War for Defense Not Nation Building

George Jonas, in the National Post, thinks we lose focus of our objectives when we try to force western values on Afghanistan and Iraq. Why people should build their own nations

Third, we should remember we're not in Afghanistan to improve family law. We're there to eradicate the terrorist foe. We didn't go to Kabul and environs to decorate Eastern landscapes with Western motifs. We didn't go to replace autocracy with democracy, or an androcentric society with a gynocentric one. If we had, we'd be crusaders, just as Osama bin Laden keeps insisting we are. We went there to get the murderous SOB, not to prove him right.

I agree with Jonas on this controversial view. However, I really could have used this article in 2001 when we were ramping up to invade Afghanistan. Freeing women from Taliban oppression was a key issue to garner support. Even people who were weary of the invasion had to admit that helping the women of the country was a noble cause. It's disappointing, to say the least, that installing the new regime didn't do much good at all for them.