Word: kabul
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...Kabul A Vital, Violent Election A series of shootings and suicide attacks in Kabul during the run-up to Afghanistan's landmark Aug. 20 presidential election killed at least 15 people before the polls even opened. The violence, combined with the Taliban's threat to amputate the ink-marked fingers of anyone caught voting, was part of the militant group's effort to keep Afghans away from the polls, tainting the legitimacy of the election. If a runoff between the top two candidates is necessary, the final outcome may be delayed...
...That's surely a reassuring thought for McChrystal, bunkered down in Kabul. He knows the number of additional troops he may request needs to be as small as possible. That's why he has ordered his subordinates to look into whether some troops that are performing administrative or logistical tasks - perhaps as many as 10,000 - could be replaced with trigger pullers. That would give McChrystal more firepower without boosting troop levels. And the Army is expected to issue contracts before year's end to private firms to guard 50 or more U.S. bases in Afghanistan and the convoys that...
...absurdity of holding an election in an impoverished country with a central government that barely governs and a guerrilla insurgency that has threatened to kill anyone caught voting is illustrative of our current Afghan dilemma. We have been prodding the Afghans to run, from Kabul, a country that has always been governed from the bottom up, valley by valley, tribe by tribe. Karzai has many attributes, but a desire to provide effective governance is off his radar screen. He is good at the traditional form of Afghan politics, creating alliances among tribal and ethnic factions. The money distributed...
...Even if we help the Afghans establish a brilliant government in Kabul, that threat will remain - and it's legitimate to ask whether pouring our resources into Afghan nation-building is the best way to confront al-Qaeda. Unless the new Karzai government quickly changes course, the only reasonable answer is no. The question then becomes, What's Plan B? And is anyone working on that...
...they refrain from claiming victory until results are complete. Yet the longer the process drags on and the barbs fly, analysts say, the greater the space for troublemaking. "It is dangerous for each side to keep supporters [charged up] for the future," says Nasrullah Stanikzai, a politics professor at Kabul University. (Read how a contested election result in Afghanistan may help...