done when you're in fear of yet a fourth D: decapitation, at the hands of a Taliban zealot. Military force may not be sufficient, as Mr. Kennedy says, to pacify the country. That does not make it any less necessary.
Confusion, however, has its uses. By swathing his position in the conditional -- Troops Out Unless -- Mr. Kennedy can wink to his party's left wing, without alienating moderates. That's clever. But it's not quite leadership. |
