Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Trivial pursuits

While the Liberal's amendments to the latest Harpermatum on Afghanistan may seem reasonable, they miss a larger truth about the mission.

Listening the rhetoric from the Hill, you'd think that what we do defines the success or failure of the mission.

Bullshit. With a incongruent multinational NATO force understrength (by 7K to 400k depending on the source) unable to freely redeploy its in theatre forces; 20 000 US troops not even operating under NATO command (why does no one ever mention these dudes anymore?); an aid effort following similarly nationalistic lines of discoordination; an Afghan government beginning to assert itself to US disconcert; and an active insurgency, what we do matters fuck all.

We can call for all the NATO or aid coordination we like but we aren't some national TE Lawrence set to unite the Occident in the glorious pursuit of US strategic security interests - which incidentally, is why we are there in the first place, and why everything we do is ultimately subordinate to that fact. It is what they do that defines what happens in/to Afghanistan.

The Liberal motion is nice and polite, but it really does little more than suggest a seat change at the table. But then I can't really blame them; we've turned Afghanistan into a national reflecting pool and nobody seems to want to look at whose garden we're sitting in.

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