Afghanistan is on the front lines of a war that has been grinding its bloody way through the Muslim masses of the world for some time now. It is a war being waged by theocratic and "secular" fascists against modernity, against democracy, against the Jews, against the emancipation of women, against the liberation of gay people, and against everything that we, as Canadian socialists, progressives, liberals and democrats, have ever loved and believed in and fought for.

The Taliban were and are as savage, cruel, misogynist, violent and cunning as any of the battalions the enemy has deployed, and the people of Afghanistan continue to suffer their depredations. Canada has been honoured with the privilege and the opportunity to be fighting this war on the side of the Afghan people, at the request of the Afghan people, shoulder to shoulder with the Afghan people.

To my dismay, the "left" in Canada has by and large failed to properly comprehend the nature of this struggle. To put it charitably, the Canadian "left" has not demonstrated any noticeable leadership in this struggle, and indeed has, with notable exceptions, failed to join the struggle.

It is commonplace for popular NDP pamphleteers to engage in such disgraceful histrionics as to call the struggle in Afghanistan "an occupation being resisted by indigenous militants" and to casually dismiss as "lies" the great victories that Afghans have won, and continue to win, against overwhelming odds. The Taliban persists in beheading teachers and burning down hundreds of schools every year, but even so, enrolment among Afghan girls has gone up from less than six per cent - mostly in private, home-based operations - to 40 per cent. But it is a "lie" that Afghan girls are even going to school, we are told.

It has gotten so that well-regarded members of this country's leftish nomenklatura can get away with arguing that Canada and its NATO allies should pull out of Afghanistan - even though the likely consequence would be “a fascistic theocracy.” This open admission of moral bankruptcy will not cause you the slightest embarassment in fashionable Toronto parlours. Indeed, you will be drawn more affectionately to the bosom of Canada's pseudo-left commentariat.

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