Afghanistan Just Got Messier: "Obama needs to reverse course and head for the exits"

[Better Believe It]

Afghanistan Just Got Messier
By Matthew Rothschild
November 2, 2009

The mess that is Afghanistan just got messier for Washington.

Abdullah’s withdrawal from the presidential runoff leaves Hamid Karzai in power but without legitimacy.

He was already in the soup. People in Afghanistan recognize that he’s corrupt. And Malalai Joya, the outspoken feminist who was booted from parliament, has been denouncing him for years now for surrounding himself with drug lords and warlords and war criminals. Even his own brother is involved in the drug trade.

In Afghanistan, Joya says, Karzai is seen, correctly, as a Washington stooge. And we’re seen there, correctly, as an occupying power.

We’ve been down this road before.

In Vietnam, the United States propped up one illegitimate leader after another, but that didn’t help the war effort at all. It only further alienated the people of Vietnam.

The United States can’t defeat an insurgency by backing an illegitimate government.

Obama needs to realize all this, reverse course, and head for the exits, before he makes matters even worse.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.progressive.org/wx110209.html

[tekisui]

1. Karzai welcomed the Taliban back in his acceptance speech.

Just days after the US congratulated him on his second term.

[SIMPLYB1980]

2. To bad he's going to send more troops in.

We work with the governments we can just like Iran and Iraq. Both who could be said to not be legit.

[Arctic Dave]

3. I guess it makes all the deaths even more futlie when

you put it in that perspective. Why kill a bunch of people and occupy their country if nothing of real value is going to change.