Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member for Richmond Hill talk about what is happening in Afghanistan. Of course we support all of our troops and every Canadian in Afghanistan who believes they are providing something important to the Afghan people.
However, I have a problem and perhaps the member can help me. We do have some very knowledgeable people. I will quote Scott Taylor, who is a well-known military writer, who recently said:
IT WOULD SEEM that even the most hawkish of pundits have now come to the conclusion that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable, and that this conflict is fast becoming a quagmire akin to the American fiasco in Vietnam.
The second point I would put to him is the suggestion today by the spokesman for the Afghan national army that it will be four years before they can take over security. General McChrystal has said that he would like to see 124,000 Afghan troops by next year and to have that doubled by 2013, which is four years from now, to 250,000 troops.
The third thing I would put to him is the incident that happened in Dand last week where General Vance berated the local villagers because of a roadside bomb incident. It seemed to me that he was saying that it was up to the Afghan villagers to provide security to the Canadian forces and not the other way around.
Those three facts put together seem to indicate that we are heading in the wrong direction there and that this is not going the way we would like to see it go. I would like to know whether he thinks that Canada could be doing more to achieve peace instead of figuring out how to continue to fight a war that cannot be won.