On Harper and Afghanistan

Former Mulroney hack, Norman Spector, is anything but non-partisan. Despite that he is capable at times of some genuine wisdom. I enjoyed his take on Harper's Afghanistan dilemma in today's Globe and Mail:

...with casualties mounting, the Afghan mission is badly tangled in domestic politics, and Mr. Harper's government, too, is bleeding. Still, both the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals have hinted at some willingness to carry on in some fashion, and therein lies an opportunity.
Mr. Harper should begin by giving Canadians the unvarnished truth about the mission's prospects.

But his fundamental challenge was best expressed by British Labour MP Aneurin Bevan in a magisterial parliamentary speech at the height of the 1956 Suez crisis: "When a nation makes war upon another nation, it should be quite clear why it does so. It should not keep changing the reasons as time goes on."

Under Jean Chrétien, it was never made clear why Canadian troops were in Afghanistan - unless it was to make up for their not being in Iraq. Under Paul Martin, the parliamentary debate on the dangerous Kandahar deployment was a one-night affair that went virtually unreported. And Mr. Harper has been shifting his rationale for the mission, while comporting himself more like a backroom boy engaged in spin wars than a wartime prime minister.