Afstan politics are all about caskets

Andrew Coyne tells the truth about opposition positions--though I suspect he's too optimistic about Canadians generally:

Let us now give thanks for Gilles Duceppe. Let us erect statues to his memory. Let school children across the country recite poems in his honour. For the Bloc Quebecois leader, though he certainly did not intend it, may have single-handedly saved the Afghanistan mission, and with it Canada's reputation as a reliable ally...

...Mr. Duceppe's statement last week, demanding that the Prime Minister state explicitly, in what is expected to be a new Speech from the Throne this fall, that Canadian troops will be withdrawn from combat at the expiry of the current mission, or face defeat in a confidence vote, has achieved several things...

with his customary subtlety and exquisite sense of timing, Mr. Duceppe has made hash of the opposition's careful public relations strategy: the statement came one day after two soldiers from Quebec were killed in an explosion (another had been killed a few days before), a connection Mr. Duceppe made no attempt to deny. If there is a more precise definition of cutting and running --Casualties? Get us out of here-- I do not know it.

That is indeed the closest thing we have had to an explanation of the opposition position. We know they want Canadian troops withdrawn, but until now it has never been made clear why. They can have no complaint with the mission's legality: our troops are there under a United Nations' mandate, with the support of the democratically elected government of Afghanistan. Nor, outside of the NDP, do they pretend the Afghans do not need defending. Someone has to do the fighting, they concede--just not us.

And the reason we should be excused? That much is now clear, if it was not before: Because it involves hardship, and because they hope to appeal to that section of the public that believes hardship is unnecessary -- that our enemies can be defeated without hardship, if they must be defeated at all. All that guff about having "taken our turn" was always a smokescreen...

...I suspect that the wave of revulsion Mr. Duceppe's statement has stirred in other parts of the country will wash over Quebec as well, and that this country will discover again those reserves of self-respect that are hidden to so many of its leaders.