Angry in the Great White North

Did the Liberals win on Afghanistan?

You could argue that this is a big win for Mr. Harper, who gets exactly what he wanted -- a guaranteed extension of the Afghanistan mission; four more years on the ground in Kandahar; virtual elimination of the issue as a threat in either bringing down the government or dominating an election campaign should one happen -- all at the price of a bit of political flattery.

But you could also argue -- and the Liberals certainly should -- that it’s a huge victory for Stéphane Dion. In adopting the Liberal wording, Mr. Harper has moved  vast distances from where he started on the issue. Mr. Dion could credibly crow that he’s forced the Tories into accepting a firm departure date; made them eat humble pie over their handling of the mission; justified weeks of Opposition harping about the treatment of prisoners; and generally erased the sneer the government habitually adopted in dealing with anyone presumptuous enough to suggest the Canadian public had a right to know what they were up to.

Well, if this was such a success for the Liberals, why did so many Liberal MPs did not bother showing up to support the motion?

Liberal Party Whip Karen Redman says there were "no surprises" during last week's vote on extending the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, which saw almost 20 Liberals steer clear of the House during what has been described as the most important foreign policy vote in years.

Yet while staff for a number of Liberal parliamentarians gave several reasons their bosses were absent, one Liberal MP confirmed she would have abstained had she been in the House last Thursday night because she could not support a mission extension.

But it wasn't a mission extension.  The mission has changed.  Canadian troops will be planting flowers and building women's call centres and tying ribbons to ponies, or whatever the Liberals think Canadian troops under fire are supposed to do in a war zone.

Only one Conservative, one NDP MP, and one independent were absent for the vote. 

And twenty Liberals? 

Clearly this is not the motion a lot of Liberals wanted to see.  Worse yet, Stephane Dion was unwilling and unable to convince these caucus members, who are supposed to vote together once the private caucus debate is over and a decision is taken, to vote in favour of the motion devised by Dion and his team.

The next time some Liberal Party talking head goes on about the Liberal motion on Afghanistan being adopted by the Conservative government, I'll be thinking of the upwards to twenty Liberals aren't afraid enough of Stephane Dion to make an effort to maintain that fiction.

The real joke in all of this?  Stephane Dion can't even brag about this so-called "Liberal win" too loudly.  If he does, all that needs to happen is for some reporter to corner one of these twenty Liberal MPs (absent Liberal MP Bonnie Brown already went public to say she would have voted against the motion) to publicly denounce the motion, and that would be the end of that.