Liberal defence critic rapped

A Globe and Mail editorial lays into the egregious Ujjal (full text not officially online).

Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh says Canada's mission in Afghanistan should be refocused. "This has become almost totally a combat mission, and that was not the intention," he said Thursday after four Canadians were killed.

That is an astonishing thing for a leading member of the Liberal Party to say. It was, after all, a former Liberal government -- his government -- that decided to send Canadian troops on their dangerous mission in southern Afghanistan in the first place. That government made it clear that this was not just a peacekeeping mission. Its ministers told Canadians quite clearly that there would be fighting and there would be deaths, but that the goal of stabilizing Afghanistan and giving its people a chance to live a decent life was worth the risk. Mr. Dosanjh was a leading cabinet minister in that government. Now that he has the luxury of being in opposition, has he suddenly decided that his government was wrong?..

To say that Afghanistan has "become almost totally a combat mission" is nonsense. Canada is spending $100-milliona year on aid to Afghanistan. That money is being used to help women acquirethe skills they need to work, to distrib-ute loans to people who want to start small businesses and to help clear the heavily mined Afghan countryside. As Canada's military commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier-General David Fraser, pointed out the other day, Canadians are not just fighting the Taliban over there. They are building schools and treating the sick...

The Liberals' interim leader Bill Graham seems to understand that. He says that "we knew this was going to be a very tough mission." Why doesn't his defence critic understand it?..