V-H AWARD NOMINEE

“No strategy in Afghanistan is assured of success, but there is no notion as naive as that which supposes that you can destroy a tactic (such as terrorism) or an idea (such as fundamentalism) by means of bombs or missile strikes or special forces … There is plenty of evidence to suggest that if Afghanistan is attacked, the Afghans will side with the lesser Satan at home against the Great Satan overseas … But if we seek to bludgeon Afghanistan into submission, we will lose the war on terrorism, while inadvertently slaughtering some millions of its inhabitants. We can choose, in other words, between futile genocide and productive peace. It shouldn’t be too hard a choice to make.” – George Monbiot, the Guardian, October 2.