Canadians Extending Afghan Stay?

Where the Canadian opposition hammered their way to a promise to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2011, they are now backpedalling from the hard line position.

What a difference a few days in Kandahar can make.

All opposition parties have been adamant that Canadian troops must leave Afghanistan in 2011, a condition that Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has been willing to accept.

But after an all-party fact-finding mission returned from a five-day visit to Kandahar and Kabul this week, MPs appeared suddenly open to the possibility of keeping at least some troops in the country in a non-combatant role.

“We have an obligation to see this thing through,” Liberal MP Bob Rae said Thursday at the Commons Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan.

“The door is open to serious discussion in Canada and between Canada and NATO about what the future looks like. I just want to say on behalf of the Liberal Party that we are very committed to a role post-2011,” he added. “We believe that that is very important.”

How very far a cry this is from the unanimous rejection of Hillary Clinton’s pleas for some continuing Canadian military role in Afghanistan, even if only in a training capacity.

By: Brant