Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006
To: letters@globeandmail.ca
From: Geoffrey Smith
Subject: Blatchford and "human interest"

In successive stories from Afghanistan, Christie Blatchford describes the country as "a test tube of human depravity" and "a ruinously complex and violent country." The descriptions are apt. Her assessments will not help Stephen Harper's snuggling up to the open-ended and misguided American war against terror. Her descriptions already raise a larger question: What can a small contingent of Canadian forces accomplish in Afghanistan?" The answer, sadly, seems to be precious little, save to provide more stories of carnage and futility. As in Iraq, there is no tradition of democracy in Afghanistan. Battling the Taliban will provide more power for the traditional warlords, more opium and heroin for the West, and another quagmire, not unlike the one the Soviets discovered two decades ago. Ms. Blatchford is doing more for the antiwar movement than she knows.

Geoff Smith
Kingston