To the editor,
So now this sad chapter in Afghan history is rolling to a close.
Oh, it’s not the end. Only Francis Fukuyama was foolish enough to subject that history has some sort of end time. History will keep rolling on but for the moment, the 20-year U.S. and coalition of the willing, which at one point included Canada, are bugging out.
And the Afghan army, trained mainly by the Americans, didn’t even put up a fight — didn’t even try?
One has to think back to the collapse of the French army in 1940 but, no, that’s not right. Elements of the French, especially the first, saved Dunkirk with their gallant stand. It wasn’t this total implosion in Afghanistan, more like the Jacqui army several years back when hit by 1515. They ran away, leaving millions of dollars (American) of advanced weaponry int he hand of these “human killing machines” as the late Robert Fisk called them.
Well, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him fight.
“South of the border,” the blame game goes on unabated. It’s all Joe Biden’s fault now, according to the right and Donald Trump supporters. They forget that it was Trump that negotiated directly with the Taliban and shades of Munich, excluded the Afghan government from the talks about the future of Afghanistan.
However tempting as it is to blame it all on Trump, the whole mess goes back further, far further than that.
Back to George Bush Jr., with his complete mismanaged pseudo-imperial plan for that region. His failure to finish things in Afghanistan, keep more boots on the ground one might say, helped the Taliban to escape and reform. They’ve come back like gangbusters.
However, there are certain areas of the globe where one should be wary of treading — Vietnam, Afghanistan and Russia itself, which had it’s own debacle in Afghanistan. Nothing good ever happens, to the invader that is, who venture there.
Then there’s Canada. There’s a suggestion that Canada should be doing more, but what? During Canada’s time in Afghanistan, we lost close to 160 military personnel and looking at the results, what for?
Dennis Peacock,
Clearwater, B.C.