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No consensus on impact of Canadian military withdrawal 3 · Thursday, January 14, 2010 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.oakvillebeaver.com Continued from page 1 can't go to school or even that a woman must cover her face," said Armstrong. "These guys were making it up as they went along and we were too politically correct to challenge them. I think they need to be challenged and I think the rest of the world needs to say, `We care about what happens to those women.'" Toronto Star columnist Siddiqui, who has studied the Afghan issue and spent considerable time there, said he initially supported the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 because the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had just taken place and Afghanistan was the address of al-Qaida. "That mission was accomplished within a few weeks and since then we managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory," said Siddiqui. "There were elections held, there was some promise of democracy and then what. Eight years later most of the goals that we have set out haven't been achieved, in fact things are getting worse." Siddiqui said the argument that soldiers are needed in Afghanistan to defeat al-Qaida and thereby prevent the terrorist group from attacking Haroon Siddiqui the west is no longer valid as alQaida has spread to such countries as Yemen, Somolia, Pakistan and Iraq. He said, if anything, the war in Afghanistan has provoked more terrorism with terrorist attacks in places like Madrid and London occurring after Afghanistan was invaded. "The biggest terrorism on our soil is coming from us," said Siddiqui. "Out of the Toronto 18, most of them came from Mississauga. Should we bomb Mississauga?" With little progress in defeating the Taliban or rebuilding Afghanistan being made, Siddiqui noted, the military's involvement needs to be brought to an end, especially because fighting between the Taliban and NATO forces have resulted in countless (because no one has bothered to count) civilian casualties. While Siddiqui said Canada could continue to help the Afghans through aid and development, Armstrong said such endeavors would be extremely dangerous to implement without the military to protect such projects. "You can't do anything in a country without security," said Armstrong. "You can't run a school, a hospital, a government. You can't do anything and the job of the NATO forces in Afghanistan is to establish security." Siddiqui and Armstrong also had opposing views on what would happen if Canadian and other NATO forces pulled out of Afghanistan. Armstrong said that, contrary to popular belief, most Afghans actually want foreign forces to remain in their country because they know Sally Armstrong that shortly after these troops leave a civil war between the Taliban and remaining government will rip Afghanistan apart. Siddiqui countered that people said the same thing when countries like Algeria and India received their independence. "It is an old-fashioned argument in this day and age to say that only the white man can save the rest of the world," said Siddiqui. "It doesn't fly any more." With so much going wrong in Afghanistan, Armstrong said it is important to remember there are things going right. This includes the fact that only four of 34 Afghan provinces are dealing with a full-fledged insurgency. Armstrong also noted some significant improvements have been made. "There are nine million kids back in school. That fact isn't being talked about," said Armstrong. "Family law reform has started, that's something we should talk about. They do have an elected government. Maybe the most corrupt in the world...no I just got back from Congo and that government was definitely more corrupt...but for the first time Afghanistan has an elected government and that is something that needs to be remembered." Armstrong acknowledged that after six years of combined efforts from 44 countries, Afghanistan is still nowhere near where she thought it would be, but pointed out that so far the international community has only committed 1/25 the military power and 1/50 the humanitarian aid that was invested in Kosovo and Bosnia. For better or worse, Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan is scheduled to end in 2011. 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