So the truth of it is, if Parliament decides that, as Mr. MacKay put it, "our current configuration," meaning combat troops, will end in early 2009, no one should draw comfort from the promise that "the aid work" will continue merrily on.(via SDA)
It won't.
Neither is it likely another country will step up to fill the vacuum left by departing Canadian soldiers, and even if one does, they won't be as good at the hard work - of killing and being killed, as well as talking and building - as Canadians are.
And Afghanistan will slide deeper into the chaos that as always is on a low boil, burbling within.
That's why I left Kandahar yesterday feeling ashamed.
Where failure itself is often honourable, failing to stay the course is not, and that's what's in the air.
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