Mr. Speaker, NATO statistics indicate that insurgent attacks and security issues have climbed from 4,500 incidents in 2006 to about 7,400 in 2007. The percentage of girls going to school is one in five at the primary level and one in twenty at the secondary school level.
I have quoted a number of experts who have taken a look in a non-partisan way at the mission and raised real concerns around how we approach actually bringing about peaceful reconstruction in Afghanistan. I will quote one more.
The head of the British forces said:
...body counts are a corrupt way of measuring success... It is building civic society which is essential. Talking simply in terms of winning the war is meaningless.
The former adviser to the ISAF said--