The Marines have landed

Canada's forces in southern Afghanistan are getting a boost from the U.S. Marine Corps:

Roughly 1,100 of the 3,200 U.S. marines due in Afghanistan have already arrived for what's scheduled to be a seven-month tour in the war-ravaged country, where they are expected to buttress badly stretched Canadian resources. "I think everyone has embraced us, the Canadians in particular," Col. Peter Petronzio, the unit's commanding officer, said Monday.

The deployment is a stop-gap to bolster the Canadians, who have been battling insurgents and insisted on help as a condition of extending their deployment. After Germany, Spain, and several other NATO states refused (again) to send troops south, the U.S. offered a Marine unit. For the next seven months, the North Americans will be fighting shoulder to shoulder in the province. Hell, if the Mexicans chip in a brigade, Kandahar could join NAFTA.