With President Karzai poised to claim outright victory in Afghanistan’s flawed elections, the Election committee is poised to delay the release of preliminary results and cancel hundreds of thousands of ballots.
Dr Abdullah Abdullah has accused Karzai of widespread fraud, and independent monitors look like they will back Abdullah’s claims. What a waste of lives and effort operation Panthers claw turned out to be in respect of providing security and persuading Afghans to come out and vote, The threat of the Taliban was to much for the majority of voters.
In military terms the operation was a success if you measure success by the amount of enemy they killed, however the numbers of Taliban combined with foreign fighters is still a problem.
I have said before this battle needs a greater focus on wiping out the Taliban, at the moment as they have been for the last 7 /8 years the military is fighting a war and trying to win “Hearts and minds” and this is hampering their effort.
I say lets forget “Hearts and minds” for a sustained all out assault, with other Nato members stepping up to the plate and providing troops, the US is planning a surge with up to another 100,000 troops to be deployed, and at the risk of repeating my self, if Europe can manage 100,000 to maybe this war can be ended.
Totally agree. The Taliban are a vile bunch. Forget hearts and minds? Absolutely. The sole purpose of the military intervention should the be the destruction of the Taliban - a total wipe out.
ReplyDeleteI don't trust President Karzai either - he's already pandering to the medieval traditionalists and fundamentalist by introducing laws more akin to the 5th Century BC. With him in power, it's all going to go down the Karzai