Friday, August 21, 2009

Continuing Theme--The Future of NATO in Afghanistan

While I argued that Canada should stay in the NATO effort in Afghanistan, there is the larger question of whether the US and NATO should continue to make this effort. Richard Haass shows me how to write an op-ed piece by arguing that the war is still a war of choice (unlike World War II and perhaps a couple others) so we need to regularly assess whether we should stay or go. Right now, he argues we should stick around as the benefits of staying > costs of leaving. And that was essentially where my piece fit in--not that the war is great, but that to make an informed decision, we need to consider not just the costs of staying (more than a hundred Canadians killed, many more injured) but also the benefits of staying, which have mostly been ignored.

But then again, Haass heads the Council on Foreign Relations, which, like the illuminati, is a favorite of all conspiracy theorists.

No comments: