No, Ed, I never claimed Afghanistan as a peacekeeping mission; I'm surprised that you could get such a ntion from what I have written.

And if you consider Afghanistan to be part of what we are pleased to call the Middle East, you're in a small minority, at least in Canada. The namers-of-things at DND like the phrase "Southwest Asia" for that locality, and -- ex-civil serpent that I am -- I assumed that we were following their convention.