President Karzai

Reports are coming in to the effect that President Karzai has ‘issued a decree’ giving himself the power to appoint all the members of the election watchdog which will monitor the integrity of the coming elections in Afghanistan. This does not sound good. It is very bad for the credibility of this government and for the rickety notion of democracy in that country. It is to re-establish the writ of this government in areas where it has lost control with good reason, that our young people are almost daily giving their lives.

We are not happy about this. The President needs to be told. Public opinion, already fed up with the mess of this war, the killing of innocent civilians including women and children by mistake and all the other problems, is close to the end of its tether both here and in the U.S. The President needs to take care or he will find the money shut off, the troops gone home and the prospect of be hanged from a lamppost, like one of his predecessors, very real.