US accepts Hamid Karzai as Afghan leader despite poll fraud claims

[rmp yellow]

Source: Times Online

The White House has ended weeks of hesitation over how to respond to the Afghan election by accepting President Karzai as the winner despite evidence that up to 20 per cent of ballots cast may have been fraudulent.

Abandoning its previous policy of not prejudging investigations of vote rigging, the Obama Administration has conceded that Mr Karzai will be President for another five years on the basis that even if he were forced into a second round of voting he would almost certainly win it.

The decision will increase pressure on President Obama to justify further US troop deployments to Afghanistan to prop up a regime now regarded as systemically corrupt.

The acceptance was conveyed by Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, in a meeting with her Afghan counterpart hours before Mr Obama received a formal request from General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, for up to 40,000 more troops.

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6853123.ece

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Nothing to see here. Move along.

[daleo]

1. Ok, we are officially behind the looking glass now

I hate this sort of thing. "Sure, X cheated but he probably would have won anyway, so cheating is fine."

[rmp yellow]

2. The generals probably argued that admitting fraud would endanger our national security

And the security of our troops.

I don't know what went on in there. I just think that if Karzai had stolen the election (with or without our assistance), our government wouldn't admit it.

[daleo]

3. How can we bring demockracy to Afghanistan

If we don't allow electoral fraud?

[IndianaGreen]

5. Just like admitting that the USS Maddox was never attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats

How many people died on account of that lie? How many will die on account of this support for the Mayor of Kabul?

It is not fair to ask our troops to die and suffer to keep a narco-trafficking regime in power in Afghanistan.

[wisteria]

6. Good points. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

4. This is as big a mistake as our support for Vietnam's Diem in 1954

We knew that Ho Chi Minh would have won a democratic and free election in Vietnam, so we installed our own puppet in power.

Karzai stole the election. The evidence of massive fraud is incontrovertible. Our recognition of the illegitimate Karzai regime tells us two things: US will continue to escalate the war, and our fortunes will be tied to the unpopular Mayor of Kabul.

[wisteria]

7. You make a lot of sense, but I hope you are wrong about the war escalating. n/t

[laconicsax]

13. Obama has been committed to escalating the war from day one.

He calls it 'ensuring victory' or some other similar line.

[IndianaGreen]

8. Tying our fate to Karzai's corrupt regime is a recipe for defeat.

We have to look at this conflict from the Afghan point of view:

Op-Ed Contributor

Afghanistan’s Other Front

By JOSEPH KEARNS GOODWIN
Published: September 15, 2009
Concord, Mass.

ALLEGATIONS of ballot-stuffing in the presidential election in Afghanistan last month are now so widespread that a recount is necessary, and perhaps even a runoff. Yet this electoral chicanery pales in comparison to the systemic, day-to-day corruption within the administration of President Hamid Karzai, who has claimed victory in the election. Without a concerted campaign to fight this pervasive venality, all our efforts there, including the sending of additional troops, will be in vain.

I have just returned from Afghanistan, where I spent seven months as a special adviser to NATO’s director of communications. On listening tours across the country, we left behind the official procession of armored S.U.V.’s, bristling guns and imposing flak jackets that too often encumber coalition forces when they arrive in local villages. Dressed in civilian clothes and driven in ordinary cars, we were able to move around in a manner less likely to intimidate and more likely to elicit candor.

The recurring complaint I heard from Afghans centered on the untenable encroachment of government corruption into their daily lives — the homeowner who has to pay a bribe to get connected to the sewage system, the defendant who tenders payment to a judge for a favorable verdict. People were so incensed with the current government’s misdeeds that I often heard the disturbing refrain: “If Karzai is re-elected, then I am going to join the Taliban.”

If there is any entity more reviled in Afghanistan than the Karzai government and coalition forces, it is the Taliban, so I never took these desperate exclamations to be literally true. But these outbursts reveal a disgust with the current government so pronounced it cannot be dismissed. And the international community’s reluctance to fight corruption head-on has inextricably linked it with the despised administration. As we continue to give unequivocal support to a crooked government, our credibility is greatly diminished and the difficulty of our mission greatly increased.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/opinion/16goodwin.html?_r=3&ref=opinion

[saigon68]

20. Meet the Mayor of Kabul = Greasy Corrupt Stinky Charlie McKarzai

Yes, the puppet of the CIA and UnoCal

[Violet_Crumble]

9. Bad move n/t

[IndianaGreen]

10. People will die on account of this stupid move.

and the people responsible will go on to write their memoirs and give speeches for a fat fee while the military families mourn their dead, and deal with the wounded and the emotionally damaged.

[saigon68]

21. And the VA under President Huckabee in 3 and 1/2 years will

Screw the Veterans once again.

Get ready for a one term President kids.

The Peace Marches will begin soon.

[larryhorse]

11. Is there no end

to the duplicity of the Bush/Cheney cabal in the White House.

[IndianaGreen]

12. 'The acceptance was conveyed by Hillary Clinton...'

If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.

-- Emma Goldman

[Flaneur]

18. Heh heh.

[Seedersandleechers]

14. I'm thinking 2000 and 2004 elections here.

When it comes down to money verses the population that has a majority vote - money always wins.

[Solly Mack]

15. Amazing

[change_notfinetuning]

16. Making the world safe for hypocrisy . . . yet again. n/t

[saigon68]

22. `

[SIMPLYB1980]

17. Good. Got to talk to someone kinda like Iran. nt

[Vidar]

19. It's becoming a bigger & bigger joke.