Karzai Declared Winner
After Abdullah Abdullah pulls out:
Abdullah said Sunday that he withdrew from the race after Karzai rejected a list of demands he believed would help prevent a repeat of the irregularities of the first round, including the removal of the the election panel’s top leadership and the suspension of three ministers he accused of abusing their positions to help Karzai’s campaign.
In other words, because Karzai didn’t do anything to prevent a repeat of fraud. This does not sound like a recipe for legitimacy.
But it does remove an excuse for Obama’s dithering over troop levels.
P.S. There is a double “the” in the L.A. Times’s passage above.
My theory is that when you see Abdullah Abdullah, you start repeating repeating words words.
Is he related to the former head of the UN, some guy named Boutros – Boutros Ghali?
Comment by Dmac — 11/2/2009 @ 8:23 am
Well, the press won’t have A-A to kick around any more.
Comment by AD - RtR/OS! — 11/2/2009 @ 10:40 am
Why should we give any legitimacy to the idea that troop levels or, indeed, the very importance of the US mission in Afghanistan needed to be tied to the election results?
Either we have a compelling national security interest in Afghanistan or we don’t. Regardless of alleged fraud and governmental incompetence, the original mission of denying the country as a terrorist haven and training area for al qaeda still stands. George Will and others may be convinced that lobbing cruise missiles from submarines allows us to accomplish this mission but he and they are kidding themselves.
This whole line of attack was another excuse to delay the decision for the purpose of reviewing the political consequences of military strategy in Afghanistan. Unless somebody can make a compelling argument that abandoning the country does not create a security risk close to what we has in 1996-2001 then the elections are moot. Either the risk is real or it isn’t.
S*$t or get off the pot.
Comment by BJTexs — 11/2/2009 @ 1:10 pm
Um, don’t they have spell check. microsoft word will prevent that every time.
Comment by A.W. — 11/2/2009 @ 1:19 pm