Where does that leave 3D? Exactly where it should be: in the hands of the Afghans. Canada’s exit strategy was in place the day we entered the country. It hinges on a sound government with a security force acceptable to the Afghan people. When that is in place, we will have won — not a counter-insurgency war or a colonial invasion, but a Canadian victory.
Success will undoubtedly cost us; it cost me both my legs. But before questioning why we are there, ask the soldiers, the diplomats, and those involved in reconstruction if we should quit. We will all say no, because our work there isn’t done.
Paul Franklin
Edmonton, Alberta
Two Veg Short
I read with interest and pleasure Marcello Di Cintio’s piece on Nevin Hal?c? and Sufi cookery (“Sufi Gourmet,” July/ August). But one detail jars a little: tomatoes, he writes, were not popular in Anatolia in Rumi’s time. Indeed they weren’t, but not because they disagreed with Sufis or Seljuk sultans. Tomatoes are native to South America and were unknown in the Old World until an Iberian conquistador returned with them sometime after 1521. The first mention of a tomato in European literature is about twenty years after that. The same is true of capsicum peppers, incidentally. Rumi (who died in 1273) and Ates-baz Veli spent their lives in blissful ignorance of the existence of the tomato and the pepper.
Martin Rose
Ottawa, Ontario
Mine Altering
“Already the [Alberta tar sands region] looks like a vast dystopia, out of sight of most of us — but for how long can the secret hold? ” asks Edward Burtynsky in his important essay “Extraction” (July/August). Not long in the age of the Internet, according to William Gibson, whom Burtynsky quotes. It is in that spirit that I encourage you to visit savedigbyneck.org. Residents and friends of the Digby Neck — a peninsula on the Bay of Fundy in southwestern Nova Scotia — are trying to stop Nova Stone Exporters, an American company, from blasting, crushing, and shipping out 40,000 tonnes of basalt each week in order to build more highways in New Jersey. There is little coverage of this in Canada, but maybe through the Internet the corporate and political leaders responsible will be found out.
Ross Hermiston
Kingston, Ontario
There is no doubt that Edward Burtynsky has a profound concern for the environment. His essay “Extraction” is a case in point. Burtynsky’s strength, however, is not his writing, but his photography. In this regard, he is a recycler with truly alchemical skill. He takes images of environmental degradation and detritus and turns them into artifacts of exquisite beauty. If I owned a mining company with a slag heap leaching into a nearby stream, I’d be more than happy for Burtynsky to use his magic to convey the hidden beauty of it. As a master photographer and printmaker, he has earned his place in the pantheon. Alas, as an environmental activist, he is a failure.
Gerald Vincent
Toronto, Ontario
