The costs of the Afghan campaign will be tremendous when all government and private costs are included. Extending the campaign to the end of 2011 will dramatically increase those costs as equipment and people are worn down and high casualty rates continue.

Not only is the cost of the Afghanistan mission extremely high, it is also crowding out spending on Canada's traditional uses for its military -- peacekeeping.

Canada's military has been withdrawing from peacekeeping for some time. The mission to Afghanistan has quickly completed the Canadian retreat. As the cost of the Afghan campaign increased, the much smaller contribution to UN missions shrank dramatically.