POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MARK SEDRA IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Mark Sedra's piece is pathetic. There is simply no genuine analysis here, just a string of cliches.
"If the Afghan state collapses, it could destabilize the region and the entire world by providing a haven for terrorists and criminal organizations who export extremism and narcotics."
In just that one statement, what pile of assumptions and omissions! As Mr Terrets has commented, Afghanistan is the big narco-state today, thanks to the invasion.
The Afghan state? What state? There is none. Teachers can't even be paid in the more peaceful parts of the country. The schools close as soon as they're opened. There is no public service, at all.
Afghanistan is a collection of tribes living a hardscrabble existence in a mountainous region with poorly defined borders. That's all it has been, and that is all that it remains today. I think very few Canadians understand how painfully true this is.
As for that "haven for terrorists," the U.S. already created that in Iraq. The know-how in guerilla warfare is being exported from the Iraqi proving grounds.
"Destabilize the region"?
Good Lord, Mr. Sedra, paranoid America has already done that. The world has gone from a small training camp in the mountains in 2001 to two vicious wars, neither of them winnable in any conventional sense.
And America is now trying to invade parts of Pakistan - that's why the big push against Musharraf - yesterday's good ally, today's dictator - who is the only one preventing them from bringing their brutality into Pakistan. Turkey has battled in parts of Kurdistan. Iran is assisting its fellow Shias in Iraq. al Qaeda is said to be everywhere, and we hear more about them than ever. Iraq is almost certain to break into three mini-states, with one of them being close to, or absorbed by, Iran. And Bush still threatens Iran. Israel is making ugly noises towards Syria and Lebanon.
That's quite an achievement, America. Peace in our time, indeed.
