How We Lost to Abdullah

[BarakzaiAbdali]

What a number of people fail to understand is that Abdullah knew he was a loser when the Pashtuns came out to vote.

The swan song refrain here has always been that Karzai's strategy of strategic balancing of outward powers was going to be the best thing in the long run (once again though no real balancing was going on... instead all of the outsiders continued to play their games unabated).

What folks forgot though is that the kharijaan never sought to limit their influence IN Afghanistan and were always looking for ways to ensure this.

Here is a great article from a few months ago that is prescient regarding the goals of Abdullah, knowing he had lost. He pretty much achieved what he set out to and will likely continue to grab more and more and more with Amrullah Saleh in tow:

https://twitter.com/AmrullahSaleh1

Read his comments as a validator of this NY Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/world/asia/afghans-to-alter-the-government-constitution-following-election.html?_r=0

Though the deal brokered by Mr. Kerry appeared to be a major potential victory for Mr. Abdullah, some in his camp expressed caution on Sunday. They said that if Mr. Ghani ended up winning, he would probably be able to control the majority in any constitutional convention, and might limit the changes made.

“I wouldn’t call this a winning situation for us, not yet,” said an Abdullah campaign official. “We don’t know yet what is going to happen. We only have an idea. But it is better than what we had when last week started.”

This outcome is contrary to what Karzai himself envisioned:

Still, Mr. Karzai has expressed deep opposition to the idea of a parliamentary system, fearing it would tear the country apart. In fact, his rivalry with Mr. Abdullah, who challenged him in the 2009 presidential elections, was centered on the issue, and he is widely believed to have backed Mr. Ghani, a former finance minister and World Bank official, in this year’s runoff.

And yet this was a more ominous quote:

[QUOTE[As one senior member of the Northern Alliance asked Mr. Ghani before the election: “If you win, who will drive you to the palace? You need allies.”[/QUOTE]

Additionally, we find that the script unrolled (unrolling?) exactly to the goals Abdullah had set:

But not everyone got the message. Mohammad Mohaqiq, Mr. Abdullah’s vice-presidential running mate, told the BBC Persian service on Sunday that in the national unity government agreed upon with Mr. Kerry, the loser of the election would become the chief executive in the government. The post would become the prime minister in two years, once the Constitution was amended, the report quoted him as saying. Other Afghan and American officials confirmed those claims, and added some details in interviews.

So basically the outcome has been:
1) A disruption of the current Afghan constitution
2) Usurping the democratic outcome of the election
3) The Kharij that was supposed to play and is supposed to play the role of force balancer is actually gleefully using that roll to balance the intra Afghanistan forces in its own favor even though it has the overwhelming ability to demand all players adhere to the constitution and the outcome. Recall that boasters here were talking about the loya jirga approving the constitution in the initial and that we all had to accept it for that reason... yet Abdullah can somehow usurp it? What hypocrites.

Oh that is right... if he usurps it so that they can keep their Kabul empire intact and keep the money flowing into their bank accounts then its perfectly fine (sarcasm).

Ghani has basically been rendered weak by this outcome.

Abdullah himself has said:

Abdullah is optimistic, saying political reform is needed first and foremost to end "autocracy." He believes a revamped system can devolve powers and close the gap between the people and the government.

http://www.rferl.org/content/afghanistan-political-reform-election-abdullah-ghani-karzai/25466328.html

Now Ghani's only remaining cards may be to navigate in the following way:

But to establish a prime minister position -- one with teeth and which cannot be dissolved by the president -- the constitution would need to be amended. For that to happen, a constitutional loya jirga, a traditional gathering of tribal elders, would need to ratify the changes. From there, parliament would need to sign off.

Here, too, the current presidential system carries significant influence. The president has the ability to handpick attendees of the jirga, potentially shaping the outcome of the gathering and helping determine what powers are conceded to a prime minister. This leaves ample room for future disagreements over the prime minister's role.

Complicating matters is that a loya jirga that has binding legal authority can only convene if there are elected district councils. No district-council elections have been held, making a constitutional loya jirga impossible for now, although there have been suggestions that they could be held in tandem with parliamentary elections slated for next year.

[Al-Afghani]

The president holds too much power in Afghanistan so it's better to limit it.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

The president holds too much power in Afghanistan so it's better to limit it.

Lol, It didn't "hold too much power" when he was seeking it out in the beginning and thought he would win.

[Al-Afghani]

Lol, It didn't "hold too much power" when he was seeking it out in the beginning and thought he would win.

Are you talking about Abdullah? He always wanted a parliamentary system and federalism, but that runs counter to what Pashtuns have in mind for Afghanistan.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Are you talking about Abdullah? He always wanted a parliamentary system and federalism, but that runs counter to what Pashtuns have in mind for Afghanistan.

Zahir Shah's time had a parliamentary system to some degree. Abdullah also never raised these issues when the constitution was being written. His crew had power brokers amongst them and they never made a hue or a cry except when Karzai and other Pashtuns tried to reconcile the south and the militants. Rather what their strong preference was to have guns and ammo to be able to wage a war against Pushtana that did not share their vision of Afghanistan in perpetuity with a Pashtun face on their government that permitted them to get away with it.

They talk reconciliation but instead that moron Saleh when you read his work and tweets is clearly of the opinion that no approach toward reconciliation should be pursued. He is as hardline as the Talibs in his own way and is pushing this toward his own ends and his own people's benefits.

He must be dancing a jig though since he and his basically got about 75% of what they wanted. The impression others were trying to make here was that Hamida Bibi was manipulating the events like a master orchestrator and that he was setting things up to ensure a non Abdullah win or at least to extend his rule.

In reality Abdullah had an overarching goal and has repeatedly pushed to the brink with the adjunctive events in Iraq permitting an emotional (not logical) case to be made that he was more than willing to take his whole dog washer crew over the edge into the abyss if he did not get his way.

If people dare to call Karzai the maestro then they need to get their heads examined since Abdullah played the last few months to his advantage and has extinguished hope.

You keep trying to make it seem as if Ghani and Karzai and these others are all in cahoots with other Pashtuns somehow when in reality Karzai and his affiliation with Mojadedi before and his friendship with Sayyaf more than easily placed him in a group willing to work with the former NA commanders. The symbolism of Dostum on a ticket should more than confirm that.

If anything Ghani, with his Christian Lebanese wife, and his school boyhood non Pashtun friends has been more than egalitarian in his attitudes towards Afghan being defined as all ethnicities within the current borders of Afghanistan and not just applying to Pashtuns.

But the reality is you guys want the whole pie and are willing to make invalid unsubstantiated claims trying to align Ghani with Ahadi and others to make it seem as if Ghani has secret ethnocentric motivations.

Do you think Amina Zia Mossoud and others would so willingly give him support if they saw this was the case?

Additionally, reconciliation regionally and otherwise is the only beneficial outcome to look toward. For nearly a decade and a half these moronic voices like Saleh have cawed and hooted about continuing their atrocities in the south and this has not even made a dent in the manpower or the ferocity of attacks. They tried other strategies like grooming their own militants pointed at Pakistan and even that has backfired and not pushed Pakistan into doing anything serious. Attacks since Pakistan's Zarb e Azb have not reflected the notion that an operation there would diminish Afghan attacks.

If anyone is greedy for more than their share its you Shamali types that have pure ideology and no evidence to push here.

[Al-Afghani]

Zahir Shah's time had a parliamentary system to some degree. Abdullah also never raised these issues when the constitution was being written. His crew had power brokers amongst them and they never made a hue or a cry except when Karzai and other Pashtuns tried to reconcile the south and the militants. Rather what their strong preference was to have guns and ammo to be able to wage a war against Pushtana that did not share their vision of Afghanistan in perpetuity with a Pashtun face on their government that permitted them to get away with it.

They talk reconciliation but instead that moron Saleh when you read his work and tweets is clearly of the opinion that no approach toward reconciliation should be pursued. He is as hardline as the Talibs in his own way and is pushing this toward his own ends and his own people's benefits.

He must be dancing a jig though since he and his basically got about 75% of what they wanted. The impression others were trying to make here was that Hamida Bibi was manipulating the events like a master orchestrator and that he was setting things up to ensure a non Abdullah win or at least to extend his rule.

In reality Abdullah had an overarching goal and has repeatedly pushed to the brink with the adjunctive events in Iraq permitting an emotional (not logical) case to be made that he was more than willing to take his whole dog washer crew over the edge into the abyss if he did not get his way.

If people dare to call Karzai the maestro then they need to get their heads examined since Abdullah played the last few months to his advantage and has extinguished hope.

You keep trying to make it seem as if Ghani and Karzai and these others are all in cahoots with other Pashtuns somehow when in reality Karzai and his affiliation with Mojadedi before and his friendship with Sayyaf more than easily placed him in a group willing to work with the former NA commanders. The symbolism of Dostum on a ticket should more than confirm that.

If anything Ghani, with his Christian Lebanese wife, and his school boyhood non Pashtun friends has been more than egalitarian in his attitudes towards Afghan being defined as all ethnicities within the current borders of Afghanistan and not just applying to Pashtuns.

But the reality is you guys want the whole pie and are willing to make invalid unsubstantiated claims trying to align Ghani with Ahadi and others to make it seem as if Ghani has secret ethnocentric motivations.

Do you think Amina Zia Mossoud and others would so willingly give him support if they saw this was the case?

Additionally, reconciliation regionally and otherwise is the only beneficial outcome to look toward. For nearly a decade and a half these moronic voices like Saleh have cawed and hooted about continuing their atrocities in the south and this has not even made a dent in the manpower or the ferocity of attacks. They tried other strategies like grooming their own militants pointed at Pakistan and even that has backfired and not pushed Pakistan into doing anything serious. Attacks since Pakistan's Zarb e Azb have not reflected the notion that an operation there would diminish Afghan attacks.

If anyone is greedy for more than their share its you Shamali types that have pure ideology and no evidence to push here.

Everyone in Afghanistan dreams of reconciliation and peace. But the stubborn and hateful nature of the Taliban prevents that from becoming reality. Who else would sabotage the high peace council by killing its most senior member with a turban bomb?

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Everyone in Afghanistan dreams of reconciliation and peace. But the stubborn and hateful nature of the Taliban prevents that from becoming reality. Who else would sabotage the high peace council by killing its most senior member with a turban bomb?

Well, perhaps because of the fact that you have a nonstarter argument that begins with the demand that they or any other group that is not affiliated with them accept the presence of a non Muslim Kharij force to further your ends and the ends of a few failed technocrats in Kabul... which goes against every grain and page of Afghan history and against Islamic jurisprudence. Ironically that same peace council leader was all to happy to delay the piece in the 80s when it was Russians involved and when he suddenly got open cash flows from his erstwhile colleagues of that era he decided selling out on autonomy to continue that cash flow, to continue Northern Alliance dominance, and to continue furthering your ends---> Well suddenly handlers out to be treated differently than Russians.

You are starting the process of reconciliation with an idiotic demand in the first place instead of a series of reasonable demands.

Why then, why not spit on the tomb of Akbar or Taurangzai across the border? After all, one could make the argument they the British were also worldly, capable empire builders, etc etc etc. Would it not have been better to just lay down and let Roberts or some other British fool sit on the Kabul throne or be the apparent power behind it?

At the end of the day, your camp is in the absolute moral wrong and you have to generate stupid conspiracy theories to validate your tendencies to sell yourselves to the highest bidder. You also have the tendency to generate useless adjectives to describe your opponent to somehow make yourselves feel as if you are the enlightened folks in the nation. When one dissects the idiotic arguments of Persian Nationalism that most of these fascists actually carry around - its nothing less than absurd.

[gadoonwal]

Abdullah,s team have no respect for afghan constitution.
why millions of people voted then?
This is the nature of criminal warlord.
They want afghanistan to be a lawless land forever.
I hope these warlord will be eleminated by their own people.
People want peace,stability,unity,education,jobs and better health system.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Abdullah,s team have no respect for afghan constitution.
why millions of people voted then?
This is the nature of criminal warlord.
They want afghanistan to be a lawless land forever.
I hope these warlord will be eleminated by their own people.
People want peace,stability,unity,education,jobs and better health system.

Brother, Karzai had him as a minister in his cabinet. Abdullah Abdullah is who he is and is where he is and has the connections to who he has (Kerry and Co) who drove the deal home because a lunatic minority group of Pashtuns decided they knew what was best and that they would ride into history as Afghanistan's saviors and the ones that united Afghanistan.

This is not the same as Ahmad Shah Baba saving Shah Rukh or forgiving a Baloch leader that questioned him... those men led armies from the front and earned their place as leaders.

Dealing with Saleh, Abdullah, and the whole crew is not the same as historical deal making between powerful men to save a nation. Rather, it is cutting deals with greedy, miserable, power hungry men with vendettas who have their own motives.

For the whole last decade everyone from Qanooni to Abdullah to Fahim to Dostum to Saleh to the whole lot of them were threatening and cajoling Karzai.

And really what did we expect? Remember in 2001 who rode into Kabul? Who was given the guns and fought a proxy war and even wanted to ride into kandahar and take it? These same bas-tards.

As I said, Abdullah crafted is game, and no one called him out on it or called out John Kerry on subverting the Afghan constitution.

Why did Hamid Karzai or Ghani not say to Kerry: You approved and wrote this constitution. You armed these thugs. You have the power to go and decimate the Sunnis in Anbar on a false pretext but you do not have the power to neutralize these thugs? Screw you, we are not going to sell out our people to stabilize the thug ridden mess you created... we after all are men and lead men. You created this mess and now take every single ISAF soldier in the south and go arrest that thug Atta Muhammad for challenging the constitution and central government.

At the end of the day, the US played a very very slick game and got 100% of what it wanted too:

1) A weakened presidency with a competitor position so that it can never again face one particular critique
2) Folks who are immensely happy with the status quo and who will give up anything they ask are going to be loaded into the government.

[torkham]

Yet another disappointment ....... the insidious ermenegildo zegna attired greasy sleazy sagwan has prevailed.

[torkham]

I liked DZJ's misl "wocho sara lamda sawazedal"

wocho -abdulla
lamda -ghani

demise will be mutually inclusive.

[abassinafghan]

frog-eye -( rocketing kabul for iranian russian and punjabis ) -abdullah showed the whole world his true face . he dont even have the manners to do his dirty games behind the scene .

he lost and could not accept it .

he proofed that he has got enough power (man and weapon ) to not accept the voting results .

screw democracy . the farce in the farce .

this monkey dont understand the concept of democracy . even not american style democracy (one time republicans one time democrats ,changing faces same system )

[Khostai]

This whole process just showed how weack and fragmented Pashtuns are. They could not even oust a tajiki dog even when Ghani clearly won. This is just a big shame.

[Khostai]

And this is all thanks to taliban who can't think forward but only in short terms.

[Diaphanous]

Afghanistan will never have a proper government. If these people really wanted what was best for the country, they wouldn't have called out fraud. They don't care what happens to it's people or the country, as long as they have the power and title of leader. Abdullah has used these months of counting, and recounting and audit to his advantage. First, neither candidate reached 50%. Then when they do the second round and a count, with Ghani getting ahead, Abdullah calls out fraud. When Kerry offers to do an audit by the UN, he says that he won't accept the results unless they pull a deal that will benefit him. Don't tell me that he wants whats best for the country. If he did, he would let the person who really win, the person who was chosen by the people of Afghanistan. No one can argue this point that all this voting s*** has been caused by Abdullah. And please pardon the swearing. But I'm not saying that Ghani is the perfect choice for Afghanistan either. But in my opinion, he is a better choice than Abdullah. What we need is these politicians to start caring about making Afghanistan independent, to be able to unify everybody.

Which brings me to unification. One of the problems with our system is that there is no unification. There are Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras, Pashtuns, Balooch, etc. Everybody has separated themselves. Why can't we just say we are all Afghans, instead of breaking everybody up. This is why America, Europe and the UN can easily break Afghanistan, as a people and as a country.