Former UN envoy blasts new Hamid Karzai cabinet as 'corrupt' - Galbraith launches withering salvo

[Bozita]

Source: Guardian (UK), The Observer

Former UN envoy blasts new Hamid Karzai cabinet as 'corrupt'
Peter Galbraith launches withering salvo at latest government shake-up in Afghanistan

Peter Beaumont
The Observer, Sunday 20 December 2009
Article history


The former deputy UN envoy to Afghanistan has launched a withering attack on President Hamid Karzai's latest effort to reinvent his government, saying the shake-up would do little to ameliorate the country's worsening crisis.

The bleak assessment by Peter Galbraith – controversially fired by the UN in September after drawing attention to fraud in elections that returned Karzai for a second term – follows the presentation by Karzai of a list of proposed new ministers to parliament.

Galbraith's criticism of the cabinet, half of whose members are new, came at the same time as he warned that the entire UN mission in Afghanistan, present since the Soviet invasion in 1979 and throughout Taliban rule, was in danger of "failing" through lack of credibility and the "weak and spineless bureaucratic leadership" of its secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon.

Galbraith's caustic comments mark the latest salvo in a series of increasingly bitter exchanges between the US diplomat and his former UN employers over the lack of legitimacy of the Karzai government, which Galbraith claims the UN has chosen to cover up.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/20/un-envoy-galbraith-blasts-karzai

[MisterP]

1. is he gonna denounce the UN as "outside intervention" in Afghanistan,

or as "imperialist judging" of his gov.?

this whole ME imperial project is full of arch-hypocrites, like the Pentagon and corpo news calling the insurgents "anti-Iraq forces" or the generals proclaiming that "foreign fighters" must leave so that the US Army can protect Iraqis...

[KoKo]

4. Good Point!

[bertman]

2. Glad to hear that somebody is blowing the whistle on these corrupt assholes. Not that it

will change anything, but it is refreshing. President Obama must be fit to be tied with Galbraith's "insubordination".

Rec.

[KoKo]

3. I thought there was something "fishy" about Galbraith being charged with corruption...glad he's

trying to strike back. Interesting. Thanks for posting.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. YESSSS! Get US out of UN!

Uh, wait, let me rephrase that ...

--d!

[JohnyCanuck]

6. Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan would seem to concur.

He recently gave a speech in which he pointed out that Karzai only "won" the recent election with ballot stuffing, vote rigging etc. and Karzai and his family and and supporters are heavily involved in the illegal drug trade.

Check at around the 6:00min mark of the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MQoG5wfx5g&feature=related

[Downwinder]

7. When is Diem going to be replaced? Oh, wait, wrong war.

After a while they all look the same.

[DeSwiss]

8. Deja vu....

...all over again.

- K&R

[saigon68]

9. Well Diem GOT HIS

He had his own version of a Rose Petal parade

Thanks to the Kennedy Bros and the CIA

[Heywood J]

10. More opium growers?

Or just opium dealers, refiners, distributors, etc?

[Vidar]

11. K&R.