Planet And Peace Trip Up Harper Government

That pattern reinforces the troubling notion that a cerebral Prime Minister and his elite are analytically challenged. If it were otherwise, a co-ordinated spring wouldn't have deteriorated into this awkward fall. Afghanistan is the most obvious example. Just months after adopting a Liberal mission by controversially extending it until at least 2009, Conservatives are blaming allies for abandoning them in the quagmire. My how the message changes. Threatening to arbitrarily extend the deployment by a year and even force an election, Conservatives used April's rushed and wispy debate to beat their chests about standing together against terrorism, rebuilding a shattered country and rallying around the flag. Now there's finger pointing at fair-weather friends, more talk about sending tanks than opening schools and, with 40 soldiers dead, grudging acceptance that there's a quantum difference between supporting the troops and supporting the mission. So did this government not understand the magnitude of its Afghanistan commitment or was pleasing Washington all the justification needed? Did it not know or not care, that Canadians would be doing most of NATO's fighting, that Pakistan's complex politics would leave the border dangerously open, or that a corrupt Kabul administration would align with drug warlords who profit from instability and who would bankroll insurgents? Being Uncle Sam's new best friend is one thing; it's quite another to sacrifice lives to a cause too constricted by prevailing circumstances to be won. Leadership, it turns out, is less about true-believer certainty and more about weighing information. http://tinyurl.com/yg8e5k [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 13, 2006]

Note: http://tinyurl.com/yg8e5k