Mr. Speaker, when we first went into Afghanistan, it was under a Liberal government, as I recall. At that time people in the public generally felt that we were there in a peacekeeping role. That was the role of our armed forces. Many people were surprised to find out that our role had changed to active fighting in the most dangerous area of the country.
Just today I heard a military source on the radio claiming that leaving in 2011 would be viewed as abandoning Afghanistan. We can see the campaign has already started to prolong our involvement in this war without end. We should not forget that this war has been going on for many, many years. The Russians were in there for a number of years and other countries have had deep involvement and it has never concluded.
I want to applaud the member for his excellent presentation and ask him whether he could review these options that he has talked about and explain them in a little more detail.