Mr. Chair, it has been clearly pointed out tonight by members on both sides of the House that we are not under a UN led mission at this point. We are part of Operation Enduring Freedom. We know that for the past four years the Americans have been operating a counter-insurgency mission with Operation Enduring Freedom.
I want to talk about a Canadian citizen, an associate of McMaster University's Centre for Peace Studies, Dr. Seddiq Weera, who is based in Kabul. Dr. Weera is also an adviser to the Ministry of Education in Afghanistan and an adviser to Afghanistan's independent national commission on strengthening peace.
This is what he said:
Too often, Canadians are told they have to decide between military involvement in Afghanistan under the guidance of the United States or NATO or an abandonment of Afghans to war and chaos.
The choice is misleading. There is a third way for Canada, and it is both more in keeping with Canadian values and more helpful for Afghanistan.
While abandoning Afghanistan has many dangers, both for that nation and for the rest of us, military intervention by itself cannot possibly bring security to this fragile country. That too--