"Afghan Leaders Demand Timetable for U.S.
Withdrawal," The Wisdom Fund, May 21, 2009
"Afghan War Could Last 'For Decades',"
The Wisdom Fund, August 3, 2009
[The sustained propaganda, quite often vicious and personal, would have us
believe Karzai lacks the capacity for good governance, fawns cronyism and is
soft on venality; that he pampers corrupt relatives and brutish warlords;
and, of course, as Obama once famously put it, that Karzai doesn't even stir
out of his "bunker" in the presidential palace. All of this, much of it or
at least some of it may be true. But the fog kept out of sight the schism
between Karzai and his erstwhile mentors in Washington.
It was towards the end of 2007 that Karzai began demanding that he should
have a say in the US deployment and the scale of military operations by the
foreign troops. He talked about an Iraqi-style Status of Force Agreement.
Essentially, he wanted the occupation forces to abide by Afghan laws. He
then raised it at the United Nations, under whose mandate, after all, the
NATO forces operate in Afghanistan.--M K Bhadrakumar, "A fog swirls in the Hindu Kush," Asia Times, August 18, 2009]
[Thousands of voting cards have been offered for sale and thousands of
dollars have been offered in bribes to buy votes.--Ian Pannell, "Afghan election
fraud is unearthed," BBC News, August 18, 2009]
[In a country ruled by warlords, occupation forces, Taliban insurgency, drug
money and guns, no one can expect a legitimate or fair vote.--Malalai Joya,
"Why Afghans
Have No Hope in This Week's Vote," commondreams.org, August 18,
2009]
Gareth Porter, "Karzai
and Warlords Mount Massive Vote Fraud Scheme," IPS, August 19, 2009
[Tehran is now keeping its fingers crossed about the possibility that the US
might now engineer an "Iran-like situation" to muddy waters and install a
surrogate power structure in Kabul.--M K Bhadrakumar, "Powers line
up to stir Afghanistan's pot," Asia Times, August 20, 2009]
Jon Boone, "Afghanistan
election ink safeguard fails detergent test: Ink used at some polling
stations to mark voters can be removed with household soap, in embarrassing
echo of 2004 scandal," Guardian, August 20, 2009
Tom Coghlan, "No sign of voters on election day in Afghanistan despite official
claims," Times, August 21, 2009
[The problem with U.S.-sponsored elections in Asia and elsewhere in the
non-Western world, as in Afghanistan Aug. 20, is that they are sponsored by
the United States primarily to legitimize its own presence in the
country.--William Pfaff, "Reality Is Its Own
Caricature for US in Afghanistan and Pakistan," antiwar.com, August
21, 2009]
Pamela Constable, "Afghans Brace for Unrest Over Vote Tally: Tensions
on Rise Between Factions -- And With U.S.," Washington Post,
September 2, 2009
Kim Sengupta, "Karzai 'victory'
provokes fresh crisis between Kabul and West," Independent,
September 9, 2009
[Afghan election authorities issued complete preliminary results showing Mr
Karzai received 54.6 per cent of the vote. His main challenger, the former
foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, got 27.8 per cent. The results are not
final until approved by a separate election fraud watchdog, which has called
for a recount of 10 per cent of polling stations.--Golnar Motevalli, "Karzai won outright in
first round of voting, say Afghans," Independent, September 17, 2009]
[The fundamental failure was the failure of the US and allied forces to
provide security for the election, as they had promised to do. If the US and
its allies could not establish security for this single event, an event on
which they were highly focused, an event for which they had explicitly
increased their forces in the country, that suggests that current plans to
provide security by increasing foreign forces will fail, absent a broad
political process to resolve Afghanistan's conflicts - a political process
that must include the "Taliban" insurgencies to be successful.--Robert
Naiman, "The Real Failure of
the Afghan Election," truthout.org, September 22, 2009]
Julius Cavendish, "Relief for the US as Karzai
concedes election run-off," Independent, October 21, 2009
[The U.S. government has wanted to dump Karzai, but could not find an
equally obedient but more effective replacement. There was talk of imposing
an American "chief executive officer" on him. Or, in the lexicon of the old
British Raj, an Imperial Viceroy.
Washington finally decided to try to shore up Karzai's regime and give it
some legitimacy by staging national elections in August. The UN, which has
increasingly become an arm of U.S. foreign policy, was brought in to make
the vote kosher. Canada eagerly joined this charade.
No political parties were allowed to run. Only individuals supporting the
West's occupation of Afghanistan were allowed on the ballot.
The vote was conducted under the guns of a foreign occupation army - a clear
violation of international law.--Eric Margolis, "Americans pull strings in Afghan election,"
Independent, October 25, 2009]
Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti and James Risen, "Brother
of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll," New York
Times, October 28, 2009
Jon Boone, "Afghanistan election challenger Abdullah Abdullah pulls out of
runoff," Guardian, November 1, 2009
[The shadow boxing is over. At the center stage of the political theater
stands Karzai. He has turned the table squarely on the Western powers, but
he will not easily forget the sustained attempts over the past year and more
to ridicule him and pull him down.
. . . Afghan Minister of Counter-Narcotics, General Khodaidad . . . has
brought into public debate Afghanistan's best-kept secret: the role of
foreign troops in drug trafficking.
. . . when Khodaidad said on Sunday that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) contingents from the US, Britain and Canada are "taxing" the
production of opium in the regions under their control, he carried a stern
warning on behalf of Karazi. It is a simple, direct message: don't throw
stones while sitting in a glass cage.--M K Bhadrakumar, "US goofs
the Afghan election," Asia Times, November 3, 2009]
[In exchange for the pullout of the non-Pashtun Abdullah, Pakistan's
military has agreed to actively mediate between Washington and the Taliban
over a reconciliation plan that will allow the US to exit from Afghanistan,
as it is doing in Iraq, with a semblance of success.--Syed Saleem Shahzad, "US puts its
faith in Pakistan's military," atimes.com, November 6, 2009]