I predict that the non stop barrage of photos of Harper and the boys will come back to haunt him

It's not as though it's even his war or, for that matter, mine. You wouldn't have caught me out there other than for a stopover from sunnier climes (what is there to do in downtown Kandahar for nightlife after all. I hear there is not a Tim Hortons in the place)

It was merely an expedient way of avoiding Iraq without incurring the full wrath of the US administration. In hindsight, another error by my predecessor. In that soon to be realized civil war of a country we would have been a small cog that could easily have withdrawn from Bush's Folly. In Afganistan, we're front and centre 'supported' back home by a public keen to pull out at the first casualties incurred by a joyriding squaddy and a mad axeman.

We are stuck in the officially named 'The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan', a landlocked country bordered by China, India, Paki- and various assorted other -istans where the opium trade conservatively accounts for a third of GDP. About as far away physically, politically and culturally from our own land

Stephen you're welcome to it. I'd book the same week for several years ahead. You or your successor are going to need to rally the troops indefinitely

After exhaustive study of all photos and video footage of our troops in Afghanistan I have found that althiough the number of blacks are commensurate with their share of the population I have yet to see ONE SOLDIER OF ASIAN DESCENT IN THE ENTIRE ARMY