To: Globe and Mail

Date: December 28, 2007

It's well and good to ask whether Canada possesses ''the stomach'' to continue to contribute men and materiel to the NATO mission in Afghanistan (Gird For Long Haul, Kabul Tells Canadians - front page, Dec. 27). It's more important to ask whether Canada has the brains to recognize that this mission is a cat's paw for a deeply flawed U.S. strategy in the Middle East - an open-ended, ill-defined war against terror, an inability to consider political and cultural realities on the ground in Afghanistan, and Canada's own lack of firepower and imperialistic designs. The whole thing reminds me of the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimea a century and a half ago.

Geoff Smith

Kingston, ON