In a significant independent report on the Afghanistan situation, former Liberal Deputy Prime Minister John Manley advised on the risks of a mission which he said cannot be completed by February 2009. He stressed there is no “operational logic” to pulling troops out on that date, and that such an immediate withdrawal would “squander our investment and dishonor our sacrifice to date.”

Manley said “We don't believe Canadians need sugarcoating on what's going on and that's why we've said the security situation in Kandahar seems to be deteriorating, not improving.” He added, “We think Canadians are quite prepared to undertake things that are tough, things that are difficult, things that are dangerous, but we've got to give them the facts.” Manley beseeched Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government to urge the international community to “get its act together,” both in Afghanistan and with other key countries in the region.

Yet this is not an open ended commitment. The report’s key recommendation remains that if Canada does not get more help from its NATO allies, it should serve notice that the Canadian Forces will be withdrawn from the volatile region. The report urges NATO to deploy at least one new battle group, about 1,000 troops, so Canada can concentrate on training the Afghan army.

Stephen Harper’s government remains committed to the multinational military mission in Afghanistan where Canada’s contribution of 2,500 troops fighting Taliban fundamentalist insurgents is based in Kandahar province, one of the country’s roughest regions. The casualty rate among the Canadians, which has reached 78 killed, is disproportionally high given that this southern sector remains a hotbed of Islamic militants. The troops were first deployed to Afghanistan by Ottawa’s former Liberal government in 2002, but it’s the Conservatives that are taking the heat for the ongoing deployment.

Though there are significant NATO forces in Afghanistan; the United States has 15,000 troops which will soon be reinforced by 3,500 Marines; Britain and the Danes have 7,700; the Dutch have 1,500 and the Germans 3,500 among many others, the Canadians are stationed in one of the most dangerous sectors and need backup.

Now Canada’s Liberals and New Democratic Party Left are playing a cheap political game, pandering to the polls and to the sages of short term electoral gain. Speaking in Ottawa, Manley presented an impassioned defense of his report and Canada’s role. “The world isn’t a pretty place, but I happen to believe that the people who came before me in the Liberal Party believed in a strong role for Canada on the international stage and would say that there are times when we have to be counted, times when it matters.”

There’s no question that Canada has every right to press for more multinational military assistance from NATO. Peter Heinbecker, a former Canadian UN Ambassador told Toronto’s National Post, “I think to some degree we’ve been taken for granted.” The Ambassador predicts that the ultimatum to NATO “that Canada will quit the mission without new military partner in Kandahar” will work.

As the National Post advised editorially, “Even if our allies disappoint us, we must not give up on our mission--not to mention the Afghan people — to spite the spineless… Canada has led by example on the world stage by making sacrifices in the defining struggles of our age — against Hitler, against communism and now against the scourge of Islamofascism. We should not deviate from our perfectly legitimate Afghan combat mission just because European backbones tend to bend a little more than do ours.”

There’s also a lesson here for the USA where the Democrat Party has used the American military commitment in Afghanistan and Iraq as a political football against the Bush Administration. Reflecting on what was once bi-partisan support for American foreign policies, it hardly honors the party of John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey or Mike Mansfield, to allow the fight against Al Qaida and Islamic militants to turn into rowdy partisanship and myopic geopolitical visions.