I watched the CNN show, Global Public Square with Fareed Zakaria last Sunday, and was delighted when his guest Mr. Harper at long last acknowledged that the insurgency in Afghanistan could not be defeated.
My question on Sunday morning, and now after reading the Op-Ed piece, Harper’s Candour in the March 5 Vancouver Sun, is simply, what took you so long to figure that out, Prime Minister?
Did somebody finally give the PM a history book that detailed the failures of all occupying forces in that God-forsaken hell-hole dating back to Alexander the Great in 328 BC?
Or was the in-flight movie en route to Washington an old rerun of The Man Who Would Be King? It was adapted from a novel by Rudyard Kipling; a writer who saw first hand the futility of trying to conquer the Pashtun people in that region he called the Hindu Kush.
Or perhaps the PM somehow got his hands on a year-old report from the NATO Commander in Afghanistan in which U.S. General Dan McNeil stated that it would take in excess of 400,000 troops to defeat the insurgents?
A couple of years ago when our mission to Afghanistan was being extended, the leader of the NDP stated in the House of Commons that the insurgency would never be defeated. He was heckled by the Harpercrites and labeled Taliban Jack.
Taliban Jack has been wrong about a lot of things, but on this one he’s always been right in saying repeatedly that it’s time to bring our troops home and stop the needless slaughter.
Bernie Smith
Parksville