Category: Afghanistan

What the Hell are We Doing In Afghanistan Again?

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Because Afghan President Hamid Karzai just gave a speech defending Kabul Mayor Abdul Ahad Sayebi, who was just sentenced to 4 years in prison at the Afghan anti-corruption conference:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai used a keynote anti-corruption speech on Tuesday to defend the most senior of his officials to be convicted of graft in years, a move that could anger Western backers who demand more accountability.

The president opened a three-day, anti-corruption conference, which had been billed by diplomats as a sign that Karzai took seriously the West’s concern over an issue seen as key to winning popular support against a resurgent Taliban.

That sound you hear is Eric Arthur Blair spinning in his grave at 4200 rpm.

Seriously, we need to get out now, because you can’t win hearts and minds with this corrupt ratf%$#.

Besides By Killing His Brother, Of Course

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The Washington Independent asks How to Hold [Afghan president Hamid] Karzai Accountable?

Truth be told, I’m not sure, but we know that his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is heavily involved in the drug trade, and we know that this means that he is routinely dealing with people who fund the Taliban.

I would suggest that instead of dropping a Hellfire on him when he meets with those people, that a photograph be taken, and presented to him, with the explanation that they would have fired, but they recognized his brother, and that he might not be so lucky next time, so getting his act together on purging corruption, including his dope dealer brother, should happen sooner rather than later.

We Are Unbelievably Screwed

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It turns out that when General Stanley McChrystal was looking for filling in the dots on his Afghanistan escalation plan, he turned to the think tank Washington, DC, and created a “strategic assessment group”, among the members of that group, Fred Kagan and his wife, Kimberly Kagan.

If there is a bright shining center of intellect in the universe, anyone in the Kagan clan are located in a dank corner where people still believe that leeches cure cancer.

They are always wrong. All you need to look at is their history on Iraq, Saddam, and WMD.

On a more substantive note, this sort of lobbying, because when you look at the names on the group, they are largely idiots who are respected by the “very serious people” inside the Beltway, should be something that members of the military should not be doing.

The group was not about getting answers, it was not aboug evaluating potential options, it was about Beltway street cred.

Canada Bails Out of Afghanistan

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When you’ve lost Stephen Harper on the war, you’ve lost the war:

Canada is sticking to a 2011 end date for its combat mission in Afghanistan even as the United States prepares to significantly boost its military presence in the war-torn country.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, speaking at the conclusion of a Commonwealth leaders’ summit in Trinidad, said he doesn’t see any enthusiasm among Canada’s 308 MPs for prolonging or expanding this deployment.

This is a guy who was literally George W. Bush’s best bud in this hemisphere, and was right behind Tony Blair in the competition for best poodle in show, and disappointed about finishing 2nd.

This won’t change the White House’s position on Afghanistan, which is all about Barack Obama attempting to defuse attacks from the right that he is a peacenik, so he is better positioned to run for reelection in 2012, which, of course worked so f$#@ing well for LBJ in 1965.

So, it’s wrong on pragmatic political level, where Vietnam kneecapped Johnson’s Great Society and the Democratic for years, and it’s wrong on the moral level, where feeding new bodies to what Eric Palmer calls “Operation Useless Dirt” simply to inoculate one’s self from right wing attacks that will happen anyway.

Pushback on Supporting Karzai

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It’s beginning to look like Obama has a problem in Afghanistan.

On one side, he has the military, which is pushing for an escalation, because too many of the senior officers are too invested in their theories of irregular warfare, and have lost sight of the regional goal, and so are looking for “victory” (McChrystal, Petraeus).

On the other side, which also includes military personnel, you have people see the real goals of Afghanistan as simply insuring that al Qaeda does not create another safe-haven there, and this side includes much of the state department, most of our European allies, and now, it appears, Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, who has sent memos saying that an escalation would make things worse.

Note that Eikenberry is a retired general, and he commanded US forces there in 2007 and 2007, but until now he has scrupulously avoided comment on the military end of things:

Although Eikenberry’s extensive military experience and previous command in Afghanistan were the key reasons Obama chose him for the top diplomatic job there, the former general had been reluctant as ambassador to weigh in on military issues. Some officials who favor an increase in troops said they were surprised by the last-minute nature of his strongly worded cables.

In these and other communications with Washington, Eikenberry has expressed deep reservations about Karzai’s erratic behavior and corruption within his government, said U.S. officials familiar with the cables. Since Karzai was officially declared reelected last week, U.S. diplomats have seen little sign that the Afghan president plans to address the problems they have raised repeatedly with him.

When I made comparisons to the mistakes made following the assassination of Diem in Vietnam, I had no idea that people who have Obama’s ear were of like mind.

Karzai is there because the US installed him, and could only gain legitimacy through the quality of his governance, hence he has no legitimacy in Afghanistan.

With all that is going on, and there are now official statements from the White House saying that, “Our commitment is not open-ended,” which implies people are starting to get a clue, and aren’t being hawkish because they think that it will help in 2012.

This is Not a Surprise

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It appears that the Taliban is in the process of severing its ties with al Qaeda:

Such positions may put Omar’s Taliban at odds with al-Qaeda’s extremist Sunni agenda of overthrowing what it sees as corrupt Muslim governments and targeting Shiites. Analysts said that Omar, who leads a council of Taliban commanders based in or around the Pakistani city of Quetta, wants such countries as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan to recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government if it regains power and that he has little interest in fomenting war elsewhere.

“We assure all countries that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as a responsible force, will not extend its hand to cause jeopardy to others,” Omar said in a written statement in September.

The messages from the Taliban leadership since the spring amount to something of a “revolution,” said Wahid Mujda, a political analyst who was a Foreign Ministry official under the Taliban government. “Al-Qaeda’s path is now different from the Taliban’s path, and they are growing more separated.”

This ain’t a revolution.

Al Qaeda was never particularly popular in Afghanistan, where the people are, after all not Arabs, and they have about as much love for rich Arabs as we in the United States do.

Bin Laden was there because the Taliban wanted his money, not him.

When they were in control of Afghanistan, not only were they not fierce protectors of him, but they were trying to find a way for help the US make him dead in a way that gave them some plausible deniability.

Abdullah Abdullah Pulls out of Afghan Presidential Runoff

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He says that he is doing so because the electoral commission and process is hopelessly corrupt, and that they have refused to do anything to correct the issue.

He is correct, the changes proposed for the runoff made fraud more, rather than less, likely:

Despite having fewer poll workers and a declining security situation, Afghanistan’s election commission announced Thursday it would increase the number of polling centers for the presidential runoff.

While some analysts suspect the goal is to achieve high-enough turnout for a credible result, the ambitious plan heightens concerns that fraud will once again mar the election

The experts are wrong. Fraud is the goal, not increased turnout.

Unsurprisingly, the electoral commission, which is packed with Karzai cronies, has declared him the elected president.

I hope that the statement from the US embassy is just pro forma:

“We congratulate President Karzai on his victory in this historic election,” said a statement from the United States Embassy in Kabul, “and look forward to working with him, his new administration, the Afghan people and our partners in the international community to support Afghanistan’s progress towards institutional reforms, security and prosperity.”

Because if they see a stolen election in the context of a civil war as legitimate, it’s Diem in Vietnam all over again.

Australia Looking to Bug Out of Afghanistan

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Do the Australian government is looking to complete the mission in “shortest time-frame possible,” according to Defense (Defence?) Minister John Faulkner

It should be noted that the Australians have been in with the Americans on everywhere that the US has fought for the past 100 years, including Vietnam, so this is not a good indication of the direction of military involvement of allied forces.

Basically, there is not a whole bunch of goodwill left for operations in Afghanistan after the Bushie’s fiasco in Iraq, even with a new president.

Evil: A Cheney Family Traditon

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Yesterday, I mentioned Obama’s trip to Dover to pay his respects to the dead whose caskets were coming back that day.

I figured that at some point, some prominent Republican would try to cast it ad evil and sinister, and out of the gate comes Liz Cheney, on the John Gibson Show:

“I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras. And I don’t understand sort of showing up with the White House Press Pool with photographers and asking family members if you can take pictures. That’s really hard for me to get my head around…It was a surprising way for the president to choose to do this.”

Only, neither George W. Bush or…You know….Her Father ever went to pay their respects to the dead.

In fact, they were they supporessed any and all photographs, whether the family assented or not.

A Level of Class that You Would Never See Out of Bush and His Evil Minions™

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How will Fox call this Communist?

Or for that matter, his Dad, who instituted the shameful news blackout on the repatriation of the bodies of servicemen killed in action.

I have been disappointed about a lot of things, but his going to Dover Air Force Base to honor troops killed in Afghanistan is a demonstration of Menschlichkeit.

Bush Jr. spent his entire term avoiding things like this, because he’s a coward with no integrity.

The picture on the left is him saluting* the men as they are transported off the transport

Video below.

*I know that this is a picayune observation, as this is a genuine show of respect, but I thought civilians weren’t supposed to salute, could someone with military experience please inform me on the finer points?

Just When You Thought that the Karzai Family Could Not Get Any Sleazier

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Would you buy a used car from this man?

It turns out that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Hamid Karzai is multi-tasking something fierce, he’s not just a major figure in Afghan opium production, but he is also on the CIA payroll:

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

The article then notes that this “raises questions” about our current Afghanistan policy.

Well duh!!! The army fights the Taliban, which is supported to a large degree by opium money, and the CIA pays money to one of the biggest opium producers and smugglers in the region, which would imply that in some small part, the CIA is paying the Taliban to kill American troops.

Those boyz from Langley are such kidders.

Signs of the Apocalypse: George F. Will Calls Out Dick Cheney

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On ABC’s This Week (Stephanopoulos), they have a discussion of Dick Cheney’s speech, where he says that Obama is taking too long to make up his mind.

George F. Will, yes that George F. Will, takes takes Cheney to task:

“A bit of dithering might have been in order before we went into Iraq in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction,” Will said on ABC’s “This Week. “For a representative of the Bush administration to accuse someone of taking too much time is missing the point. We have much more to fear in this town from hasty than from slow government action.”

When you have lost the guy who drilled Ronald Reagan for his debates with Jimmy Carter while using Carter’s stolen briefing books, you’ve lost everyone.

Start watching at about -11:10. (the timer on the clip counts down, not up)

I Love Alan Grayson*

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In discussing Cheney’s comments on Afghanistan, Grayson says, “Well, my response is — and by the way, I have trouble listening to what he says sometimes, because of the blood that drips from his teeth while he’s talking, but my response is this: He’s just angry because the president doesn’t shoot old men in the face. But by the way, when he was done speaking, did he just then turn into a bat and fly away?”

I love this for two reasons:

  • It’s wicked funny.
  • This, like his “Republicans want you to die”, comment, completely marginalizes his opponents by showing who they truly are.

*In a 110% purely heterosexual kind of way, of course, as the General would say.

Afghanistan Will Hold Runoff

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So, now we know that once he is presented with overwhelming pressure, and the threat of a withdrawal of support, which would end with him being hung from a lamp post, Hamid Karzai will observes the cosmetic niceties of a democratic government:

Karzai welcomed the ruling by the government-appointed Independent Election Commission (IEC) after hours of closed-door meetings with western diplomats and mounting international pressure to accept the need for a second round.

He’s welcoming this ruling in the same way that you or I would welcome a prostate exam…With a bowling ball.

Bend over, this won’t hurt a bit…..

UN Fraud Inquiry Calls for Runoff in Afghanistan

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So, it turns out that the ECC threw out nearly 1/3 of the ballots cast for Karzai, and the US government is saying that it cannot make a decision about more troops until the matter is resolved.

My guess is that Karzai will accept a runoff, and that he will probably win, as he has extensive support from the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, as well as a bureaucracy that will be firmly supporting him in the balloting.