It has been hard to find news in recent days, as papers and news channels tout the obvious. I refuse to characterize Obama's request for Karzai to shape up as "news". If he wasn't asking Karzai to clean up before, there would be something seriously wrong. Here are a couple of today's "stories":
Pull The Plug On Afghanistan: KT McFarland declares that there is no logic to the war in Afghanistan. We drove Al Qaeda out of the country long ago, we now have no clear mission, Karzai is an unworkable partner, and we should be focusing on the mess in Pakistan. What makes this article interesting is that it is penned by a right-wing hack over at Fox News. Is Fox floating a trial balloon to see if its viewers are ready to abandon the war. No doubt their incentive is to bludgeon Obama, rather than any principle, but I suppose you take your allies where you can find them.
A Reformed Man: Blindsided by the non-election, the Obama administration is frantically generating a laundry list of ways Karzai can be less corrupt. They include forming an anti-corruption commission, which I'm sure will not be a corrupt collection of Karzai-appointees, merit-based appointments to administrative posts (ditto) and giving more authority to local leaders. Wait, what? Brutal local warlords seem to already have all the power they need and deserve. Karzai lording power of them doesn't seem to be the problem. Along those lines, the Obama administration wants to open up communication with the oxymoronic "moderate Taliban." Karzai has insisted on this before. I say go for it, what do we have to lose? These are probably loathsome people who we want nothing to do with, but if they can slow the bloodshed, we'll take it. The administration wants Karzai to promise to make these reforms on national tv, so he cannot renege on them. Because politicians never renege on promises they make on national tv (Hi universal healthcare!).
Afghans Exasperated By Five More Years of Karzai: You thought we were tired of this guy? As Reuters discovers in a thoroughly depressing news dispatch, people just hate this guy and the culture of corruption that has permeated all levels of Afghan culture. Government worker Ahmad Nazeer summed it up best: "Karzai and his team of warlords are not obviously the best choice, but we don't have an option at this time." The people of Afghanistan don't have much of a choice, but we do. Pull the hell out. Afghanistan is currently the 176th most corrupt nation in the world (out of 180). What do we really think we can accomplish there?
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