Analysis: Canceled runoff leaves U.S. no worse off – but no better

[unhappycamper]

Analysis: Canceled runoff leaves U.S. no worse off – but no better
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, November 3, 2009

WASHINGTON — The cancellation of Afghanistan’s runoff election likely won’t make things worse for President Barack Obama as he searches for a path ahead in that country, experts said Monday. But that’s not really good news.

“This is just more evidence of how disastrous things have been there,” said Caroline Wadhams, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with close ties to the Obama administration. “Whether or not this election took place, the Obama administration was going to be in an impossible state.”

On Sunday, Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah withdrew from the Nov. 7 runoff election, effectively handing a victory to president Hamid Karzai. Abdullah questioned whether the second election would be fair, after no substantial procedure changes were made following the fraud-ridden summer elections.

In a statement Monday, U.S. Embassy officials congratulated Karzai on “his victory in this historic election.” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., was more blunt in his assessment, calling the election “deeply flawed and filled with uncertainty” but adding that “we now have an outcome and can begin to move forward.”

Abdullah still may join forces with Karzai in a coalition government — U.S. officials have been privately pushing for such an arrangement — but outside analysts say regardless of the result, the tainted elections leave the Afghan government as a weak, questionable partner for international counterterrorism efforts.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=65819



unhappycamper comment: Come on Ike. The only way forward with success in Afghanistan is out of Afghanistan.

How many April 1975s must we endure?

[customerserviceguy]

1. President Obama's biggest mistake

is continuing to commit troops and dollars to prop up the Bush family's puppet government in Afghanistan.

Withdraw all troops now, and let them fight it out.