A Critical Review of Jeffry Simpson’s

“What did NATO expect in Afghanistan, anyway?”

By

Krishna Aggarwal

ENG-2DO
Lincoln M. Alexander Secondary School
Mr. Quan McGimpsey

8 November, 2008
 Thomas Walkolm (2009) article called Afghanistan sacrifices may have been in vain in

the Toronto Star states that “Although administrations official deny it, most of the country would

effectively be ceded to the Taliban”. (Walkolm, 2009) Showing that even though everyone

knows that the Taliban are in control and NATO’s effort seems pointless they seem to continue.

Jeffrey Simpson (2009) talks about McChrystal who is the general for this war from his article

What did NATO expect in Afghanistan anyways from the Globe and Mail “However, executing

even this refined strategy will be next to impossible”. (Simpson 2009) The plan is possible but in

exchange it is very time consuming and put a huge burden on NATO itself as the nations have to

put up with many casualties, funds and criticism.

Jeffrey Simpson writes “Many years, not one or two, would be required to turn around

any of these factors, let alone all of them”. (Simpson 2009) Over here he refers to turning around

Afghanistan’s corruption, justice system, poverty and lousy police force and small Afghan

Army. Walkolm also agrees with this statement “The only possible way for the U.S. and its

allies to win this war would be to adopt McChrystal’s strategy of occupying the country village

by village and staying for years”. (Walkolm 2009)

Jeffrey Simpson wonders about what is really winning this war and continues to say

“NATO has never been very clear about this”. (Simpson 2009) This war has brought

unnecessary amount of casualties which has been just so they can preserve the Western

Credibility so the Americans seem as they didn’t forfeit this war. Walkolm says “Americans are

sick of this war”, as it has caused thousands of civilian’s deaths and also many of our troops.
(Walkolm 2009)The Americans who have a reputation to maintain as a powerful country should

learn to cut their losses because this war in Afghanistan could tear apart their huge NATO

organization. Ian Monroe (2009) with CTV news in his article Will the war in Afghanistan bring

down NATO says “NATO nations have so far come up short on offering troops, and now their

alliance's reputation is on the line”. (Monroe 2009)

After 8 years at Afghanistan there is hardly any amount of accomplishments. It seems as

they invested so much time in this project, they at least want something to show for it. They

don’t seem to understand that their just wasting their time in a lost cause as more money shoots

down the drain and more soldiers die. They’re has been 1500 total deaths from NATO and their

fighting a slowly losing battle. Jeffrey Simpson says that “The Taliban now control more

territory than three or four years ago”.(Simpson 2009)

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. .Monroe, Ian. “Will the war in Afghanistan bring down NATO” in CTV news, Online
Edition. November 1st,2009

2. Simpson, Jeffrey. “What did NATO expect in Afghanistan any way” in The Global and
Mail, Online Edition. September 21st, 2009

3. Walkom, Thomas. “Afghanistan sacrifices may have been in vain” in The Toronto Star,
Online Edition. October 31st, 2009