"We will not abandon you"

Let us hope and work. Afghanistan: heart and wisdom--plus brains, from Terry Glavin:

...
It was no great surprise, then, that the postures of the 'anti-war' movement based in the world's rich countries leave the Afghan activists I interviewed utterly mystified. Without exception, the proposition that the 39-nation International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is merely a tool of western imperialism was greeted with derision. As for the notion that the way forward in Afghanistan involves the withdrawal of foreign troops and some kind of brokered pact with the Taliban, the response was invariably wide-eyed incredulity...

Here in the 'west,' none of us on the liberal left would fail to recognise these brave women and men as our comrades and allies, and if we were to flatter ourselves we might even imagine them to be our Afghan counterparts. On the question of troop withdrawal, their views were varied and nuanced, but their answer was ultimately the same: Stay. And yet this is not the position that the left has been fighting for, in the main, in Europe or North America. It changes by degree from country to country, of course, and the left's positions are varied and nuanced. But in Canada, the left's answer is pretty much unequivocal: Leave [with some. er, nuance in the pursuit of power--see Update].

....now that the conflict in Iraq is rapidly winding down in ways that defy the grim forecasts of anti-war polemicists, the United States, particularly, is intent upon ramping up its efforts in Afghanistan. The war for 'hearts and minds' should be ramped up, too, but the main battles in that war aren't being fought in the mud-walled compounds of bleak Afghan deserts. They're unfolding in the rich countries of the world, where it is already fashionable in liberal-left circles to write off Afghanistan as an irredeemably misbegotten place, a folly, and a lost cause.

This is not a war any of us can afford to lose, and it is a disgrace that it has to be fought within the left, but that's what we're stuck with...

...words can go a long way, and in Afghanistan, the words the people need to hear are these: We will not leave you. We will not betray you. We will not abandon you.