Re: Taliban rooting for a Layton victory

If only Mark Cripps could have waited one day before publishing his article criticizing the NDP's position on Afghanistan. The day after his anti-NDP rant, the senior British commander in Afghanistan, General Carleton-Smith, stated that victory in Afghanistan is impossible.

Mr. Carleton-Smith also advocated a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. This is nothing new. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been asking for negotiations with the Taliban for some time now.

Are you going to call the British military commander and the Afghan president Taliban supporters? The reality is that too many Afghans don't want us there, just as we would refuse foreign occupation forces in Canada. Whether Afghans wish to support one group of warlords or another, it's their decision to make, not ours.

It seems Jack Layton was ahead of the curve. This is the man, after all, who encapsulated Canadian majority opinion by becoming the first English elected leader to call for a withdrawal of military forces from Afghanistan.

Brendan Stone

Hamilton