Posted on 03/15/2006 8:11:53 AM PST by Clive
OTTAWA (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is back home after his visit to Afghanistan.
Harper left Ottawa on Saturday and spent two days with Canadian troops in the southwest Asian country.
He had a lunch meeting with Afghani President Hamid Karzai in Kabul and also met Pakistani leaders on his way home.
It was Harper's first trip outside the country since taking office.
During his visit, Harper expressed strong support for the Canadian military and its mission in Afghanistan.
He also rejected again suggestions that the mission be debated in the Commons, despite opposition complaints that Canadians don't understand the nature of the deployment.
The liberals ought to understand the mission because their party formed the government that changed the deployment, the ROE and the mission.
If the NDP did not understand the mission it was only because they were busy propping up the government and were disinclined to ask any hard questions even though their ideology ought to have impelled them to oppose.
The Bloc was similarly too busy propping up the government and too focused on their own ethnocentric stances to notice ask.
And none of them can be heard to say that they did not understand that there would be a butcher's bill. Gen Hillyer had told them the risks, loudly, bluntly, publicly and in no uncertain terms.
I about fell over last night when Rick Mercer applauded Harper's Afghan trip.
If it actually comes to a vote, I would guess that a majority of Liberals plus a substantial minority of both the NDP and Bloc would support Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
Harper is doing well, imo.
He also rejected again suggestions that the mission be debated in the Commons, despite opposition complaints that Canadians don't understand the nature of the deployment.
What a difference an election day makes!
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