Now What?

Let's see. According to Harpo and Hillier, Canada is in Afghanistan to save the country from the Taliban. Wouldn't it be great if the Afghan government we're supposedly defending agreed with us?

They don't. Afghan President Karzai has been trying to negotiate a deal with the Taliban for years. He knows what we won't admit - we don't have a snowball's chance of genuinely defeating the Taliban. At best we're swatting flies and, even then, we're wiping out a lot of innocents when we take out the bad guys.

If the civilian casualties were worth the results we're achieving, surely the Afghan government would be onside, eh? They're not. Time and again, Karzai has been calling these collateral deaths "unacceptable." He knows we're alienating the very people whose support his government desperately needs. He knows we're driving many of these folks straight into the arms of the Taliban.

Today, Afghanistan's senate has approved a motion calling for the government to conduct direct talks with the Taliban. The senate also called for US, NATO and Afghan forces to call off the hunt for Taliban fighters and other militants.

Karzai doesn't want us fighting this war the way we're fighting it and his senate doesn't want us fighting it at all. Discontent with our forces among the Afghan people is widespread and growing. We've been at this for six years and we're still treading water.

If the President and the government and the people of Afghanistan oppose what we're doing or at least how we're doing it, what gives us the right to just keep on doing what they oppose? If they want a deal with the Taliban, why are we wasting Canadian lives in a futile effort to protect them from the Taliban?

Canada's parliament held a faux debate on the Afghanistan mission but things have changed on the ground significantly since then. There's no better time for a thorough reassessment of this mess and a proper debate on what Canada's role should be in the months and years ahead.