Yesterday we learned that the upcoming presidential runoff election in Afghanistan was canceled. Hamid Karzai's opponent dropped out of the race because he didn't think it would be transparent or valid, given the alleged fraud involved in the original election in August.
So Karzai was declared the winner by default.
His corrupt government wins as well.
So why would Obama possibly want us to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan, let alone send even more? Even General McChrystal has admitted that "widespread corruption and abuse of power" are as big a threat to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan as the Taliban insurgency -- and the corruption goes far deeper than just the elections.
In fact, as MSNBC has reported, "There's some evidence that such rampant and blatant government corruption is driving many Afghans into the hands of the Taliban."
This is a no-win situation for our presence there.
Besides, it's not as though we could realistically create a full-fledged, uncorrupt, cheery-happy democracy in Afghanistan even without those complications. Even if we could, it is not our place to do so.
You cannot spread democracy at the point of a gun. And trying to do so can only be construed as imperialism. And haven't we had enough of that sort of thing under the Bush-Cheney administration?
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