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The Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee has released a report urging Canada to continue an active role in Afghanistan after the military mission ends next year. Committee co-founder Terry Glavin and Nasrine Gross, an Afghan-American writer at Kabul University, discuss the situation on the ground.

No retreat. No “reconciliation” with psychotic thugs. No backroom deals with those who intend to turn Afghanistan into a vast refugee camp full of militant religious fanatics.

That’s the view from pretty well everyone in Afghanistan worth quoting about President Hamid Karzai’s clumsy and self-defeating efforts to somehow bring the Taliban into the fold of the government.

“The sacrifices you have made here, and all your taxpayers’ money. What for? You will have to ask that,” Mr. Abdullah said in an interview.

He said Canada would not be trespassing on Afghanistan’s sovereignty if it moves to block a “reconciliation” deal that circumvents Afghanistan’s parliamentary system. More importantly, he said, Canada is burdened by a duty to its own citizens to see that it does not happen.

“You have more than a right to stay firm in that,” Mr. Abdullah said. “Not just for the sake of any Afghan persons or an Afghan movement, but for the sake of the sacrifices you have made here. You are not in the business of betraying your own people. In that sense, it is an obligation.”

The full story by Terry Glavin, reporting from Afghanistan, is at the National Post, ‘STAY FIRM’ AGAINST TALIBAN: ABDULLAH. Read every word.

Spare a thought for heroes clearing a far-away land of thugs and monsters. Operation Moshtarak in Afghanistan is well underway, with our Afghan allies aided by ISAF forces overrunning Taliban-held territory.

With the enemy mostly melting away in the face of superior firepower, with the exception of a rearguard action by some desperate suicide attackers, the next objective will be to hold these gains. Nothing less than the future of Afghanistan is at stake.

It’s long past time for our politicians to acknowledge the critical events happening on the ground in Afghanistan right now and provide real leadership. With victory in sight, there is no reason to be shy about having a discussion that many Canadians — not least, Afghan Canadians, have been wanting for some time.

Armed Forces hail Moshtarak success

Death. Destruction. Terror.

That is the Taliban’s response to the West’s latest idea for getting out of Afghanistan: a trust fund for terrorists.

A second Taliban representative, also reached by phone, said the attack was intended to answer American and Afghan proposals to “reconcile” with and “reintegrate” Taliban fighters into mainstream society. The plan is a central part of the American-backed campaign to turn the tide of the war, and will be showcased later this month at an international conference in London.

“We are ready to fight, and we have the strength to fight, and nobody from the Taliban side is ready to make any kind of deal,” Mr. Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said. “The world community and the international forces are trying to buy the Taliban, and that is why we are showing that we are not for sale.”

Is anyone really all that surprised? The Taliban don’t need money. They just want power. In any case, it kind of takes the decision out of our hands, doesn’t it?

As Terry Glavin points out, this would be an awfully good time for Canada to take a stand; hopefully something more robust than that “if there is even one Canadian soldier reporting for duty in Afghanistan after 2011, he must be assigned to guard an embassy, and he must be odd.”

A decision to walk away from an unfinished war, with all its attendant risks to national interests and dispiriting connotations of retreat and forsaken sacrifices, is only slightly less important than was the decision to enter it in the first place. A decision to go to war or to withdraw ought to be the finale, not the beginning, of a detailed analysis of the consequences in either case.

What do Canadians want for Afghanistan post-2011 and what are we willing to do to achieve it? It’s long past time for Canadians to start talking about these questions.

For example, does a pullout embolden the Taliban and it’s allies, putting Canadians at more risk down the line? What kind of message does it send to our allies if we abandon the field? Why are we talking about pulling everything to meet an arbitrary deadline just when the mission is showing signs of success?

Forget troops-in, troops-out. What does Canada want to achieve? And do we really want to leave our accomplishments thus far to help the Afghan people to the tender mercies of the Taliban, while the Afghan National Army is only now beginning to get to it’s feet as an effective arm of the Afghan government?

These questions can’t be ignored any longer. And it’s long past time that the leaders of the various political parties started showing some leadership on this file.