Esprit de Corps

On his most recent trip to Afghanistan, Canadian journalist Scott Taylor toured a high school in Kandahar.

A crumbling clay shell with overflowing pits for toilets, the school wasn't much, but it did have the basics: students, classrooms, even a modest library of 400 books.

The only thing missing, really, were the teachers. The school didn't have a single one.

NOW THAT the Afghan election farce has finally played itself into the worst-case scenario imaginable, the international community has no choice but to radically alter their strategic outlook on Afghanistan.

Not only did the Aug. 17 vote fail to produce a calculable result, we now know that less than one-third of eligible voters bothered to head to the polls. Of those who did dip their fingers and make an X, many did so countless times. Even with rampant ballot stuffing on his behalf, incumbent President Hamid Karzai failed to achieve the constitutionally required 50 per cent of the votes cast to avoid a mandatory run-off vote against the number two candidate.

Military analyst Scott Taylor (nursing the flu) says Karzai has failed to capture the imagination of his own people and Canada's and America's attempts at providing Afghanistan with a secure environment is not moving the country towards any type of independence.

Watch the video here. (CTV may run a brief ad at the beginning of the video)

AS EVERYONE scrambles to predict a possible future outlook for war-ravaged Afghanistan, the negative variables continue to mount.

The Taliban have boldly stepped up their attacks in the power vacuum created by the failed August elections and the countrywide apathy in anticipation of the upcoming Nov. 7 presidential run-off vote.