Stephen Harper Postures. Taliban Threatens. We Have Failed and Failed Badly.

"This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” - Plato

The more I think about this three year extension of the war without the permission of the electorate, the madder I get.

And the more crap I read in the Canadian media, making this a political game, the madder I get.

Stephen Harper is posturing with Karzai about his corruption. He's known about Karzai's corruption since day one, but now he has to pretend that he is a strong leader. What a farce. Karzai is an employee of Unocol, the company putting in the pipeline. He's got his hands in more pockets that Harper himself.

The NDP want a vote. Good first step. But Canadians must DEMAND an end to this war. Not in 2014. But today.

Throughout the Vietnam War every day on the news we saw battle. Some people complained that it was too much. But it was a constant reminder that people were killing and dying. Now we get some perky twit in the media practically singing about Afghanistan like it's somewhere over the rainbow.

No mention of casualties except our own. In 2009, 346 Afghan children were killed, more than half by NATO soldiers. 2,400 civilians in total, and they say that for every civilian killed, two more young Afghan men are lost to the Taliban and other resistance groups.

Their people are taking to the streets.

You won't get anything from our media, but google now and then and you'll learn what is really going on.

For instance, while Harper was performing his little skit, wagging his finger at Karzai (it's been done) with the Afghan president rolling on the floor in laughter, the Taliban are vowing to continue their fight to get the invading countries off their land.

Arthur Kent, the much smarter brother of our useless junior "war at any cost" minister (can you tell I'm mad?) has another excellent piece on his blog: AFGHAN ARMY USED TO COVER WEST’S PHONY EXIT STRATEGY

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has become a strutting clotheshorse for this line of political camouflage, reversing his promise that Canada's military mission would come to a complete end next year. Yet Harper has failed to explain who, exactly, might command a larger, more fearsome Afghan National Army in future years. Will it be Karzai & Company, the graft-ridden shell of a government in Kabul? Or the Taliban, urged on by their sponsors in Pakistan’s military establishment?

Harper insists that he needn’t bother discussing his volte-face with Canada’s elected parliamentarians. With good reason. No doubt some enterprising MP would ponder aloud why Canadian taxpayers should tip still more treasure into the pockets of the Karzai regime’s shady ministers, not least those of the incompetent drunkard who heads the ANA, Defence Minister Rahim Wardak.

..“The international community’s message has lost its weight, its credibility among the Afghan people,” says Abdullah Abdullah, who challenged Hamid Karzai in last year’s discredited presidential election. “They’ve washed their hands of the democratic process," he tells Skyreporter. "They’ve given up on ensuring that good government will take root in the country, and that’s a huge mistake.

This "new" direction is a crock. When Peter Mackay paid his first visit to Afghanistan, he said that we would probably be there for ten more years. Ten years? We're getting pretty close. And what have we accomplished? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

This "mission" was a failure when the first Canadian soldier landed in the country. And now, as Arthur Kent says:

...it’s goodbye Kandahar, hello to a bit part in a whole new civil war.

A small group of anti-war protesters gathered outside Harper's office, but we need more of that kind of protest. Letters to the editor, to your MP, to every cabinet minister. Anyone you can think of. Or phone into radio shows. They hate that.

This is not about Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff or even our dictator. This is OUR war and we need to end it.