But that term "presence" included everything foreigners are doing in the country, from aid to business to soldiering.
In Kandahar, for instance, India was rated more highly than Canada. But, as the survey notes, India's main contribution there is not troops but goods and entrepreneurs.
On the question of foreign troops, the poll concluded that Afghans are split down the middle – with 52 per cent calling for a full withdrawal within five years versus 43 per cent who want NATO to stay until the Taliban are crushed.
In short, the vast majority of Afghans don't want us to keep fighting in their country until, as Harper puts it, the job is done. Yet neither, it seems, do they favour those, like the New Democrats, who would pull out Canadian troops immediately, or even those, like the Liberals, who would have us end our combat role by 2009.
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http://www.thestar.com/article/268890
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