On the CBC: Canadian troops open a base deep in "Taliban" territory.

1. Am I the only one getting suspicious of the way the word "Taliban" is getting used to describe everyone who isn't on "our" side in Afghanistan? I seem to recall that a few years ago Afghanistan was a fiendishly complicated mess of warlords and factions feuding as much with each other as anyone else. Did they ALL join one side or the other?
   
2. Am I the only getting increasingly annoyed that the Tories went ahead and committed us to two more years of this Operation Enduring Freedom without checking to see if any of us actually thought it was a good idea?
   
3. Finally, is there anyone else who has started to doubt confident-sounding predictions like this: "If things go as planned, the Afghans are expected to take over much of the site on their own within a year."?
   

Rest assured we will check in a year from today on how things are going at Forward Operating Base Martello.

Labels: Thinking