On goalposts

Gordon O'Connor offers his take on how long he plans to keep Canada's military in Afghanistan - and suggests once again that as long as the Cons are in power, they don't care how much reason there may be to bring our troops home:

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor says Canada will stay in Afghanistan until the progress that's been made becomes irreversible by the extremists who still threaten the country.

Remarkably, O'Connor doesn't even seem to suggest that a NATO or U.S. pullout would be enough for him to want to bring Canadian troops home. Instead, he wants to keep Canada's military in Afghanistan it succeeds where both the Soviet Union and the U.S. have failed.

And if that weren't bad enough, the standard chosen by O'Connor is one that simply can't reasonably be reached. After all, it's hard to see how any change could possibly become "irreversible" in the mind of anybody with even the slightest grasp on reality. Though of course the standard may leave the door open for a "declare victory then leave" strategy which few Con supporters would question.

If there's any solace in O'Connor's latest statement, it's that there's no particular reason to think that he has any more idea what he's talking about now than he normally does. But that offers precious little relief as long as O'Connor - or anybody else suffering from the same detachment from reality - remains in a position to dictate (or at least parrot) Canada's military policy.