The Liberals purported Afghanistan amendments look reasonable.

Not sure whether NATO agrees or not is even relevent. Of course there will be pressure, but atthe end of the day it’s Canadian troops and Canada decides whether to put them in harm’s way or not - just as Germany, Italy and a host of other so-called allies have been doing for 6 years now.
Personally I like this approach and I think it will be well-accepted by the electorate.

Scott, most of these would-be Liberal amendments are hardly controversial: "freer flow of information", "progress reports", a "special envoy" etc.. That’s all fine and well, and no one is going to rise up in loud protest against such procedural niceties. The real reason that I, and anyone who supports the Afghanistan mission in its current incarnation, could never support the Liberal proposal is because it’s setting hard deadlines!
You might argue that we need deadlines in order to avoid a "never ending mission", but there’s a big difference between setting benchmarks where you assess how things are going, versus putting an expiry date on the mission itself. Despite repeated requests on your blog and others, no one has yet been able to explain to me the logic of putting deadline on armed conflicts.
In my view, the primary problem with the NDP, Bloc and Liberal positions is that they emphasize the minimization of risk to our troops at the expense of progress in the field. Suppose that the only way to actually defeat the Taliban involved more fighting, not less? Do you think for one second that any of the opposition parties would then support more fighting? Of course not. So you can dance around the issue all you want, but the bottom line is, that if this is the tack the Liberal Party wants to take, you’ve thrown your lot in with the NDP. That’s your prerogative, but don’t be surprised when the public fails to see the nuances of the Liberal position. And you can bet your behind that people like myself are going to repeatedly draw as much attention as we can to the fact that however you want to dress it up, the Liberal Party believes that (a) it’s not worth fighting past 2009, no matter what and (b) they don’t really care what happens in Afghanistan after 2011 because it’s not Canada’s problem anymore.
After all, we’ve "done our share".

What a typically Liberal response - your biggest concern seems to be patting yourself on the back for a job well done. It’s 5 o’clock, working day is over - we’re outta here! Doesn’t really matter that the work you signed up to do isn’t yet done. Maybe you can wave goodbye to the Afghanis from the back of the last truck to pull out. "Sorry old chaps, but you’re not our problem anymore. You see, NATO has hung us out to dry. So we’re just going to have to do the same to you. Have a nice life - I’m sure it won’t be a long one."
Why do you suppose it is that we can’t prod other countries into sharing the burden, Scott? Would it have anything to do with the constant insistence from people like, say, yourself, that Canada is going to leave anyway? Or is that just a bluff to force NATO’s hand? Let’s say it is; what if it doesn’t work? Too bad, so sad, Afghanistan? What do you think this is, Scott - a poker game?
Yes, I’m a "typical neo-conservative" because I have the nerve to suggest that no one can accurately predict when an armed conflict will end. In your cushy little make-believe world, fighting a war is just like any other government program, where you can set start and end dates and tie everything up nice and tidy. I would hate to stuck fighting with you in a matter of life and death - you’d call it quits whenever it became too much of an annoyance to you. This is a matter of life and death to thousands, if not millions, of people in one of the poorest country in the world, but the deciding factor in your mind is the opinion polls. Guess that shows the depth of your commitment to principle, doesn’t it.
I also see you are critical of the Karzai government. Then naturally the best way to ensure that the situation improves in Afghanistan will be…what? For the Taliban to grow stronger? For the Karzai government to collapse? What, precisely? Ah, I forgot. You don’t really care about answering these sorts of complicated questions, because you already read an opinion poll that says "not fighting" is popular amongst Canadians.Of course you’re not scared of the Conservative position on Afghanistan, or anything else: because you have an unshakeable belief that everyone else in Canada thinks exactly like you do.  Unless they’re radical extremist nazi so-con bigots, of course.

I look forward to an election if for no other reason than to watch you puff yourself purple in outrage even more than usual about all the obvious sins of the Tory government that 80% of Canadians simply fail to get worked up about either way.

What does an American retired four star General say about Afghanistan? At a recent Q&A at UCLA, his comments sound very much like the Liberal position. Go here and about a quarter of the way down, you will find his comments after a question about the NATO led war. 

My own thoughts - if we knew then that the Bush Gov’t would dump this on NATO and take off for Iraq virtually the day after entering Afghanistan, would we have agreed to go in the first place?  Our reason for being there AT ALL was to respond to 09/11/01 as a NATO ally of the USA. The mission was to defeat the Taliban IN ORDER TO CAPTURE OBL PERIOD. Mission not accomplished. Staying forever and inventing new reasons for being there will never erase this fact. The mission was not accomplished. Those whom we went there for, our American friends, left us there without completing the mission.
http://securingamerica.com/ccn/node/14694

ALW:

Since you’re so outraged at a fixed date, tell me what you think of Harper coming out and sounding half-reasonable to the Liberal amendments… looks like he’ll even agree to the "fixed" 2011 date.

Let me guess - brilliant coming from Harper.. and more then acceptable.. but bad coming from Dion and the Liberals.

ALW,

I don’t doubt your good intentions. I just think that you are wrong. I think that you are not being realistic.
The invasion as it was originally advertised in the West was to route out Al Quaeda (the group behind the 9/11 attacks). The Taliban got in the way so the invasion went ahead. That mission failed, but it would be responsible and realistic of us to leave the country in some stability. 
But then the neo-conservatives started getting fantasies of building hospitals and reworking the local culture to our values, a total revolution.  ALW writes "And if you don’t think it would be oppressive, why did we go to Afghanistan in the first place?" You seem to have forgotten that we went there to get bin Laden. That’s it. We would not have invaded to do these other fantastical things you are now talking about. It sounds like the NDP throwing billions of dollars at problems except the conservatives also want to blow up things and people as well.  In 2000, you would have been laughed out of the room. We don’t go around invading other countries because we don’t like their culture.

Now, since we are there, we might provide some assistance, but that should not obscure the primary goal of leaving the country in some stability. That would be getting the job done. The Taliban, a religious group, are integrated with the Pashtun. It does seem likely to me that the country will be stabilized as long as the Pashtun are excluded from power. This means that there will need to be negociations to co-opt the Taliban/Pashtun into the government. I would have the international community move toward this solution sooner rather than later. Consequently, supporting an ongoing counter-insurgency war strikes me as a stalling tactic of those who have not yet thought through the issue of how we are going to end the conflict.  If eliminating the Taliban is besides the point as you (ALW) say, then why would we be fighting a counter-insurgency war.

I think your talk of winning or surrendering completely misses the point. Canada needs to start thinking like a mature middle power with realistic foreign policy objectives.  

Pat, Pat,  BBBBRRRRRAAAAAAATTTTTTT…