Word: afghanistans
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What's the optimal outcome for the U.S. in Thursday's Afghan election? In the last presidential race in 2004, that question would have been a no-brainer. Hamid Karzai was Washington's man, campaigning as the incumbent in Afghanistan's first post-Taliban election, having been installed by international edict after the U.S.-led invasion...
...switch sides and vote for Karzai's opponent Abdullah Abdullah, Babak Khan, a butcher across town, replied: "Anything he says, we will obey. If that means Abdullah, then yes, of course." Not that there's much chance of Dostum switching his allegiance. (See pictures of the run-up to Afghanistan's presidential election...
...ballots are secret, they will vote how they want to choose." Opinion polls show that 80% of Afghans have an independent voting attitude, he says, but laments the fact that "some leaders are stuck in the old ways of doing politics." (Check out a story about the warlords of Afghanistan...
...support for Karzai was likewise brokered, in exchange for amnesty from prosecution on alleged crimes, or a cabinet post. But the general insists he seeks no office. Instead, if asked by the Afghan government, he says he's prepared to launch an anti-Taliban offensive across the north of Afghanistan, parts of which have seen an alarming rise in violence in recent months. "I have my own power to destroy the Taliban," he says. "They either escape or I will kill them." Within three months, he promised, nine provinces would be pacified without help from the Army, police or foreign...
Dostum rejects all accusations of brutality, insisting that those opposed to his homecoming are in league with the Taliban and other enemies of Afghanistan. "I've received 20,000 people at my home over the past two days. Why did they come to meet me?", he asks rhetorically. "Because they are afraid the Taliban are approaching. By having General Dostum in the northern provinces, the people will again feel like they are in the belly of their mothers...