There is scant comfort in saying “I told you so” when I learn about another disaster in Afghanistan, but if you’ve been reading my blogs you know how many times I’ve argued that it’s past time for American troops to get the hell out of that God-forsaken country.

The horror of a deranged American soldier going on a killing spree, massacring at least 16 civilians including women and children, is the most shocking of a series of incidents that support my plea.

Those families would still be alive this morning if the troops had been brought home after Osama bin Ladin’s execution.

Coming on the heels of the Koran-burning riots, this grisly outrage will surely end any hope the Obama Administration might have harbored of winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.

In a rather prim understatement, a New York Times report observes:

The shooting risks further inciting anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan and troubling a relationship that had already been brought to a new low by the burning of Korans at an American military base last month.

You think?

I can’t imagine why successive American administrations believed the Afghans would fall in love with America for invading and occupying their country and forming an unholy alliance with drug lords and bandits. Add to that the burning of the Afgfhans’ holy book and the massacre of innocent civilians and you have a prescription for certain failure.

Oh, and by the way, according to the Times article:

In a separate incident, four Afghans were killed and three wounded on Friday when coalition helicopters apparently hunting Taliban insurgents fired instead on villagers in Kapisa province in eastern Afghanistan, according to Abdul Hakim Akhondzada, governor of Tagab district in Kapisa.

And lest we forget:

In another incident in January, American officials had to contend with the fallout from a video that showed four United States Marines urinating on the corpses of what appeared to be the corpses of three Taliban members.

In 2010, a rogue group of American soldiers, whose members patrolled roads and small villages, also near Kandahar, killed three Afghan civilians for sport in a series of crimes. The soldier accused of being the ringleader of the group was convicted of three counts of murder by an American military panel in November.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: The longer American troops remain in Afghanistan the more trouble they’re going to get into.

It doesn’t matter how many Taliban warriors they shoot, Americans have lost Afghanistan forever.

Why are American troops still there? There has to be reasons that are unknown to me. Someone somewhere must be making so much money from the war that they won’t allow President Obama to call the troops home. Yeah, I know, I must be some kindof conspiracy nut.

But can you blame me?