There is no question that a lot of time, lives, and money were wasted in Afghanistan while the war floundered without direction during the Bush years.  That being said, I will try and present an argument for Canada to stay, and at the very least, continue to train Afghan troops and police while assisting with infrastructure projects.

Army Lt. General Douglas Lute, appointed by President George W. Bush as his "war czar" in 2007, was asked in the summer of 2008 to present an extensive war review of the Afghanistan conflict to be presented before the President left office.  According to Bob Woodward in his new book, Obama's Wars, General Lute presented his report at one of President' Bush's last National Security Council meetings on November 26, 2008.  That report found that, "the effort was barely enough to keep from losing, but that was all."  Additionally, "the report identified Pakistan as a much more strategically troubling problem than Afghanistan, because the sanctuaries there for al Qaeda and other affiliate groups were more of a threat to the United States."

President Bush decided that the report wouldn't be made public saying, "I don't want any public rollout.  There won't be any rollout plan.  The rollout plan will be up to the new administration coming in, because this is going to be their bailiwick now."

Quite frankly, the whole episode shows how embarrassing it would have been for the Bush administration to have to publicly admit that they dropped the ball on Afghanistan for 7 years.  So it was left to the Obama administration to tackle the problems of an entire region, what was being referred to as AfPak.  Except now there was an administration ready to engage all of the players involved.

After a lengthy review of the Afghan war, President Obama made the unpopular decision to increase the number of troops on the ground in Afghanistan and implement a real strategy for the first time by holding and protecting population centres, despite having a lacklustre partner in Afghan President Hamid Karzai.   A new poll taken by the Asia Foundation found that 47% of Afghans now thought that their country was on the right track, as opposed to last year when only 42% felt the same. 

Pakistan began an offensive last year to quell Taliban forces within their borders due in large part to the Obama administration and economic incentives, but they have stalled of late, causing President Obama to publicly chide them recently.  There are still elements of Pakistan's ISI, military, and government who support the Taliban, however for the first time, elements of the Pakistani government and military are also working with NATO forces to route out extremists.  Pakistani forces took what is called South Waziristan from Taliban forces after much prodding by the United States and using tens of thousands of Pakistani troops to take control of the volatile region.  However, that still left North Waziristan in the hands of the Pakistani Taliban, which is still under their control to this day.  Pakistan insists that it will address the region when it can, but tensions between Indian and Pakistan are still so high that the majority of Pakistani troops are still along the border with India.  The real fear in Pakistan is that extremists will eventually topple the weak government and get their hands on the nuclear weapons we all know are there.   To pick up and walk away now would be assuring a resurgence of extremism across Afghanistan and Pakistan unfortuantely.

So how do we combat extremism?  Well the most obvious thing from a military point of view has already been done.  Now that there are enough troops to cover the ground, we are actually doing our best to look out for civilians.  Karzai has been pushed into a corner and is actively seeking peace with Taliban forces and nation building is occurring, even if the terminology is frowned upon.  It's the message that the west intends to leave the region in better shape than they found it which will help win the long term fight against extremism, as well as economic development, and perhaps in a more limited way, sharing art and literature.

The bottom line is that Canada shouldn't walk away now that we're following an actual plan to improve the lives of people in the region, especially now that we know that only winning hearts and minds can achieve victory in irregular conflicts.  Canada has been in Afghanistan since war was first declared, and while it certainly is unfortunate that the invasion of Iraq drained attention and resources from an important region, if perception is most of what matters, then we can't afford to pull out of Afghanistan when we've only just begun to make a difference.  That, or the sacrifices already made were for nothing.