...there is a very serious gap in the thinking of those who would pull the Canadian Forces out of Afghanistan in February 2009 or, in the case of the New Democratic Party, right now.

They ignore the fact that Canada pledged its full support for the Afghanistan Compact, a 2006 agreement between the Afghanistan government and the international community represented by more than 60 states and intergovernmental organizations, to help rebuild the war-ravaged country.

Ingrained like a watermark throughout the compact and related documents is the timeline date "end-2010."

End-2010 is the date by which the Afghan government, with the help of the international community, is committed to achieve its benchmark of 70,000 fully-trained and equipped Afghan National Army troops capable of meeting Afghanistan's security needs....

A remarkable string of success stories is found in the compact's Joint Co-ordination and Monitoring Board's first annual, but little-noticed, progress report released in May, indicating long strides toward those goals.

Poll says we don't care about Afghan Campaign

Despite mounting casualties and a renewed focus by the Harper government on Afghanistan, Canada's military mission in the war-torn country is barely registering on the radar screen as a concern for Canadians, a new poll suggests.

The survey, conducted July 9 to 13, found only six per cent of respondents were concerned about Canada's role in Afghanistan, well behind the 34 per cent of respondents who mentioned environmental issues when asked what "single issue" they were most concerned about among "all the issues facing the world today."