AFGHAN WAR COSTLY, FUTILE

Our "leaders" are supposed to be the best and brightest. I find it
hard to understand why these people advocate a war on drugs and
terrorists, instead of a war on the root causes: Inner-city despair,
Third World poverty and a foreign policy designed to project our
strategic and energy interests around the globe.

Eradicating these causes would be far cheaper in money and lives than
the endless wars we are now engaged in. We are caught in a situation
where the war against all opposition to this selfish foreign policy
means no money is available to solve our internal problems. At best,
an endless "holding action" is fought on both fronts, resulting in
nothing but huge profits for the suppliers of these wars, a huge
national deficit and death to innocent civilians and soldiers.

The Afghan war has claimed the lives of 142 Canadians. Many more are
crippled for life. Post-traumatic stress disorder suicides that follow
every war will soon begin. More than $20 billion has been spent.
Services have been cut in the public sector. This is the cost of our
"holding action" to date.

No federal political party will admit they made a mistake because they
are all complicit in deploying or keeping our fine troops in the
quagmire of Afghanistan. From them we mostly get emotional, patriotic,
partisan rhetoric, designed to keep us from thinking.

Graeme Gardiner

Sidney