The question comes down to the timing. When is “some point”, and do we simply trust that we know better than them when that might be? Or that when that time arrives it’ll be clear to both of us? What if the course they want to chart isn’t the one we like — it’d be pretty easy at that point to suggest that the time isn’t right yet.

Personally, I’d go with getting out of their government, but following up with an external, international group watching their elections to report on the fairness — and perhaps resorting to the McMillan Tac50 to suppress corruption.

Kabul Khatay
Toronto, Canada

Last Updated: February 24. 2010 10:16PM UAE / February 24. 2010 6:16PM GMT

No one could possibly trust the results of the last Afghan election. Nearly a third of the votes from the first round of voting were thrown out because of fraud. The incumbent Hamid Karzai nearly declared himself the victor anyway. And when his opponent dropped out before the second round of balloting, Mr Karzai waltzed into office with barely a nod to the principles he had trod underfoot.

Now it seems that the president is determined to shed even the flimsy mandate that his election provided him. Since the August ballot, Nato countries, whose troops are fighting and dying in Afghanistan, have pressured Mr Karzai to curb corruption and replace election officials. On Tuesday he finally acted – by giving himself complete control over the last independent watchdog overseeing voting, the Electoral Complaints Commission.

It isn’t difficult to understand Mr Karzai’s reasons for further brutalising the Afghan constitution. Referred to by his detractors as “the mayor of Kabul” because of his tenuous grip outside the capital, the president is trying to centralise as much power as he can before parliamentary elections in September. If he and his allies can repeat their last performance, Afghanistan will be a democracy only in name.

That would be a serious setback for the stability of the country, which desperately needs functioning institutions to channel conflict from the battlefield to the political arena. But democratisation and stronger institutions will do little to benefit Mr Karzai’s inner circle. His power base is a coterie of allies of convenience tied to him by a corrupt system of patronage. Afghanistan has seen the rise and fall of this kind of leader before.
For all of the squeamishness about Mr Karzai’s dodgy electioneering, his regime’s corruption, it is still Nato and coalition forces that keep him in power. The alternative to Mr Karzai is a return to the Taliban. The US reinforcements and the beginning of a long campaign in Helmand province are ongoing despite, not because of, Mr Karzai’s leadership. For the time being, he can still shelter under their umbrella. Eventually he will have to stand on his own.

Mr Karzai’s long-term prospects have always depended on his ability and willingness to deliver good governance, which is now a distant hope at best. The struggle to define Afghanistan will continue, but this president’s political machinations do little for his country. And should they continue, they will lead to his own undoing.

JJ
Virginia

Concern about Karzai power grab

Published on 23 February 2010 – 11:46am

Western diplomats have expressed concern about the increasing power of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The president has issued a decree giving him the power to appoint the members of Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission. Last year, the Commission helped expose widespread electoral fraud by Mr Karzai’s supporters during the presidential elections. The Western diplomats say they expect the parliamentary elections scheduled to be held in September will again be marred by widespread fraud.

Delft, Netherlands

Mr. Karzai you did not show a HUGE turnaround and therefore you will not be trusted again. The abandonment by Bush was wrong. But engaging in this huge level of corruption was not how you fix things.

“We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in.”

I am wonder who are we dying for? Karzai?

The tragedy of Afghanistan continues as the valiant and courageous Afghan freedom fighters [The Taliban] persevere in standing up against the brutal power of the Soviet invasion and occupation. The Afghan people are struggling to reclaim their freedom, which was taken from them when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December of 1979.

In this three-year period the Soviet Union has been unable to subjugate Afghanistan. The Soviet forces are pitted against an extraordinary people who, in their determination to preserve the character of their ancient land, have organized an effective and still spreading country-wide resistance. The resistance of the Afghan freedom fighters is an example to all the world of the invincibility of the ideals we in this country hold most dear, the ideals of freedom and independence.

We must also recognize that the sacrifices required to maintain this resistance are very high. Millions have gone into exile as refugees. We will probably never know the numbers of people killed and maimed, poisoned and gased, of the homes that have been destroyed, and of the lives that have been shattered and stricken with grief.

It is, therefore, incumbent upon us as Americans to reflect on the events in Afghanistan, to think about the agony which these brave people bear, and to maintain our condemnation of the continuing Soviet occupation. Our observance again this year of Afghanistan Day on March 21, the Afghan New Year, will recall for all the world America’s unflagging sympathy for a determined people, its support for their refugees and commitment to achieving a political settlement for Afghanistan which will free that country from tyranny’s yoke.”

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45/278.html

must read:

“February 16, 1989

Last Soviet Soldiers Leave Afghanistan

By BILL KELLER, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

MOSCOW — The last Soviet soldier came home from Afghanistan this morning, the Soviet Union announced, leaving behind a war that had become a domestic burden and an international embarrassment for Moscow.”