The Matrix is all around you, you can't see it, but it exists, permeating everything, invisible, yet omnipresent.

If you aren't watching it, is it real? If you can't see it, is it happening? If you don't notice it, are you really losing?

Lots of reporting on Afghanistan lately in the Canadian media.

- Two Canadian soldiers recently killed, and three wounded, when a land mine blew up their jeep on a cleared safe road. The land mine was placed deliberately after the road had been swept.

- Taliban/Insurgent forces blew up a fuel truck and killed ten Afghan guards who were delivering fuel to a United Nations base.

- The Taliban is no operating convoys frequently through the country.

- Rebels, probably the Taliban, are secure enough to launch rocket attacks against Kabul, the stronghold of the United Nations peacekeeping force and the seat of the Afghan government.

- Kabul itself has also been under siege from a wave of violence attributed to the Taliban, criminals and warlords.

- The Taliban and Al Quaeda are crossing freely back and forth from Aghanistan to Pakistan, and are confronting Pakistan armed forces.

- Half of Afghanistan's 32 provinces are no longer deemed safe to enter by aid agencies. The entire Southwest is now off limits. Several aid workers for organizations like the Red Cross have been executed. Mercy Corps has indefinitely suspended operations in Afghanistan. Attacks on aid workers have increased from one a month, to one every two days since September, 2002.

- The heroin trade is now out of control, and is funding and subsidizing extremist warlords. Revenue from the poppy trade (1.2 billion) is now more than all international aid combined (500 million).

- "You ask what we're going to do (about the problems in Afghanistan).... I really don't know," confessed Donald Rumsfield, idjit extraordinaire, recently. Great, America's big war leader has essentially said he has no clue, he's given up, its getting worse and he's got no ideas. Perhaps we should have a write in contest, "How to save Afghanistan?" the winner could be king or something.

Now, here's the big question. Do you want to take the Blue Pill. Or do you want to take the Red Pill.

I don't normally put political posts on, and I'm not going to feed the habit. But anyone who thinks Afghanistan worked out is obviously a bit too into sci fi.
__________________________