Two thoughts on the recent British parliamentary committee report on the situation in Afghanistan.
One: the report suggests Afghanistan is over. The campaign is coming to an end. Because we are losing. The security situation is getting worse. The reconstruction effort is failing.
I don't mean the Canadians specifically are failing, but Canada is part of the Nato project. And the Nato project is failing.
There aren't enough troops to secure the ground. The Germans won't commit troops to risky assignments, any more than the French or the Italians will. As long as they won't, the Dutch, British and Canadians won't commit more troops. Even in the countries with no troops committed to the combat areas, voters mostly favour bringing the troops home and will not support reinforcing them or putting them in danger. It's the same with reconstruction. The big European countries won't support adequate levels of aid, so the reconstruction project will fail for lack of resources. Europe has concluded that building an orderly Afghanistan is not worth the effort.
Note Two: the British parliamentary committee delivered a tough, well-informed report, largely independent of what the government may have wanted. That could not happen in Canada, where our MPs act as useless automatons. In Britain party leaders ultimately answer to caucuses, which means MPs retain significant independence of action. In Canada MPs answer to leaders and so they have no independence. Even in a minority situation, no Canadian parliamentary committee could demonstrate either the brains or the guts of their British counterparts.
And in the Canadian context, proportional representation, the only political reform under active consideration, will make that situation worse.
