Word: afghanization
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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...
...three times more such leaders than there are provinces. The reality is that Karzai's top running mates are the equivalent of warlords, and he [has] done everything possible to buy the election long before the vote will actually occur. As a result, the real question is how many Afghan voters will actually stay bought when they go to the polls." (Read a story about the Taliban threat to disrupt the Afghan election...
Nader Nadery, director of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, is skeptical. "On the surface, people say they will obey the warlords out of fear" in areas where rule of law is lacking, he says. "But when they know that 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...
...made a series of cunning backroom deals to co-opt potential opponents. Many assume that Dostum's 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...
Watch TIME's video, "The Afghan Election: The Man Who Could Upset Karzai...