Hamid Karzai’s shenanigans make the going even harder for NATO

Doesn't NATO get it? Pull out all your troops and let the country deal with its own mess. It's ridiculous that they believed they could implement "democracy" in a tribal-dominated Islamic state in the first place. It's sheer stupidity on the part of the NATO alliance. A couple thousands of lives later, do we see much progress? No.

Just get out, NATO. If the country wants to screw itself or reform itself, let it do it on its own.

From the beginning, the series of compromises made by NATO to ease Afghanistan into "democracy" is the problem. One bad compromise was the confirmation of Hamid Karzai's illegal election victory over Dr. Abdulah Abdullah, when it was clear there was widespread election fraud.

As backward as Afghanistan is, Afghans are not fools and even those that voted for Karzai see him merely as Western puppet.

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah was definitely more progressive, realistic, visionary and, most importantly, honest candidate. Also, despite being from the North, he does have a way of reaching accross ethic lines and appealing to all Afghans - contrary to conventional wisdom. NATO should therefore have backed him or at least been more impartial. Then Afghanistan would have been seen more like a true democracy.

Karzai is well known crook and NATO has enough evidence to book this clown.

Funny how the West lets itself be blackmailed by a third-world despot again and again and again. We've seen this so many times in the past and now Karzai is simply playing it again, Sam. Good to know that Western soldiers are dying for a good cause... Assuming, that is, that keeping Western voters from the truth (that Afghanistan is simply a quagmire of tribal squabbles and Islamic extremism) is in fact a good cause.

Attempts at nation building is clearly a role for fools.

Remember President Thieu of South Vietnam back in the late 1960's early 1970's? The current behaviour of Afghanistan's president is very similar. And it will probably end in the same way. Staying power is what matters in civil wars or insurgencies. The Taliban have the patience and stamina to ultimately win....

It occurs to me that perhaps it's the existence, rather than the membership, of these "independent electoral commissions" that is the cause of electoral fraud in so many newly- and nominally-democratic countries. On Iraq's current electoral commission, Ahmd Chalabi has excluded so many Sunnis, that the Sunnis are boycotting the election. "Independent" electoral commissions aren't merely a curse of US puppet regimes, though -- Iran's electoral commission has been causing no end of mischief as well. Given that the established Western Democracies get by just fine without any sort of electoral commission to vet the candidates, why do we think countries like Iraq and Afghanistan need such a group?

The idea of an electoral commission seems straight from Tammany Hall, where Boss Tweed famously said, "I don't care who does the electing so long as I do the nominating." It's a sure prescription for corruption, so why do we feign surprise when corruption is the result?

Not so much Afghanised as Karzaied

If Afghan extremism were to stay in Afghanistan, then I agree the rest of the world should abandon the place and leave them to their dark age collective insanity.

I wonder if Obama could start negotiations with Russia on the future of Afghanistan. The West would of course like to see democracy but the primary issue is to defeat the Taliban - if Afghans do not want democracy enough to defeat their own warlords we cannot impose it even if we wished.

The shenanigans and their Taliban cohorts would want to extract as much money and blood from the Nato because the latter is their only source of incomes for the lucrative Opium trades, Military equipment trades, Taliban protection rackets etc.

9 Years. It is difficult to say if we are any safer or if the Afghani people are better off after all this time.

Predator drones to kill al-Qaeda and pressure on Pakistan to stop supporting the Taliban probably would have been just as effective.

The Americans may fight terrorism such as Al Queda and Talibans in AfgPak to secure their homeland security. But they are not above forlicking with terrorists like the Jundallah, an Al Queda outfit aims to topple the Iranian regime. The capture of Rigi, the Jundallah by the Iranian intelligence will prove an embarrassment to the Obama doctrine.