Harper's Best Shot? I Hope Not.

Stephen Harper had better make a much stronger argument to his fellow NATO leaders in Riga than he did in this morning's Globe & Mail. If not, we're screwed. Harper, together with the Dutch P.M., wrote an op-ed piece extolling all their successes in Afghanistan to date and their claims were overwhelmingly unimpressive.

Glossing over any suggestion of setbacks and outright failures, Harper used the classic Orwellian language of his mentor in Washington, the standard "war is peace" thing. How are we doing in Kandahar, Steve? "There is still hard work to be done there with boots on the ground." Is that Harperese for the bad guys are taking control of more of the province because we don't have remotely enough troops there and our policies are driving the locals into the arms of the insurgents? "Still hard work to be done." Yeah, right Steve. Lots of it and more every day.

How 'bout this one? "We will continue to vigorously support Afghan efforts to strengthen the rule of law, tackle corruption, and take action against illegal narcotics." So, we're already vigorously supporting the effort to strengthen the rule of law. I guess we're doing that by leaving those kids in prison down the road in Kandahar for refusing their fathers' attempts to sell them, right? And how we must be vigorously supporting the efforts to tackle corruption. How's that going, Steve? Are we rounding up the corrupt cops who are driving the peasants over to our enemy? I mean these cops are helping the guys shooting at us.

Then there's the vigorous effort against illegal narcotics. I assume these would be the same narcotics, raw opium, by which the Afghan farmers put food in the mouths of their kids, right Steve? So what are we doing to give them another way of sustenance, of survival, before we wipe out their crops? Doesn't just destroying their poppy crops simply drive them into the all too welcoming arms of the Taliban?

So Steve's got three points: security, corruption and drugs and the record belies his claims of progress. In fairness he hasn't rolled out the "Mission Accomplished" banner. Much as I'm sure he'd like to, that wouldn't help his effort in Riga to get other nations to jump into this mess.

Maybe the Globe piece is just for the benefit of people at home. Maybe he's keeping his A game for the leaders in Riga. He'd better hope he's got a much more convincing pitch to deliver in Latvia because those leaders know better than to buy this nonsense.