I'll answer Hamid Karzai

According to the Montreal Gazette, the opposition owes Afghan president Hamid Karzai an answer:

So what do the Liberals, the Bloc and the New Democrats have to say to Karzai and the millions of Afghans, desperate for peace, who elected him? "We don't care"?

First of all, bite me Gazette. You should be ashamed of yourselves for framing the question in such a simplistic and douchebaggy way.

Secondly, of course we care. If we didn’t care, we wouldn’t have gone over in the first place and stayed for so long. But you, and Harper, and Karzai are setting-up a false premise here, designed to use guilt to manipulate your desired result. And shame on you for that.

Just because Canada will potentially leave when its mandate expires in 2009 doesn’t mean NATO will leave. No one is talking about abandoning Afghanistan, you shouldn’t imply that’s the case.

Canada is a small country with a small military, and it’s stretched thin. We don’t have the manpower and the resources to support an indefinite deployment in Afghanistan. By 2009 we’ll have done our share. It will be time for another of the NATO countries to step-up and do its share of the heavy-lifting.

That’s why the Liberals are pushing for a quick vote to settle the question: so this isn’t left to the last minute, so NATO can find another country to step-in in 2009, so the Afghans are not abandoned. Given that the vote is likely to be in favour of ending the mission, by delaying it Harper is giving NATO less time to find a replacement. You might ask instead, Gazette, if Harper really cares about Afghanistan?

Don’t guilt Canada, Mr. Karzai. You should direct your attentions to those members of the NATO alliance that haven’t had thousands of troops in your country for years, that haven’t been losing so many of their sons and daughters to help your country.

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