Global News this evening reported on the multi-city attack perpetrated by the Taliban over the last 24 hours in Afghanistan. Midway through their segment, a professor from Simon Fraser University named Andre Gerolymatos is shown sittng in front of a shelf of books, making the following no-frills assessment of the attack:

It demonstrates that effectively the United States and NATO have lost the war in Afghanistan.

This is a bold statement about a single attack in a very long war. The attack, aimed against multiple foreign embassies, NATO bases and other targets, resulted in a grand total of 18 casualties: 17 of which were the attackers. It might be a spectacular attack, but this was by no means a strategic victory for the Taliban.

Dr. Gerolymatos' confident but simplistic statement, and the fact that I had never heard of him before, prompted me to further investigate his credibility to assess the complex and illusory conflict in Afghanistan from his office on campus.

As it turns out, Dr. Gerolymatos is chair of The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at SFU, which is "committed to the study and teaching of Greek history language and culture", part of the Hellenic...More >>