The fighting left

From a post by Terry Glavin:

What Effective Progressive Activism Really Looks Like

A glimpse, in today's Globe and Mail, from a profile of our pal Lauryn Oates, co-founder of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee.

Contrary to naysayers, Ms. Oates said, ordinary Afghans want international aid and intervention. "People have this incredible resilience," she said. "If they're willing to go on, we have to be behind them. The least we can do is stand by them. This is not about charity or pity."

For the opposite of progressive politics (the kind that animates the "anti-war left" in Canada today) and which our friends over at Shiraz Socialist have properly characterized as "a piece of propaganda for a fascist movement that would have been shocking six or seven years back, but wouldn’t raise an eyebrow now," you can read a thorough whitewash of the Taliban, if you can bear it, in International Socialism. Better to just read Shiraz, so you won't feel soiled...

Update: Mr Glavin has drawn this well-reasoned article in the straight.com to my attention--note the authors:

Canadian soldiers aren't dying for nothing in Afghanistan
...
Sverre Frisch studies political science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He spent five years as an officer with the Norwegian Army, including two tours as a peacekeeper in the Balkans. Tylere Couture is a captain with the Canadian Forces and recently returned from a seven-month tour in Afghanistan with the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar City. Couture and Frisch are both members of the UBC chapter of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee.