The Canadian mission in Afghanistan lasted longer than the Second World War, from 2001 to 2014 with more than 40 thousand soldiers serving. 158 Canadian soldiers were killed.
Author Sally Armstrong has written about the plight of women in Afghanistan but says the country is a lot better off because of the NATO mission.
Armstrong says 9 million children are back in school, 40 per cent of them being girls, life expectancy has risen from 42 to 62, economic output has grown fivefold as well as the maternal and infant mortality rate, once the worst in the world, declined by 70 per cent.
She argues you can’t accomplish all that without security and maintains most Afghans hate the Taliban.
