Word: kabul
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...downtown Kabul campaign headquarters of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah bustles with the expected frenetic activity of an election engine in the final throes of the campaign season. At lunchtime, waiters run up and down the stairs bearing massive trays of steaming pullau - the near national dish of rice cooked with hunks of lamb, carrots and raisins - and towering stacks of flat bread to every room of the four-story building. Nearly 500 campaign workers are ensconced in this former hotel, busily counting down the handful of days before Afghanistan goes to the polls on Aug. 20. Once considered a long shot...
...Give me the power, so that I can return the power to you," he declares at his rallies - a catchphrase that has become another slogan. Yet even his supporters are vague about how, exactly, he plans to fulfill those promises. Saied Hussain Fakhri, 20, a campaign worker at the Kabul office, as well as a candidate in the provincial assembly elections being held the same day, says he chose to work for Abdullah because he felt that the candidate "really supports youth on all angles." Yet when asked how Abdullah planned to address issues of youth unemployment and educational opportunities...
...presidency. What I am saying is that unless the people rule, this country cannot be ruled." More popular still, Abdullah has promised to establish direct elections for governors and district governors rather than continue the current policy of presidential appointment. Both systems can be abused, but analysts in Kabul argue that, in Afghanistan's young democracy, popularly elected governors would more than likely come from dominant ethnic and tribal groups, further alienating and abusing minorities...
...With reporting by Shah Mahmood Barakzai / Kabul...
...cannot be engaged from a position of weakness. Perceptions are exceedingly important in a warlord society with a long-established tradition of local commanders switching sides to back the force deemed most likely to prevail. It was that dynamic that explained the speed of the Taliban's capture of Kabul in a matter of months back in 1996. The same phenomenon saw its regime collapse even more rapidly when the U.S. invaded at the end of 2001. General McChrystal, in a recent interview in New Perspectives Quarterly, explained the offensive in Helmand largely on the basis of the impression...