Iraq vs Afghanistan

[Creationismsucks]

It's always seemed to me that we in Canada joined in on the more legitimate of the two wars. After all, the alleged perpetrators of Sept. 11th were hiding in Afghanistan, and the government (such as it was) wouldn't extradite them for prosecution.

But as time is wearing on, I'm told Canada has played a strong leadership role in the war there (not that I ever see our troops referenced on US media). In fact, we just lost our 100th soldier over there. That might not sound like a lot, but we are one tenth the size of the US, and we stayed out of that ridiculous, illegal fiasco in Iraq, since it plainly had nothing to do with 9-11.

My question is this: If the west stood almost no chance of catching the Al Quida forces in Afghanistan who were behind 9-11, should we still be there?

The Taliban is awful, but that wasn't supposed to be our reason for going in. As in Iraq, how do we define victory if we never find OBL?

[spindrifter]

1. Finding OBL is not "victory."

Afghanistan should be viewed as a policing action, not a war. What needs to be done, if the Afghans want, is capacity building. The other thing we should engage in is diplomacy within the region. Nothing more.