Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Karzai-ization of Afghanistan
Isn't it great that America is standing so forcefully for fundamental principles of democracy around the world? We're standing side by side with some of the most notable, incredible, and astonishing democratic leaders on the globe today. Specifically, of course, I'm referring to Hamid Karzai.
Karzai? What a goofus! As the sitting president of Afghanistan, this guy is only notable for being an astonishingly-arrogant incompetent with no leadership credibility whatsoever. Yet we have tens of thousands of American troops over there - fighting, bleeding, and dying - to shore up Karzai's ridiculous and corrupt regime.
How ridiculous and corrupt? Let's remember that he flat-out stole last year's presidential election. The thievery was so rampant and blatant that his top opponent quit the race in disgust, declaring that there was no way for people to get a fair vote. Still, our government sanctioned this fraud, declaring that we had extracted promises from Karzai that he would stop the corruption and allow an independent commission to oversee future elections.
We might as well have tried to make a snake tap dance. With parliamentary elections coming up in September, this slippery autocrat has unilaterally dismissed the independent commission, decreeing that all new members will be handpicked by him. A Karzai spokesman noted that three of the disposed commission members were appointed by the United Nations and were "creating problems for us." Yeah, impartial election monitors can be a problem for petty tyrants. That's why they're there.
The spokesman claimed that Karzai's usurpation of the election office was merely part of "the process of Afghanization" of the government. What's happened to the democratization of the government? What's really happening is the Karzai-ization of the government - and not even one more of our soldiers should have to die for that.
"Afghan Leader Asserts Control Over Election Body," New York Times, February 24, 2010
16 Comments so far
Show AllKarzai is America's chosen despot, like Saddam and the Shah were. Most of Latin America as well.
"bongs and fields of poppy smoke; all afghans under karzai's yoke; american soldiers in their wake; it all turned out that way. now it seems we gotta stay, more soldiers dyin' every day, and if hamid has his way, till 2024 we will stay, billions gone away". you can sing the above lyrics, if you want to call them that, to judy collins' "both sides now". or, was it ms. baez?
Joni Mitchell.
Gary
“Anything beyond the limits and grasp of the human mind is either illusion or futility; and because your god having to be one or the other of the two, in the first instance I should be mad to believe in him, and in the second a fool”
-- Donatien Alphonse François (Marquis De Sade)
One word:
Satrapy
If Karzai = goofus; Obama's DoofUS!
You are wonderful, Jim H., only thing you omitted was that in his previous incarnation, Karzai was advisor to large US oil company.Question to be asked, does he still have a US passport (ie given up his Afghan status, sworn allegiance ti another government) thus not alone a puppet President, but a foreign ruler.
He knows how to run an election. Karzai could sign on for Obama's re-election.
Let's see, we are spending our hard-earned tax $ to support Karzai, the warlords and heroin traffic, Colombia, Israel,etc. while there is no money for schools, health care, housing, transportation,etc, where our government continues to support death and greed
I wanna teach a snake to tap-dance.
Maybe when Chalibi is freely elected to run Iraq, the world will be a safe place for the uber-rich to hire illegal immigrants (slavery) and go to sleep at night in peace.
Love you, Hightower, but you're tiptoeing around the source of the problem: the Democrat-led American government.
The American fish continues to rot from the head down.
Actually at the core of the whole mess is crony capitalism and the plutocrats who benefit by keeping the world at war and the money flowing into their pockets.
Very true; however, it's the Democrats' turn to serve the oligarchs now.
Karzai was once a "consultant" for UNOCAL when they were planning a trans-Afghan pipeline project to market natural gas and oil throughout Asia. UNOCAL has folded, but the plans are still in place.
he present cost to the public for the invasion and occupation of Iraq is now about $3 Trillion plus interest on that debt.
The estimated public cost for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is about $1 Trillion.
These comprise criminal subsidies SUSTAINING WAR CRIMES serving American oil corporations wanting hegemony over Middle Eastern and NOW CENTRAL ASIA OIL AND NATURAL GAS.
A map can tell a complete story:
Afghanistan and the new great game:
Prized pipeline route could explain West's stubborn interest in poor, remote land
John Foster
Published On Wed Aug 12 2009
Why is Afghanistan so important?
A glance at a map and a little knowledge of the region suggest that the real reasons for Western military involvement may be largely hidden.
article with pipeline map :
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6901310&mesg_...
And every so often someone coins a new word that covers a huge topic.
Try Googling Pepe Escobar Pipilineistan for good reading.
one of many articles:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175071
"Yet we have tens of thousands of American troops over there - fighting, bleeding, and dying - to shore up Karzai's ridiculous and corrupt regime".
I doubt that very much. Our military runs everything in Afghanistan that Karzai should run. He is merely our fig leaf in Kabul.
Yep! Obomber is carrying water for Smirk's PNAC ambitions.
Mo' money in the trillions to go down Rat Hole Afghansitan & Rat Hole Iraq with virtually no infrastructure improvements for all the years the US has been in both countries since the Smirk
administration.
Traitorous D-Crappers and its subservience to PNAC & AIPAC