The Canadian Senate lays out a few truths on Afghanistan

Steve at Far and Wide has an excellent post laying out the Senate Defence committee's latest report on Afghanistan. The report is blunt and paints a relatively grim picture. It also suggests that unless other NATO countries start stepping up to the plate, Canada should re-assess its mission entirely.

I'm not going to repeat Steve's post but I will add a few items.

Senate reports have a tendency to gather a lot of dust. Since there is really nothing binding about them they serve only as advice and it's easy for a government to ignore them. I suspect that will be the case for this report, particularly since Harper has a habit of uttering Bush-style platitudes about the Afghanistan campaign which are out of place and lack traction among a majority of Canadians.

That brought me to the last part of the CBC's coverage of the report.

When asked whether the government has painted too "rosy" a view of the mission, Kenny replied that the report reflected what the committee saw during two visits to Afghanistan.

"I'm telling you that's how we see it. If the government isn't laying it out like this, then they should," he said. "It's going to be an uphill fight for a long time."

Got that Harper?

No. I don't suppose you do.