Liberals look bad on Afghanistan

Tonight the House passed the Conservative/Liberal compromise on the mission in Afghanistan, agreeing to extend the mission until at least 2011, in all likelihood continuing the dangerous assignment in the Kandahar region during that time.  While the motion has some wording about putting more emphasis on development and assistance the mission appears to be set to continue along the same lines that it has for the past 5 years plus.  I like the extension to the mission, I think that Canada is playing an important role in Afghanistan, and I think that our input there strengthens our voice in international affairs and we are actually fighting to make a difference for millions of Afghani citizens.

Even though I support the mission and the extension I think that the Liberals have made a big political mistake on the issue.  Up until very recently the Liberals, and Dion in particular were calling for an end to the combat mission by the current deadline of February 2009.  The Conservatives did a good job of getting John Manley on board for the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan.  With Manley’s voice behind the recommendations it suddenly became very difficult for the Liberals to continue to call for an end to the combat mission by early 2009.  What makes the Liberal move to support the extension of the combat mission is how vocal they had been about bringing it to an end in February 2009.  If the Liberals were not willing to make Afghanistan a major campaign issue they should not have been talking about it so much in the lead up and aftermath of the Manley Report.

The Liberals need to adopt some strategy out of the Conservative playbook.  Pick some key issues, something clearly Liberal, and something also small ‘l’ liberal and stick to those issues.  Granted they have to respond to whatever the government brings forth, but they can avoid taking unequivocal positions and then backing down when it actually comes time to back up their rhetoric by voting in the House.