http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Canada%20pull%20troops%20across%20board%202011/2610864/story.html
The general responsible for all Canadian troops overseas was emphatic this week that his forces will not provide security for Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar City beyond next summer.
"It is cease operations across the board in July 2011," Lt.-Gen. Marc Lessard said in an interview.
"The [operational mentor and liaison team], the battle group, the PRT, helicopters. Operations cease."
However, the parliamentary order that Canada's soldiers come home next year has put diplomats and aid workers at the PRT in a quandary because Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently said that Afghanistan is to become "a strictly civilian mission" after 2011 and would continue to be a huge recipient of Canadian aid.
The difficulty with the prime minister's stance is that public servants and police that Ottawa has sent to Kandahar City to oversee aid projects and to counsel local authorities on such issues as education, medical care, water management, policing and governance are entirely dependent upon several hundred Canadian infantrymen and combat engineers for their safety and transport.
"There is a political decision that we are awaiting guidance on and when we get it, the civilians will know what they are doing," said Ben Rowswell, Canada's representative in Kandahar (RoCK), when asked about the apparent contradiction in the Harper government's positions on the withdrawal and a continuing civilian mission. The withdrawal motion passed by Parliament in 2008 made no mention of the PRT's fate, although Canada has so far channelled $500 million of its $1 billion in Afghan aid through the PRT.
There seems to be an apparent contradiction in withdrawing when it still continues its civilian mission. Anyhow, we may be able to know the wisdom behind it. If it brings more peace and effective mission accomplishment, then we shoundn't hinder it.