"Afghan election brings fresh hope" April 25, 2014
.... The fact that the election took place at all is a sign that the Taliban’s grip on power may be waning. Despite its vow to disrupt the election “at any cost,” polling stations closed in just 13 percent of the country. To the extent that the Taliban attracted supporters who were angry about Karzai’s corruption, or who were outraged by the behavior of foreign troops, this year — which will bring a new president and a military drawdown — is a great opportunity to erode the militants’ raison d’être.
Still, whoever becomes the next president of Afghanistan will face an uphill battle to get the country back on track.
Still means the previous paragraph was spinning BS.
He will need tremendous support from the United States. That’s why it is worrisome that the Obama administration is reportedly considering dropping troop levels below 10,000, the minimum number the top military brass say is required to train Afghan security forces and protect US bases.
:-(
War paper worried war might end.
)-:
While it is certainly time for the majority of US forces to come home from Afghanistan, drawing down to a purely symbolic number would deal a psychological blow to our Afghan allies at a time when they need us the most. That would be a terrible way to repay Afghan citizens for their courage in this very promising election.
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The Globe thinks Abdullah is a "promising candidate."
"Early results show runoff likely in Afghan presidential race; Fraud accusations may stall outcome, ballot officials say" by Rod Nordland | New York Times April 14, 2014
KABUL — In the first official report of partial results from the Afghan presidential election, candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani appeared to be leading in a race in which a runoff election was increasingly certain, according to data released by the Independent Election Commission on Sunday.
The commission cautioned that these early results, representing 10 percent of the votes cast April 5 in 26 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, could change as tabulating continues during the coming weeks. The votes will be fully counted by April 24 and if no candidate gets at least 50 percent of the vote, a runoff election would be held no sooner than May 28, officials have said.
The results could be affected, possibly dramatically, by widespread fraud at the polls. The election complaints commission said Sunday it had received so many serious fraud complaints that it might have to extend the time needed to adjudicate them.
I was told it was a great vote with little trouble!
The commission said it had 870 incidents of fraud classified as serious enough to affect the outcome of the election, higher than the 815 such incidents recorded in 2009.
The commission had earlier said that complaints were fewer than in the hotly disputed 2009 election but apparently reversed that view Sunday. However, a spokesman for the commission, Nader Mohseni, said that the commission did not have records from the 2009 election and could not be sure of any comparisons made between the two polls.
With about half a million votes counted, Abdullah was leading with 212,312 votes, about 41.9 percent of the total, followed by Ghani, with 190,561 votes or 37.6 percent.
In other words, the two US tools will runoff.
Zalmai Rassoul, a former foreign minister and loyalist of President Hamid Karzai, had 9.8 percent, and Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf, a warlord and former member of Parliament, had 5.1 percent.
Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani, the head of the election commission, warned that “these results are changeable; it is possible that one candidate is the front-runner in today’s announcement but the next news conference may be another candidate as the front-runner.”
In addition, some votes may be disallowed. “We are investigating fraudulent votes very carefully, and there’s a strong possibility that some of the vote will be disqualified,” Nuristani said.
Even before the results were in, the apparent losing candidates were locked in negotiations with Abdullah in an effort to form coalitions in a runoff.
“These days everybody is talking to everybody,” Abdullah said in an interview Saturday while awaiting the release of the results.
“We have no doubt in our mind that by taking care of some of the problems that occurred last time and preventing them from happening again, there will be even a much, much clearer lead and victory, if it goes to the second round.”
Both Ghani’s and Abdullah’s campaigns had confidently predicted that each would win at least 50 percent of the vote in the first round.
Ghani, a technocrat and a member of Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, seemed to garner widespread support among them. Rassoul, also a Pashtun, fared less well but had strong support among government officials and urban elites.
Abdullah, who is half Pashtun and half Tajik, is more closely identified with the Tajiks, who dominate in the north but are less numerous than the Pashtuns. So a Rassoul-Abdullah runoff alliance, which was among those being discussed, could be potent if the two campaigns can negotiate such an agreement.
After the partial results were announced, Abdullah seemed in no mood to start celebrating.
“It’s the beginning of the counting process,” he said.
Election officials said turnout was expected to have topped 7 million voters and could end up around 7.5 million. Even if a million of those votes were disallowed because of fraud in some areas, it would still be a more impressive showing than the fraud-strewn 2009 election, which returned Karzai to power.
Which was hailed at the time.
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"Runoff still on track in Afghan vote" Associated Press April 21, 2014
KABUL — Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah’s lead slightly increased in partial results for Afghanistan’s presidential election released Sunday, but he and rival Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai still seem to be heading for a runoff next month.
The winner will replace Hamid Karzai, the only president the country has known since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban, and will oversee a tumultuous period as the United States and NATO are expected to withdraw most of their troops from the country by the end of this year. Karzai, whose relations with Washington have deteriorated, was constitutionally barred from running for a third term.
The latest numbers showed Abdullah with 44 percent of the vote tallied. Ahmadzai, a former finance minister and World Bank official, received 33.2 percent in the partial results. Zalmai Rassoul had 10.4 percent.
Both Abdullah and Ahmadzai have promised a fresh start with the West and have vowed to move ahead a security pact with the United States that Karzai has refused to sign. That pact would allow a small force of American soldiers to stay in the country to continue training Afghan army and police to fight the Taliban.
That does not look like a final withdrawal to me?
The results announced by Ahmad Yousuf Nouristani, the chairman of Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission, represent about half of the estimated 7 million ballots cast in the April 5 poll.
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"Reports of fraud mar joy over vote in Afghan district" by Azam Ahmed | New York Times April 23, 2014
ANDAR, Afghanistan — The district of Andar has been caught in one kind of crossfire or another for years: between US forces and insurgent leaders, between warring militant factions, between those hostile to the national government and those courting it.
Over the past year, it has become clearly divided. One side is controlled by the government, which found a foothold here after an anti-Taliban uprising began in 2012; the other is still ruled by the Taliban, which operates openly.
On Election Day, April 5, votes were cast in high numbers throughout Andar. Government officials hailed the news as a triumph for Afghan democracy in a place where only three valid votes were recorded in the entire district in the 2010 parliamentary elections.
To a degree, that judgment was justified. Many residents in this remote corner of Ghazni province said they felt marginalized in the last election and were determined to see their votes count this time, despite the risks.
“People outside of Afghanistan may think that Afghans don’t know how important a vote is,” said Khial Hussaini, a former member of Parliament from Andar. “But this time we proved that we know the importance of democracy.”
But as always in Andar, there is another side.
I promised I wouldn't, so....
A review by The New York Times found that polling centers in more than half of the host villages were either closed or saw little to no activity on Election Day, even though they submitted thousands of votes.
The fraud is tied to poor security. For that reason, using Andar — or any of the dozens of other similarly contested districts — as an indicator of democracy’s chances in Afghanistan is problematic.
Interviews with more than a dozen villagers near polling sites offered a stark contrast to the positive government narrative: Threatening letters from the Taliban were posted on people’s doors; roadside bombs were placed on routes to the voting centers; and, in a few cases, battles raged near the polling sites.
Representatives of observer organizations, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of disrupting the official tabulation process, said evidence of fraud was widespread. Although polls were open across the district, it was unsafe for monitors to reach many places, raising the likelihood of vote manipulation.
Of the roughly 47,000 votes registered districtwide — roughly half the district’s estimated population — one organization figured the number of legitimate votes was closer to 10,000.
Still, some residents said they did not mind living under Taliban rule, especially in recent years. They said that after the uprising, some of the insurgents had started treating people better, aware that there was now an alternative.
I told you so a long time ago, and it's been a lost cause for almost as long.
I hope you enjoyed the corn kernel of truth in this log of a report.
In some cases, villagers say, they have swapped one repressive force for another. They complain of illegal taxes and harassment at the hands of the local police. But in other areas, the uprising has meant that for the first time in years they can send their children to school and live without fear of violence.
Related:
"She taught at one of the handful of girls’ schools the Taliban permitted"
Huh?
And you really think violence is no longer a problem?
Without those changes, it is clear that very few people would have voted anywhere in Andar on April 5.
Yeah, forget about the fraud.
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"US ally takes clear lead in Afghan presidential election" by Rod Nordland and Azam Ahmed | New York Times April 27, 2014
Uh-ho.
KABUL — Abdullah Abdullah, a longtime opponent of President Hamid Karzai and an ardent supporter of the United States, emerged Saturday as the clear front-runner in Afghanistan’s presidential election and could become the first non-Pashtun to lead the country in more than three centuries.
Stinks of a rig job.
In preliminary results released Saturday, Abdullah, an ethnic Tajik from the north, won 45 percent of the vote, not enough to avoid a runoff with the leading Pashtun candidate, Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank economist and Karzai adviser, who won 32 percent.
But Afghan government officials say Abdullah is on the verge of forging alliances with at least two of the Pashtun runners-up to gain their support, and possibly the presidency, in the next round.
Either of the top two candidates would represent a significant break with the years of deteriorating relations the United States has had with Afghanistan under Karzai, and a shift toward greater bilateral cooperation.
Each candidate has said, for instance, that he would sign a security accord allowing US forces to remain in the country past 2014, which Karzai negotiated but refused to sign.
Karzai didn't want that being his legacy after he was gone.
But the apparent advantage for Abdullah, with his long record of advocating closer relations with the United States and a tougher stance against the Taliban, was likely to be encouraging news for the United States and its NATO allies.
The election, the third for president since the NATO-led invasion of 2001, also appears to have been the country’s most democratic yet. The turnout was nearly double that of the last election, the deeply tainted race that Abdullah lost to Karzai in 2009, and early indications suggested that it was far cleaner.
Such numbers, along with the expected Pashtun support, could give Abdullah a powerful mandate.
How quickly the fraud is forgotten, 'eh?
In a recent interview, Abdullah said he would set a different tone with the United States, ending the often acrimonious criticism from the Afghan president over prisoner releases, civilian casualties, and night raids. “This rhetoric has not helped Afghanistan,” he said.
The two Pashtun candidates expected to throw their support to Abdullah are Zalmay Rassoul, believed to have been Karzai’s favorite, and Gul Agha Sherzai, a former warlord favored by the CIA and popular in the Taliban’s southern heartland, Kandahar, according to two senior Afghan government officials.
Is there really anything more to type?
Karzai, who is stepping down after 12 years in power, has been studiously neutral throughout the campaign and has maintained silence on the issue since the April 5 election.
Meanwhile, a commission appointed by Karzai to investigate detention facilities run by US and British forces in southern Afghanistan claimed Saturday to have uncovered secret prisons on two coalition bases, an allegation that could not be immediately confirmed but that was likely to further complicate relations between the Afghan government and its allies.
Oh, no. We here in AmeriKa were told Obummer did away with those.
“We have conducted a thorough investigation and search of Kandahar Airfield and Camp Bastion and found several illegal and unlawful detention facilities run and operated by foreign military forces,” said Abdul Shakur Dadras, the panel’s chairman.
Whether these sites are secret and unlawful remains a question.
Well, secret no more, unlawful? Sure stinks of it.
Dadras offered no evidence to support his assertion, though he promised to release more details after presenting his report to Karzai.
The International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, as the coalition is known, issued a brief statement Saturday saying that it was cooperating with the investigation.
An admission of guilt in not so many words.
Also Saturday, a British helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan, killing five NATO troops in the single deadliest day this year for foreign forces as they prepare to withdraw from the country, officials said.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known. Kandahar provincial police said the aircraft went down in the province’s Takhta Pul district in the southeast, about 31 miles from the Pakistani border.
A Taliban spokesman claimed in a text message to journalists Saturday that the insurgents shot down the helicopter.
Then NSA knows where he is.
That whole Taliban spokesman said in my propaganda pre$$ really stinks, too. Looks like a scripted and staged effort.
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What is awaiting AmeriKa's next puppet upon arrival:
"Afghanistan facing a growing budget shortfall" by Kevin Sieff | Washington Post April 16, 2014
KABUL — When the next president of Afghanistan takes office later this year, he will inherit a growing budget shortfall that could leave tens of thousands of civil servants unpaid and force key public programs to shut down.
Translation: you better do as the U.S. says or no bailout!
After more than a decade of Western aid projects designed to make the Afghan economy self-sustaining, government revenue continues to fall short of projections, leaving the country in dire economic straits just as foreign funding begins to dry up.
All wasted money that ended up in Dubai bank accounts.
The current budget shortfall — roughly 20 percent of overall Afghan expenditures — has worsened as the country navigates a tenuous political transition, sending a shock wave through Afghanistan’s nascent economy.
Afghan officials plan to request additional funds from foreign donors to make up for the shortfall.
Oh yeah?
But as the United States and NATO draw down financial and military assistance this year, those emergency funds are far from guaranteed.
Somehow, someway, they will get them.
‘‘If we do not receive extra funds in the next two months, we will face a problem with the operating budget, which is mostly salaries,’’ said Alhaj Muhammad Aqa, director general of the treasury at the Finance Ministry.
Aqa said the government has roughly $400 million less than the $2.5 billion it was projected to spend this year, leaving officials to weigh potential cuts. That hole is expected to deepen in the coming months as the country prepares for a divisive second-round election and an active fighting season in the war against Taliban insurgents.
Hey, we have austerity here in AmeriKa; maybe it's time for Afghan austerity, too, rather than filling the bank accounts of CIA contacts.
Afghanistan will need more than $7 billion annually for the next decade to sustain a functional government, maintain infrastructure, and fund the Afghan army and police, according to the World Bank.
And gue$$ where it will be coming from, Amurkins?
But there are already signs that foreign donors might not have an appetite for such a commitment. The Obama administration requested $2.1 billion in financial assistance for Afghanistan this year, but Congress approved only half that amount.
While US officials acknowledge the gravity of Afghanistan’s economic problems, they argue that the country should be able to steady the budget without halting government salaries. They also suggest that revenue could increase if key reforms are implemented.
‘‘It is not a matter of providing more donor funding. Certain actions by the government need to be taken which will have quick impact on their ability to generate more revenue,’’ said Ken Yamashita, coordinating director at the US Embassy in Kabul.
Like what, $pecifically?
‘‘There’s definitely that significant economic contraction that’s coming with the transition,’’ Yamashita said. But he said the Afghan government should be able to cut other expenditures so employees continue being paid.
In spite of dozens of Western-funded programs aimed at increasing domestic revenue, the government is still almost entirely dependent on foreign donors to shore up its budget. Taxes and customs tariffs are the only significant sources of revenue, but those collection processes are still riddled with problems. According to a report released Tuesday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, ‘‘corruption impacts all levels of the customs process.’’
In documents obtained by The Washington Post, the Afghan Finance Ministry recorded the performance of several would-be revenue sources developed by the United States and other donor countries at great cost: lumber production, railway fees, copper mining, and oil transit. Cumulatively, those projects have yielded almost nothing, according to the documents.
Were those resources simply stolen?
With the US-led combat mission due to end this year, looming uncertainty has already taken its toll on the Afghan economy. Housing prices have declined. Private investment in mining and agriculture sectors has also been hit.
We are leaving people behind so I guess it is all semantics, but....
When President Hamid Karzai refused to sign a bilateral security agreement with the United States, the economy unraveled further.
That was his punishment for not tying the hands of his successor and going down in Afghan history as a US stooge.
The country’s presidential election, expected to be fiercely divisive and plagued with claims of fraud, has added to existing uncertainty.
There was massive fraud, but my newspaper narrative termed it a success!
With the first round of the election over, the prospect of a second-round runoff between the two front-runners has prompted concern among Afghan economists, who see the political process as another obstacle to economic growth.
What?
Politics drives the economy and creates jobs! Just look at the massive amounts spent on US campaigns and lobbying efforts.
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Where could we possibly send the politicians?
"Afghan officials accuse US, British military of maintaining secret prisons on their bases" by Sayed Salahuddin | Washington Post April 30, 2014
KABUL — President Hamid Karzai’s government is accusing the US and British military of operating secret detention facilities in Afghanistan, a development that could further strain relations between Afghanistan’s leader and Western leaders.
I would have been surprised if they weren't.
After receiving reports about Afghan detainees at coalition bases, Karzai established a fact-finding commission to study the matter.
On Tuesday, it announced that it had found six detention centers that run afoul of an Afghan law requiring all prisoners from the country be held in Afghan-run jails.
Abdul Shokur Dadras, a member of the commission, said two of the jails were overseen by British soldiers at Camp Bastion in Helmand province, while a third jail at that base was under American military control.
At Kandahar Air Field, also in the southern part of the country, three more foreign-run prisons were discovered — one controlled by American soldiers, one by the British, and one managed by a joint coalition force, Dadras said.
‘‘The prisons are in clear contradiction of the president’s order, which says that foreigners can not run prisons, hold Afghans as detainees or investigate them,’’ Dadras said in an interview, adding the facilities must be closed immediately.
In separate statements, Pentagon and coalition officials appeared surprised that Afghan leaders had chosen to make an issue out of the matter.
From Kabul, the US-led military coalition said that ‘‘every facility that is used by coalition forces for detention is well known’’ by the Afghan government and is routinely monitored by the Red Cross.
Are they? Then why were they secret?
‘‘We are waiting to receive the commission’s official report to better understand the basis of the allegations and findings,’’ the statement said.
In Washington, a US official familiar with the matter said Dadras appears to be referring to detention facilities that NATO troops use to hold detainees for up to 96 hours after they are picked up on the battlefield by foreign troops.
‘‘These are sites the Afghans know about,’’ said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted by name.
Dadras said the commission discovered one prisoner who had been detained for 31 months.
‘‘It’s a clear violation of Afghan laws and Afghan sovereignty,’’ said Karzai spokesman Aimal Faizi. ‘‘We have been in direct contact on this issue with American and British officials.’’
I'm so sick of lying government and its mouthpieces.
The committee’s findings were first reported Saturday by The New York Times.
On Tuesday, there was still some confusion about how many Afghan prisoners were found by the fact-finding team. Dadras said that detainees were found at all sites except the joint-coalition-operated facility at Kandahar Air Field.
That damn NYT!
But the Associated Press, quoting commission leader General Ghalum Farooq Barakzai, reported six Afghan detainees were discovered at the British-run facility at Kandahar Air Field while 17 were at the British jail at Camp Bastion.
Barakzai told the wire service that the panel found no prisoners in any American-run jails.
They were tipped off and moved them.
The allegations come at a sensitive time in the relationship been Washington and Karzai, who is in the final months of his presidency.
For months, Karzai has refused to sign a security agreement that would allow a residual force of American troops to remain in Afghanistan after the end of this year, when most NATO troops are scheduled to withdraw.
It's what they call a "final" withdrawal.
He has also repeatedly lashed out at the US military over allegations of civilian casualties.
In February, Karzai ordered the release of 65 Taliban prisoners from Bagram prison outside Kabul, ignoring repeated pleas from US military commanders and diplomats to hold off since the prisoners were likely to return to the battlefield.
Yeah, that ticked US off.
