Canucks back to polls, Afghan mission vote of confidence

[Alpine Trooper]

As NATO officials meet in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius for high level talks, the Conservative government in Canada makes clear that if NATO cannot provide more combat troops to Southern Afghanistan it will withdraw Canadian soldiers from Afghanistan in 2009. Whether to extend the mission will be a vote of confidence in the House of Commons and the Conservative government will be defeated in this vote. Which means Canadians are heading to the polls to elect what will most likely be a minority Liberal government that will be hesistant to not bring troops home and will probably use the NATO failure in Afghanistan as an example.

NATO defence ministers clearly understand Canada's position on the future of the Afghan mission following a closed-door briefing from Defence Minister Peter MacKay, a spokesperson for the alliance said Thursday.

"He couldn't have been more clear. I don't think there's any doubt as to what Canada is looking for," said NATO spokesperson James Appathurai, who spoke at a summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.

The talks are the first high-level meeting since the Manley report recommended Canada pull its roughly 2,500 troops from southern Afghanistan in 2009 unless NATO offers more troops and support.

MacKay, who earlier said he expected "blunt talk and frank discussion," was to lobby his alliance counterparts for 1,000 more soldiers, helicopters and unmanned surveillance aircraft to help fight the Taliban in the southern province of Kandahar.

Appathurai said MacKay made his case during closed-door talks Thursday. He wouldn't say how the other ministers responded, only saying the mood around the table was "cautiously optimistic."

NATO defence ministers clearly understand Canada's position on the future of the Afghan mission following a closed-door briefing from Defence Minister Peter MacKay, a spokesperson for the alliance said Thursday.

"He couldn't have been more clear. I don't think there's any doubt as to what Canada is looking for," said NATO spokesperson James Appathurai, who spoke at a summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay speaks with reporters in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius Thursday.

The talks are the first high-level meeting since the Manley report recommended Canada pull its roughly 2,500 troops from southern Afghanistan in 2009 unless NATO offers more troops and support.

MacKay, who earlier said he expected "blunt talk and frank discussion," was to lobby his alliance counterparts for 1,000 more soldiers, helicopters and unmanned surveillance aircraft to help fight the Taliban in the southern province of Kandahar.

Appathurai said MacKay made his case during closed-door talks Thursday. He wouldn't say how the other ministers responded, only saying the mood around the table was "cautiously optimistic."

Before the meeting, MacKay said more support is needed for the overall mission.

"Coming together in this conference, Canada is in need of additional troop commitments in southern Afghanistan to augment the troops we have there now," MacKay said Thursday in Vilnius.

Bitter divisions have emerged over the reluctance of countries such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain to send combat troops to the south, where British, American, Canadian and Dutch troops are stationed.

Appathurai downplayed headlines of a rift within the alliance, saying media reports give a "false impression of a lack of solidarity."

"They are masking the progress we are making on the ground," said Appathurai.

Germany recently rejected a request by U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates to send more troops to Kandahar, instead saying it would deploy 200 more soldiers to the calmer north to replace a Norwegian unit. However, several reports suggest France may send up to 700 soldiers to Kandahar.

NATO ministers will meet Friday with representatives from the European Union, United Nations and the World Bank to try to press their case for more help in Afghanistan, said Appathurai.

Washington recently announced a one-time deployment of 3,000 U.S. marines to Afghanistan, seen by some as a sign the mission is faltering.

The top Afghan official in the southern province of Kandahar said the area is counting on the marines.

"The Canadians are fine, but Americans are Americans — the mentality is different," Ahmed Wali Karzai, chairman of the provincial council in Kandahar, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published Wednesday.

Last month, Gates told the newspaper NATO forces in southern Afghanistan didn't know how to properly combat a guerilla insurgency. He later scrambled to clarify his remarks, saying he wasn't singling out a specific country but was talking about the alliance as a whole.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has expressed his support for the recommendations of the Manley report, is expected to put the future of his minority government on the line to extend the mission.

The government will give notice Thursday it is preparing a motion to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan past 2009. The motion will be a confidence vote, meaning its defeat could trigger a federal election.

The talks in Vilnius will lay the groundwork for a meeting of NATO leaders in Bucharest in April.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/02/07/nato-defence.html

I cant wait to see Stephen Harper fade away into the abyss of the abyss of Canadian politics. If he somehow actually pulls it off and wins the election I'll be extremely impressed, but the only way he can do that is by securing some rather large pledges from NATO allies since the election issue will the mission in Afghanistan.

I think the Conservatives might loose some seats in Quebec perhaps?

 

[Rhymes]

Hmmm.. I dunno. Do you have the latest polls? I thought conservatives were ahead of liberals...

I was under the impression that this vote of confidence had been triggered by the conservatives... because they want elections asap because they think that they are more likely to win it sooner then later.

EDIT: What I mean is conservatives have been putting forth really risky motions lately. It's as if they are daring the other parties to trigger elections. They seem full of confidence with winning.

 

[Alpine Trooper]

Hmmm.. I dunno. Do you have the latest polls? I thought conservatives were ahead of liberals...

I was under the impression that this vote of confidence had been triggered by the conservatives... because they want elections asap because they think that they are more likely to win it sooner then later.

The Conservatives are making it a vote of confidence, they're the governing party. They want elections but are using the Afghanistan mission as a cover for campaign because the Liberals are up in the polls right now and they would have otherwise brought this government down this spring because Dion can't sit on his hands forever and nod yes to everything the Conservatives do.

In a way this bodes well for the Conservatives despite the fact that they're slightly behind. This was last elections results:

CON 124 36.27%
LIB 103 30.23%
BQ 51 10.48%
NDP 29 17.48%
IND 1 .52%
OTH 0 5.02%

 

[Babbler]

I give the odds to Conservative minority re-election, barring any major events occurring before election day. The polls have shown no great movement, and Canadians are, generally, are content with the status quo. The Liberals aren't inspiring anybody to convince them to put back into power.

 

[sysyphus]

Polls change drastically during the campaign, what they say now means very little.

We should be prepared for the biggest mudslinging campaign in our country's history, only this time the Liberals now have a good arsenal to throw back at the Tories (income trust scandal, Mulroney scandal, the sacking of the head of the CNSC to name a few).

The only thing about the outcome that we can really count on is that we will have yet another minority government.

It'll be amusing to see the time span from the dropping of the writ to the end of the election going in a few months while the Americans who are already a few months into their campaign will still have to wait at least six months for their final result.

 

[warpus]

I cant wait to see Stephen Harper fade away into the abyss of the abyss of Canadian politics. If he somehow actually pulls it off and wins the election I'll be extremely impressed, but the only way he can do that is by securing some rather large pledges from NATO allies since the election issue will the mission in Afghanistan.

Poland has recently said that she will send 400 extra troops as well as some helicopters to help Canada out.

I'm not sure if any other country has pleged to send anything to the south of Afghanistan, aside from the U.S.