Poor Jack Layton - the voice in the wilderness

[Peter F]

The only realistic hope for Afghanistan is accomodation with the Taliban

NATO countries do not seemingly now have the resolve to invest the huge new financial, human, and

logistical resources – and long years – required to vanquish the Taliban on the battlefield. If NATO states

it will only be satisfied with a decisive military victory, the Taliban will call our bluff. The Taliban have

demonstrated greater resolve, tactical efficiency, and ability to absorb the costs of war over the long term

than have NATO forces. While the Taliban cannot achieve decisive military victory on the ground, as

spoilers they are able to continually undermine the capacity of the central government. They are

convinced that continued fighting will further reduce the resolve of NATO forces and increase the

potential for Taliban victory. Thus, the current calculus of interests for Taliban decision-makers favours

continued fighting. Given the costs of war, NATO needs to look candidly at the prospects – aware that

there can be no guarantees – of a political solution.

IE: Start negotiating.

See 'Canada in Afghanistan. Is it working?'

at Canada Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute

CDFAI website

[scribblet]

Ottawa Citizen editorial: There is some good news out of Afghanistan about lives saved and hope regained. Despite the many problems that continue to make life a struggle in that country, mothers and babies are healthier than they were before the NATO intervention. The fact that women are getting healthier in Afghanistan is a sign that women are also gaining more freedom. Things are getting better there; not quickly enough by anyone's measure, but they are getting better. This study discredits any argument that under the Taliban there was at least order and stability. There is no justification for a regime that watched dispassionately as babies, and often their mothers, died in delivery - Ctz page A14

[Peter F]

This study discredits any argument that under the Taliban there was at least order and stability. There is no justification for a regime that watched dispassionately as babies, and often their mothers, died in delivery - Ctz page A14

So is the problem that the Taliban watched mothers die in delivery or that that were dispassionate?

Mothers die in delivery quite often - particularly in third world countries. It seems that according to the Ottawa Sun the real crime is that the Taliban were dispassionate. Says who?What was the study's measure of passion?

The present government of Karzai is far better, I think, than the government of the Taliban. But accomodation doesn't mean let the Taliban form the government.

This Ottawa Sun editorial you present has zero to do with the article I posted.