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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2009
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 OPINION 
8

Karzai's Government Too Rotten to Back

Sending more troops won't work if they're protecting a tainted government

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(Newser) – No counterinsurgency campaign can succeed without a good government to work with, and Hamid Karzai's operation is nowhere near good enough, writes Thomas L. Friedman. Karzai's government is thoroughly corrupt and his election victory deeply tainted, Friedman notes in the New York Times. Much of the insurgency is now fueled by anti-Karzai animosity instead of Islamic extremism, Friedman notes, and the US risks being seen as the enforcer of his corrupt government.

To have any chance of success in Afghanistan, Friedman argues, the US must order the Karzai government to clean up to become acceptable to the Afghan people, and threaten to pull out if Karzai balks. "It doesn’t have to be Switzerland, but it does have to be good enough—that is, a government Afghans are willing to live under," Friedman writes. "Without that, more troops will only delay a defeat."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai gestures to journalists after giving a press conference at Presidential Palace in Kabul.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai gestures to journalists after giving a press conference at Presidential Palace in Kabul.   (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)
Workers of the Afghan Election Commission gesture among suspicious ballot boxes during the recounting possess at the main election office in Kabul, Afghanistan last week.
Workers of the Afghan Election Commission gesture among suspicious ballot boxes during the recounting possess at the main election office in Kabul, Afghanistan last week.   (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)
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When you are mounting a counterinsurgency campaign, the local government is the critical bridge between your troops and your goals. If that government is rotten, your whole enterprise is doomed. - Thomas L. Friedman

I am not sure Washington fully understands just how much the Taliban-led insurgency is increasingly an insurrection against the behavior of the Karzai government—not against the religion or civilization of its international partners.
- Thomas L. Friedman

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8 comments
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Rocket448
Oct 14, 09 1:58 AM CDT
Those luckless Afghanis will get the best government money can buy. God help them. Reply
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DJM420
Oct 14, 09 2:43 AM CDT
and well DERRR last time i checked, KARZAI was BUSH's installation. fine choice...they both have oil where their brains go, and they do nothing right except hand out money to friends Reply
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shonangreg
Oct 14, 09 4:16 AM CDT
The US giving Karzai an ultimatum sounds like a good strategy to me, actually. I know it is wild to think of such things happening, but the civilian command of the US military is considering a deep mission change. Something *will* change. This might as well be one of them. Even if the attempt changes nothing in Kabul, it will be seen across the country as President Obama helping the common people. And as a result, the Taliban will no longer be able to stoke anti-Karzai sentiment into anti-American sentiment so easily. The proverbial two-birds with one stone. We could even keep troop levels at what they are now and make progress this way. That's three birds. Reply
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oldgoat
Oct 14, 09 6:09 AM CDT
While I believe in the Afghanistan war I can also see where if the Karzi gov is so corrupt we are in a losing position, no matter how many troops we put in there. Reply
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+1
zik
Oct 14, 09 12:14 PM CDT
We can't have a successful counterinsurgency strategy until Afghanistan has a government that enjoys the support of the majority of the population... Karzai is part of the problem, no matter how much he is our man... Thank god that the NYT sees this, and hopefully we can learn at least one lesson from Vietnam Reply
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