Thanks to fraud, no Afghan runoff election needed.

[Lemon law]

Some 19 days after the Afghan election, most of the votes are in and Karzai now has 54.1 %
of the vote, enough to easily avoid a runoff election.

Since its somewhat obvious that massive fraud occurred, we have to wonder what this election meant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09...n.html?ref=global-home

Maybe its stated purpose was to legitimize the Afghan government, and now it can only cover it with what the Afghan government has a oversupply of, which is corruption.

Already the Karzai government is hailing his re-election while the UN panel charged with certifying the election stalls for time by doing some recounts.

Gotta hand it to those Afghans, they were quick learners on making the gift of democracy work.

 

[SAWYER]

I need to understand why American is propping up these crooked government

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Some 19 days after the Afghan election, most of the votes are in and Karzai now has 54.1 %
of the vote, enough to easily avoid a runoff election.

Since its somewhat obvious that massive fraud occurred, we have to wonder what this election meant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09...n.html?ref=global-home

Maybe its stated purpose was to legitimize the Afghan government, and now it can only cover it with what the Afghan government has a oversupply of, which is corruption.

Already the Karzai government is hailing his re-election while the UN panel charged with certifying the election stalls for time by doing some recounts.

Gotta hand it to those Afghans, they were quick learners on making the gift of democracy work.

We don't have to wonder sheit, Karzai is our guy and he'll stay in office for as long as we want him to.

You'd think that his lawmaking and support of both the Taliban and war lords would make us not touch him but no, we are not only supporting him, we are supplying him too.

Yay for us? What a fucking waste of time.

 

[0marTheZealot]

Elections in Afghanistan are about as credible as elections in Vichy France.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
Elections in Afghanistan are about as credible as elections in Vichy France.

As i know nothing about Vichy France i'd go with Florida, USA.

 

[Pens1566]

Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
Elections in Afghanistan are about as credible as elections in Vichy France.

As i know nothing about Vichy France i'd go with Florida, USA.

/grabs beer and popcorn to watch fireworks

 

[Lemon law]

But But But, its democracy I tell you, Karzai is so popular that in some districts everyone voted for him at least 10 times.

And if Afghan poppy plants could vote, the margin of victory would be even larger.

But scratch that, poppy plants probably did vote.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
But But But, its democracy I tell you, Karzai is so popular that in some districts everyone voted for him at least 10 times.

And if Afghan poppy plants could vote, the margin of victory would be even larger.

But scratch that, poppy plants probably did vote.

No shit, get the men out of there and leave it to become the shithole it was before, it's an unwinnable war if we're not prepared to do what it takes to win it. So fucking stupid too because it was winnable with very little effort but oh the fuck no, every specop unit was pulled out and the rest were sitting there jerking off in tents.

Not even a fucking effort made in the first place.

I really really hate to say this too, i really do because it means that every effort has been for absolutely nothing more than to destroy the opposition of the Taliban and when we leave they can reign freely.

We fucked this up big time, there is nothing left to do than to bring those in danger out and into our nations and let the Taliban take control of the nation, i hope you're ready for your part of 8 million, we already got ours.

 

[chucky2]

JoS,

Do you think that a surge (albeit one much larger) in Afghanistan, coupled shortly thereafter with a large aid package to be employed by Afghanistan's (so as to employ them) and assisted where necessary by Western resources, would curtail the Taliban into making more headway there?

Of course this surge would bring with it the proper support, i.e. special forces types, air support, various reconissance support, etc.

Chuck

P.S. I hate to use the word surge, as that denotes those forces would be leaving, which is not what I'm saying...I guess I'm saying these forces stay until the job is done, or we call it quits.

 

[LunarRay]

Based on reading the posts of some whose opinion I highly regard it occurs to me that the only reasonable way to sort this Afghanistan issue out is to increase the economic viability of the nation. Exploit all of the various minerals there. Get the 'Willing' to invest heavily to provide employment to most of them and make being a good guy more beneficial than being a bad one. From my youth comes a diddy "Money talks while BS walks". The Taliban can't offer much more to the citizen than their insane Islamic view. Democracy provides Manna from Britain, The US, Europe and well.. even China.
I think Military could be best used to be a force while the Afghani becomes capable. (Another Iraq but what else can we do)

 

[Moonbeam]

I would drop the, what I consider, ridiculous effort to look like we don't want to rule Afghanistan and take it over completely, institute law and order our way and kill everybody who resists.

I would enslave the people there and make them build a totally different system with courts and schools and hospitals and I would send all the young people over here to be educated at our expense, and when the police force, the judiciary and the civil society were up and functioning I would declare a change of heart, I would declare it's too dam hot there and go home, with a good luck and fuck you.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: LunarRay
but what else can we do

Leave. Completely. And worry about our own problems.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: LunarRay
but what else can we do

Leave. Completely. And worry about our own problems.

Of course that assumes that the country we leave behind wouldn't quickly become one of 'our own problems'.

 

[CrackRabbit]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: LunarRay
but what else can we do

Leave. Completely. And worry about our own problems.

That's the whole reason we are there to begin with.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: LunarRay
but what else can we do

Leave. Completely. And worry about our own problems.

Of course that assumes that the country we leave behind wouldn't quickly become one of 'our own problems'.

Yeah, that's true. I can foresee Afghanistan invading the US.

:roll:

Of course, someone is going to respond with "9/11!," and disregard the facts that those who attacked us were already living inside the US, and that we had all the information necessary to prevent that attack.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: CrackRabbit

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: LunarRay
but what else can we do

Leave. Completely. And worry about our own problems.

That's the whole reason we are there to begin with.

The reason we are there is because we failed to take that advice decades ago.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: CrackRabbit

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: LunarRay
but what else can we do

Leave. Completely. And worry about our own problems.

That's the whole reason we are there to begin with.

The reason we are there is because we failed to take that advice decades ago.

If you are talking about the US aid to groups in Afghanistan resisting the Soviet invasion, I would be interested to hear how you believe the development of the Afghan state would have differed sans US intervention and how that would have prevented the rise of the Taliban and/or their acceptance of Al-Qaeda.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: CrackRabbit

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: LunarRay
but what else can we do

Leave. Completely. And worry about our own problems.

That's the whole reason we are there to begin with.

The reason we are there is because we failed to take that advice decades ago.

Yup, and there's bamacre trying to get chaos back in Pandora's box like a dreamer who won't enter real life.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
If you are talking about the US aid to groups in Afghanistan resisting the Soviet invasion, I would be interested to hear how you believe the development of the Afghan state would have differed sans US intervention and how that would have prevented the rise of the Taliban and/or their acceptance of Al-Qaeda.

Please, we've been meddling in ME affairs for several decades.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Yup, and there's bamacre trying to get chaos back in Pandora's box like a dreamer who won't enter real life.

Obviously the answer is to just do more of what got us into trouble in the first place. Killing innocent people, overthrowing governments. We just haven't done enough of it, right?

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: eskimospy
If you are talking about the US aid to groups in Afghanistan resisting the Soviet invasion, I would be interested to hear how you believe the development of the Afghan state would have differed sans US intervention and how that would have prevented the rise of the Taliban and/or their acceptance of Al-Qaeda.

Please, we've been meddling in ME affairs for several decades.

Well Afghanistan sort of qualifies as the ME, depending on who you ask. If you aren't referring to Afghanistan, what are you referring to? If you are referring to Afghanistan, then my question is fair.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Yup, and there's bamacre trying to get chaos back in Pandora's box like a dreamer who won't enter real life.

Obviously the answer is to just do more of what got us into trouble in the first place. Killing innocent people, overthrowing governments. We just haven't done enough of it, right?

We left Afghanistan to their own devices for years, and look where that got us. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

One possible consideration that hasn't been mentioned in this thread is that the Taliban were the ones doing the ballot box stuffing in order to throw doubt and suspicion on the democratic process and make Karzai look bad at the same time. I'm not claiming it did happen but I wouldn't put it beyond the realm of possibility. I consider that because something doesn't smell right in all this. Karzai didn't need to stuff the ballot boxes. He was still way out in front of the competition and still would have won easily in a runoff. Additionally, if Karzai was stuffing ballots, why go so far overboard? He's not a stupid politician.

There's a stench in this story.

 

[JSt0rm]

if we slaughter all of the children then they will all grow old and die out...

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: CrackRabbit

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: LunarRay
but what else can we do

Leave. Completely. And worry about our own problems.

That's the whole reason we are there to begin with.

The reason we are there is because we failed to take that advice decades ago.

If you are talking about the US aid to groups in Afghanistan resisting the Soviet invasion, I would be interested to hear how you believe the development of the Afghan state would have differed sans US intervention and how that would have prevented the rise of the Taliban and/or their acceptance of Al-Qaeda.

Are you kidding? Without US intervention, Afghan may still being ruled by the Soviet, and the Mujahideen, and this guy you might have heard, Obama Bin Ladin, might have been squashed by the Soviet. This whole warlord political structure was created by the military aid from foreign countries, led by the US, to give power to the locals insurgents to fight the Soviet. Lots of the Tabliban fighters were from the Mujahideen and the relationship between Al-Qaeda and Taliban came from Mujahideen.

Without the US aid, Afghan could have been Soviet's problem until today and not the US's problem.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
We left Afghanistan to their own devices for years, and look where that got us. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Yeah, and while leaving Afghanistan alone, we were everywhere else. It's not like we were attacked by 19 Afghani's, and we certainly weren't attacked for intervening in Afghani affairs.

The only reason we went to Afghanistan was to get OBL and Al-zawahiri, who aren't even there anymore, nor seem to be targets anymore.