American and NATO troops, including Canadians, will pull out of Afghanistan in 2014 at the latest, unless they don't. It depends on something but no one knows what that something might be. In his new book Obama's Wars, Bob Woodward quotes General David Petraeus, the senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan: "I don't think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. ... This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives, and probably our kids' lives." Dear me, how do I break this to our granddaughter?

Stephen Harper and Bob Rae have bonded over their shared determination that Canada keep a significant presence in Afghanistan.

This historic drama began this summer, when Bob Rae returned from a few days in Afghanistan to proclaim that Canada must "see this thing through." Stephen Harper agrees. With what, though? What does it mean?

At a annual cost of half a billion dollars, 950 Canadians will be sent to train the Afghan army and police for three years. Some may be wounded or killed. That's a necessary sacrifice soldiers make -- if there's a genuine purpose to it. What's the purpose here?

We should have known it was too good to be true. Harper's many, many repetitions of his government's commitment to get all the troops out by July 2011 are well known. I think he may actually have meant it because by these repeated statements he framed the issue so strongly that all Canadians expected -- and supported -- the withdrawal.

Here's what he said in an interview with Canwest last January:

Der Spiegel Online has a very interesting piece on the German army's new found enthusiasm for air strikes and armed drones:

It was a summer's day in June 2009 when the German army in Afghanistan first used U.S. Army drones in combat. With hindsight, some observers say that was the day the German military lost its innocence in Afghanistan. The firing of deadly rockets from drones on the orders of a German commander was part of the new reality of war in northern Afghanistan.