It’s all over but the crying. One hundred and eleven soldiers so far and 748 injured or maimed. Three more this week.

And for what? We’re no closer at catching Osama Bin Laden, or bringing democracy over there.

It’s understandable that Harper chose to announce the plain truth to the Americans first on CNN last Sunday. It’s not the kind of news that we wanted to hear back in Canada. Not the sort of thing he
This is the same Harper who’s been telling us for three years that we are winning the war and building schools, hospitals, training Afghan police and “reconstructing” the country. Some line.

At the UN and NATO he told them Canada “would eliminate once and for all, all traces of the Taliban Regime.” Brave talk.

Back home Don Cherry and yahoo militarists picked it up his famous “Canadians don’t cut and run” line. Now Harper is looking for a pair of running shoes.

Don’t blame our soldiers. The British tried for 100 years to subdue the Afghans. They failed. The mighty Soviet army was in there for 10 years and they cut and run in 1989.

It’s not as if we had no warning. The John Manley report in 2008 was brutal: we aren’t winning, it said. Then our generals began saying the same thing.

The turning point came last October when the British commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Mark Carleton-Smith said it plainly: “We’re not going to win this war.” Harper must have read his lips.

The latest evidence came this week, in another government report. The cost of the war is $18 billion so far. We’re spending $100 million a year reconstructing Afghanistan.

What do we have? One school built and we “hope” to get eight more fixed up eventually.

The Karzai government is as corrupt as ever. The drugs are everywhere. It’s still the land of drug lords, war lords, feudal lords, clan lords, gun lords – you name it. Nobody is who they say they are.

The Afghan cops are crooked, corrupt and underpaid, the army is untrained and incompetent, operating on a grade five reading level in their own language, never mind English. Some moonlight for the Taliban by night and collect pay from the Americans by day.

The problem for Harper? If we quit now, the Taliban take over; if we stay and fight some more, the Taliban take over when we leave.

About a third of Karzai’s government leans towards the Taliban. But the Taliban doesn’t want to negotiate. Like Harper they believe the Canadians can’t win. They’ll wait them out.

The yahoos in Canada have been quick to blame Harper, sticking dead soldiers’ families in his face and accusing him of hurting soldiers’ morale and recruitment drives back home.

Nuts! Our soldiers over there aren’t blind, any more than their generals. They know what’s going on. And as for recruitment, the pay is good and with things the way they are in Canada right now, you take any government cheque you can get.

Ironic though, it was Harper who laughed at Jack Layton when he said we should pull out and sue for peace with theTaliban.

Harper’s yahoo backbenchers called him “Taliban Jack” and shouted “Tea with the Taliban” at Layton.

Who knows? Harper may end up in involved in the peace talks..

“Will that be one lump or two in your cup, Mr. Harper?”