Afstan: Bad Globe and Mail reporting

Better reporting on the editorial page than by an actual reporter--a letter just sent to the paper:

It's odd that one finds more accurate reporting in the Globe's editorials than in a front-page news story. Doug Saunders writes, in "Blair says bond with Canada is forged in battle" (Oct. 17), that "Other than Canada, Britain is the only country that is part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization fighting in the dangerous southern provinces of Afghanistan."

Your editorial the same day, "The true Afghan mission" [full text not officially online], presents the facts rather more accurately when it notes that "It has not escaped Mr. Blair that...Canada's soldiers are playing a leading role in Afghanistan, alongside those of his own country, the United States and the Netherlands..." Indeed substantial Dutch and American forces are also fighting in the south--along with some 600 Romanian soldiers plus smaller contingents from Denmark, Portugal and Estonia.

No wonder Canadians have a difficult time understanding what is happening in Afghanistan when reporting on the situation there is so inaccurate.