US Fed Up With Troops Dying to Prop Up Karzai
by Paul McGeouh in Kabul
Published on Friday, November 6, 2009 by The Sydney Morning Herald

It seems that Hamid Karzai just can't be trusted on his own.

When he breasted the microphone at the presidential palace on October 20, to make an oblique admission that he attempted to steal the election and would go along with the second poll which he had resisted for weeks, he was flanked by a high-powered international posse - lest he depart from the agreed script.

On one side was the US senator John Kerry; on the other, the United Nations special envoy Kai Eide; and riding shotgun were the British and French ambassadors.

Fast forward two weeks. Last Sunday, Karzai's challenger, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, played exquisite politics. Baling out of the second vote which was to be held today, he left a wounded Karzai to claim the presidency, knowing that the stench of a million stolen votes would cling to him for the next five years.

On Tuesday, Karzai was back on the presidential dais, this time to claim his prize. But lest he make any reckless promises - say, to eject some of the more odorous among his cronies from office - the enforcers came from among the cronies, his vice presidents Karim Khalil and Mohammad Qasim Fahim, both former warlords from the ranks of Afghanistan's looting class.

Rest of article at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/...