blevkog

I have been trying to formulate my thoughts on last night's "vote" all day long and dammit, they just won't organize themselves into words. I'm not emotional or anything, I knew it was going to go down as it did, it's just that I haven't had the time to enumerate all of the disappointments and opportunities it represents. I'm glad that there was at least some discussion of the mission, but unfortunately Harper's statement that he was going to lift his leg on a "no" vote should that happen dashed my hopes that this would form a useful and potentially important precedent for future military entanglements our government might opt to wander into, which I had written about like a doe-eyed 13 year-old earlier this week. I blush just to think...

So what have we derived from this little manouver?

• The Canadian military is stuck in Afghanistan until 2009
• We will very likely have to expand our contingent, as it is likely that we will taking over leadership of the mission in a year. How many troops are we talking about? 3000? When is it likely we'll find out?
• The vote, the Canadian military, the Parliament, was used last night in an effort to split the Liberal party, that much is obvious. That doesn't shock or upset me - it's happened before and it's just part of the game. The NDP and Bloc voted as I and many others had thought, had hoped they would, but that left the Liberals stranded on a rock largely of their own making. They opted to not enforce caucus solidarity sensibly, and the result split a couple of dozen MP's on the government side, and another dozen more that either abstained, or shamelessy didn't show up. For what it's worth, the vote was a hell of a lot closer than I thought it would be. How does it effect the Liberal leadership race now that two of the candidates - Scott Brison and Michael Ignatieff, have voted with the government on this?
• The Conservatives have now firmly and absolutely hitched it's fate to that of the Canadian military. There is no going back now for them; they no longer can call it a "Liberal mission", because from now on, it's all theirs. However it turns, it's theirs.
• I harken back to Dan saying some months ago that the Tories are going to do everything they can to split the Liberals down the centre and that they would be willing to accept 30 or 40 seats swing to the NDP because it would result in more than that swinging over to them.

Go and read James Travers editorial at the Star today. I have nothing more than "what he said".

Posted by kevvyd on Thursday, May 18, 2006 at 3:25 PM | Permalink