"Afghanistan has been a tortured country for longer than any of us has been paying attention. Now that our own injuries have caught our attention it becomes clear that if we can help pull the country out of the abyss, we must. And, equally, if we can’t help, we mustn’t make things even worse.
“The right thing has to be done in Afghanistan. Whatever that is.”
Canadian troops have been fighting in Kandahar for almost three years and will be there for at least two more. Yet when that ends, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper says it will in 2011, we may be no closer to resolving the dilemma posed in the introduction to Outside the Wire: The War in Afghanistan in the Words of Its Participants, Kevin Patterson and Jane Warren’s collection of writings and reflections from Canadian soldiers and civilians who have served in Afghanistan. What is the right thing to do?
That dilemma is the subtext that runs through all the books discussed in this...
Christopher Waddell is a professor emeritus at Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication. He served as CBC Television’s Ottawa bureau chief from 1993 to 2001.
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