Child's Play.

A Canadian Forces report cites 29 incidents in which the Taliban have used children to help commit atrocities in Afghanistan's southern provinces over the past few months, eight since the beginning of October. As many as a dozen children have been killed in three recent explosions during bomb-making classes in Kandahar.

Says Major Robert Dunn: "There is one place west of Kandahar City where they shoot at us every day through a shield of children. They actually stack them up, with 8-year-olds at the front and 15-year-olds at the back."

Here's today's statement about Afghanistan's recent elections imbroglio from a Taliban spokesman, on behalf of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan: "It was all a great big fraud within a larger fraud designed to fool American, Canadian and European voters into believing democracy had flowered in Afghanistan. Cynical Afghans knew the vote would be rigged. Most Pashtun, the nation's ethnic majority, didn't vote. The "election" was an embarrassing fiasco."

Oops. That was an Eric Margolis column.

Here's the Taliban statement: "At world’s level, every one knows the elections were no more than an eyewash. The elections substantiated the well-known quotes of our leader who had said one year ago that the real decision was taken in Washington. It is never taken on the basis of the votes of the Afghans. The enemy is trying to prolong the drama which is now being in full swing. Therefore, they have decided to conduct the election once again and keep the attention of our countrymen and the public of the world diverted in order to hide their defeat at the military field."