Afghanistan: The Good News and the Bad

It's so hard to find a good news story out of Afghanistan these days.

Thanks to Sarkozy's cheese-eating surrender monkeys we are about to get 1,000 more soldiers.

But everybody knows that's still too little to make a difference. And the only question is whether it's also too late.

It is now hard to find an Afghan who genuinely supports Karzai. From Kabul to Kandahar, people complain that his administration is incompetent and corrupt. Their loyalty is to tribal elders, religious leaders or militia commanders, not to a regime they believe to be the tool of the Americans.

When I first came to live in Kabul, almost three years ago, I could travel by car to Kandahar with the odds just about stacked in favour of survival. Today, Afghans are scared to take that route, fearing the police, criminals and the Taliban. I cannot safely walk more than 500 metres from my front door.

Then there's the story about how the only people getting rich in Afghanistan ... apart from the drug lords... are the aid agency workers and the contractors.

And the one about how the Afghan army has been supplied with crummy ammunition by a 22-year-old con man and a licensed masseur

So much bad news. But I think I've found a good news story. Shining like a beam in the darkness.

Now when ordinary Afghans get in the way of our fast moving convoys, we don't have to shoot them.

We can them laser them instead.



Wow. Isn't that awesome? I WANT one!!!!

And isn't the Pentagon great?

Winning Afghan hearts and minds one zap at a time. By blinding them instead of killing them.

And that's not the only good news either. There's also Canada's most successful contribution to the war effort.

" The Gurkhas are real fighting machines so I don’t know if they want people to know they like fru-fru drinks that aren’t so manly, but they really love their French vanilla cappuccinos and their honey-dipped doughnuts..."

Uh oh..... there go the proud Gurkhas. I suggest we drop those doughnuts on the Taliban as well. So they can't fight either.

Mullah mia. The war in Afghanistan.

Sometimes a tragedy.

Sometimes a farce...