"Afghanistan has not been 'invaded' by foreign forces"

A letter of mine in the Ottawa Citizen today (and a slight correction to The Monarchist):

Re: Canada loses 40th soldier to bomb, Oct. 8.

This story refers to "the U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban." But there was no invasion of Afghanistan.

Before the fall of Kabul, and of most of the rest of Afghanistan, to the insurgent Afghan Northern Alliance in November 2001 -- and the consequent collapse of the Taliban regime -- there were no foreign regular combat formations in Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance did receive air support and assistance from special forces (both U.S. and British); that, however, is not an invasion. Substantial foreign ground-combat forces -- including Canadian -- only entered the country after the Taliban had been deposed by indigenous Afghan forces, and those foreign troops entered with the agreement of the Northern Alliance.

It is most unfortunate that the mythical "invasion" of Afghanistan has become common currency amongst journalists -- and this is no mere quibble. Describing what the U.S. and U.K. did in Afghanistan as an "invasion" tends to equate those actions in people's minds with the real invasion of Iraq. That equation implicitly and wrongly calls into question the legitimacy of NATO and coalition actions in Afghanistan, which have been authorized unanimously by the United Nations Security Council.