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Article: A cause worth fighting for
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- August 20, 2009
CopyrightCopyright 2009 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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LEADING ARTICLE
WHEN TONY Blair promised in 2001 that Britain would stand by the
people of Afghanistan, whom we had helped to liberate from the
Taliban, most of us supported him. This newspaper did. The more he
said how difficult it might be and that British forces might have to
be committed to the mission for some years, the more we were
convinced that we owed it to the Afghans to do more than simply
install a puppet government, declare the job done and then leave
them to the depredations of warlords and Islamist guerrillas.
Not that Hamid Karzai was a stooge of outsiders, of course. He
was elected by an emphatic vote in the country's first free and fair
elections. He has disappointed some ...