Full Metal Ignorance: Afghanistan is not Vietnam

Anti-war protesters, though with the best intentions, are quite misguided on the subject of the war in Afghanistan. The idea comes from the unwinable war that was Vietnam and that Afghanistan and Iraq are the same things. Lets forget Iraq for now and focus on the conflict Canada is involved in. Each time one of our soldiers is killed over there, there is a great deal of outcry about Canada being there in the first place. It stems from this idea that Canada is a peacekeeping nation, which simply is not true. In fact, Canada has been involved in comparatively few peacekeeping missions. We went in there as a response to 9/11. Canadians were killed on that day, and that was a legitimate act of war. The Taliban were the primary supporters of Al Qaida and hence, that was the belligerent nation responsible for the attacks. Some seven years later and the war continues long after the main fighting has ended. Are we really in a doomed circled of never ending violence as the anti-war people say or are we legitimately doing good? I say no to the first and yes to the second. First of all, wars simply do not end when the major fighting stops. World War 2 on it's grand scale took almost fifty years to be fully resolved after it officially ended in 1945. You can't honestly expect to go into a country and then just leave. That would be irresponsible and a crime against humanity.
Canada's main role right now is reconstruction in the most volatile Kandahar region. We are training their army and teaching them to build infrastructure in hopes that they will be able to regain full control soon. Remember that this country was a mess before we went to way with them. Arguable, the Taliban represented one of them most brutal and oppressive tyrannies that mankind has ever known. If we leave now, not only do we put years of progress down the drain, we risk condemning the Afghan people back to tyranny. This is not about imperialism or pushing western values on their culture. This is about human rights. Of course we all want the troops home as soon as possible but the anti-war people need to realize that this stuff doesn't happen over night.