Canada's soft underbelly in Afghanistan...

...is Canadians at home, according to Rosie DiManno of the Toronto Star:

Corp. Matthew McCully, 25, became the most recent combat fatality on Friday, the 55th soldier lost since Canada deployed troops to Afghanistan in 2002.

A nation shudders.

But the angst is ours, not theirs, the soldiers who have most to fear and perhaps to doubt...Yet they've never lost heart or resolve. Which is so much more than can be said for the hand-wringing Canadian public.

[...]

The neo-Taliban insurgency has shown more vigour in the past year but this is a fight they can't win militarily. That's not their aim. The war they are waging is here, in Canada, and other coalition countries. The militants aren't stupid; they recognize the soft ground.

It would be so easy for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to cave in to opinion polls, bring the troops home earlier rather than later. Such a decision might even give this Conservative government the majority it covets.

I have no partisan politics. But Harper is to be commended for continuing to do what's morally right rather than politically expedient, amidst the sophistry that passes for informed criticism, particularly among those who conflate Afghanistan with Iraq.

...This country stands for something, which is why it has stood with Afghans, which is why Canadian soldiers recoil from the very suggestion that our troops should seek safer havens, whether in Kabul as a security force or in provinces calmer than Kandahar.

They do not want this. As hard as it may be for many Canadians to understand, combat troops thrive on soldiering. They hate being tucked in the safe sanctuary of the Kandahar Airfield. They routinely express disdain for allies that rarely venture outside the wire. It is a matter of pride and principle.

Pity that so many Canadians share neither that pride nor those principles.

Exactly. Our "moral moment". As Pogo said: "We have met the enemy and he is us."