Tory times, as the old saying goes, are terrible times. So it should surprise no one that as we mark the first anniversary of Stephen Harper's majority victory today, the country is increasingly polarized, students are in the streets of Quebec where separatism is again rearing its head, and mean-spirited pink slips are being handed out right and left to public employees accompanied by the pitiless rah-rahs of the Online Tory Rage Machine, parts of which apparently operate out of the United States.

I've got it! The way to move toward peace and progress in Afghanistan, that is.

Starting immediately, NATO needs to arm and train the Taliban!

This may sound crazy, as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Canadian contingent is now preparing to train the Afghan National Army (ANA) to a point where it can take over the war against the Taliban.

The narrative of Canada's role in the Afghan civil war as told by the country's mainstream media is designed to lead readers and viewers to two inescapable conclusions:

First, that after 10 years, Canada's involvement in the conflict has come to a definitive end.

Second, that thanks to the efforts and sacrifices of Canada's troops, at least 157 of whom have died with scores more maimed physically and mentally, the West has triumphed unconditionally in Afghanistan.

Alas, the balance of probability is high that both these yarns are baloney.

It is equally likely that the people spinning these Afghan fairy tales know very well they are not true, and that they are designed principally to serve the political needs of the country's Conservative government.

We're still waiting for that apology to Opposition Leader Jack Layton from the Harper Conservatives.

You know, the one they owe him for getting their on-line Tory Rage Machine ™ and their Tame Mainstream Media Auxiliary ™ to label him "Taliban Jack" back in 2006 when the New Democratic Party leader had the temerity to suggest that the so-called NATO coalition should open lines of communication to the Pashtun fighters labelled the Taliban by the West.

Alert readers will recall how Defence Minister Peter MacKay, at the time the minister of foreign affairs, sniped at Layton: "Is it next going to be tea with Osama Bin Laden? This cannot happen!"

R2P is in the air. When the United Nations approved a declaration in 2005 that the international community has a Responsibility to Protect the citizens of a nation when its government cannot, or its government is itself the oppressor, expectations were high. This was not a call simply for military intervention: It offered an entire continuum of tools, from the diplomatic to the economic. Nonetheless, loud silence followed. Now R2P has been invoked, at least implicitly, for Libya, where those expectations might finally be met. But its limitations are also palpable, as Afghanistan has dramatically demonstrated.

You'd never know it from Canadian mainstream media coverage of the war in Afghanistan, of course, but Spiegel Online International reported yesterday that German troops in that country are in a state of near revolt against their commanders.

The reason? The danger they face training Afghan soldiers who, in the words of one German trooper quoted by the magazine, "consider us to be infidels who don't belong in their country."

“A comprehensive peace process has to bring all the combatants to the table.” – Jack Layton, Sept. 1, 2006, on the war in Afghanistan

Now that the United States has entered direct talks with the Taliban, one wonders what Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative camp followers will have to say about this development.

The New Yorker magazine reported yesterday that "the Obama Administration has entered into direct, secret talks with senior Afghan Taliban leaders."

There is a moment in a confidence swindle when the mark begins to suspect that something is amiss.

This is the pivotal juncture for the swindler. The victim's faith must be maintained long enough for the hustle to succeed.

Why do victims so often remain in the scam until the con artist has absconded with their fortune, even as their nose detects the first sharp whiffs of fraud? Because they want to believe.

Yesterday, I discussed the need for an open discussion about Canada's future in Afghanistan, focusing primarily on recent requests from our NATO partners to extend our commitment to the Afghan mission. I was careful to remain personally neutral on the issue, though the article largely supported the argument to prolong the Afghan presence. However, as is the case in every debate, there are key arguments supporting the opposing point of view. In regards to the future of the Canadian forces in Afghanistan, there are serious concerns that need to be addressed and troubling developments that can not be ignored.

It's official: Canada will remain in Afghanistan beyond the mission's scheduled conclusion in 2011.