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| Afghanistan |
| A Taliban Massacre Jolts Heart Of Kabul |
| 2014-03-22 |
| [STREAM.WSJ] The four men sat down for dinner, ordered juice and then excused themselves to the bathroom. There, they extracted tiny pistols from the soles of their shoes, and, after returning to the restaurant of Kabul's most luxurious hotel, started shooting patrons point-blank. The first target was the Afghan family of Sardar Ahmad, a 40-year-old Afghan journalist with Agence La Belle France-Presse, the government said. The gunnies rubbed out Mr. Ahmad, his wife, his 5-year-old daughter Nilofar and 3-year-old son Omar. His youngest son Abuzar, not even two, is in coma with bullets in his head. Then, the gunnies shot other prominent Afghans and foreign officials who had gathered on Thursday night for a festive dinner at the Serena Hotel here. Soon after, at least nine guests--including a U.S. citizen, two Canadians and a Paraguayan election observer--and the four attackers were dead and several injured. Even by the grim standards of the Afghan war, the Serena bloodbath was shocking. President Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... condemned the killings, saying that such attacks "are carried out for the purposes of the outsiders and unfortunately, the victims are innocent civilians, children and women." The Taliban, which grabbed credit for Thursday's attack, has carried out a series of assaults in recent days aimed at disrupting the presidential elections on April 5 to pick a successor to Mr. Karzai. A successful election--combined with the planned departure of foreign forces--would mark the first democratic transfer of power in Afghanistan's history. That would undercut the Taliban's appeal, rooted in resentment against foreign presence and the widespread corruption of Mr. Karzai's administration. This explains the Taliban's attempts to derail the vote and undermine its legitimacy. The Taliban's tactic is certain to reduce the international role in vote monitoring. The National Democratic Institute, a Washington nonprofit that planned to observe the vote, ordered its personnel out of the country Friday after one of its members was killed in the Thursday attack. As some of the leading candidates voice fears that Mr. Karzai's favorite will win the presidency by fraud, the presence of foreign election observers is vital to legitimize any result. In contrast, their departure as a result of the Serena attack could spark a dispute over the outcome, fracturing the country's political and military establishment to benefit of the Taliban, which hope to retake political power. Mr. Karzai isn't allowed to run for president again under the Afghan constitution. The leading candidates in the race--former Foreign Ministers Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... and Zalmai Rassoul ... former foreign minister and a very close confidant of Hamid Karzai. Before serving as foreign minister Rassoul also spent seven years laboring as a national security adviser to the president. An ethnic Pashtun born in Kabul, Rassoul was the valedictorian of his class at the illustrious Franco-American school in Kabul, Lycee Istiqal. He has an MD from the Paris Medical School in France..... , and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani--have been crisscrossing the country this week, holding campaign rallies despite Taliban threats. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #6 Remember "The Great Game". As force in control you almost never do that. You do however make sure the nearest opposition village violently takes over the village where the trouble makers came from. This is the problem,in a nutshell. Bush tried to build a nation out of warring tribes. It would not work. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2014-03-22 19:19 |
| #5 SAM & P2k, Just think where we would be if GWB had used your RoE starting in Dec. 2001. Somehow I don't think Putin would be in the Crimea at the very least. My largest complaint with GWB was that he didn't have this in him. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2014-03-22 13:31 |
| #4 ..worked for the Mongols. In the same region as a matter of fact. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-03-22 13:21 |
| #3 Find their villages, kill everything, even the livestock. Rinse and repeat as needed. |
| Posted by: Secret Asian Man 2014-03-22 13:16 |
| #2 ? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2014-03-22 12:51 |
| #1 surprised Karzai didn't blame the US. Prolly this week |
| Posted by: Frank G 2014-03-22 11:24 |