Mr. Obama - It's Your Move

This is Afghani "President" Hamid Karzai and he's just another in a long line of illegally appointed politicial leaders . You see , Hamid Karzai was originally the Golden Boy of the U.S. and her interests and for him not to remain would simply not be permitted.
His main opponent withdrew because he had the explicit knowledge that the powers that be would not permit a fair kick at the leadership can . Karazai's cronies want to run the election anyways , with the sole candidate being Karzai to shame Dr.Abdullah's supporters .
This is a farce perpetuated on the Globe but mainly the decent Afghani people . The election comission is one of Hamid's choosing and his minions are not going to bite the hand that feeds.
Initially , Karzai was put into power and kept there with the blessings of the likes of George Bush , Stephen Harper, Tony Blair and others . Naturally , Hamid Karzai has turned on the U.S. like so many before him , and corruption is rampant . But another faction that supported him were warlords and drug peddlers . There is NO way that the Afghani government is going to alienate dangerously influential factions , no matter how sinister they may be . Hamid Karzai has previously used his charm to get whatever he wants and can now do whatever he  with relative impunity. Outsiders figure that Karzai 's legion is better than the Taliban , and probably are , but the blessed undemocratic new regime has the potential to bite the West in the ass. And if you think I am being alarmist , let's review a few cases from recent memory :

 Many major American and British corporations offerred financial support and equipment to Francisco Franco's fascist war . GM , Ford , DuPont , and Standard Oil not only supported Franco , but supllied Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler's horrors along with Alcoa , Dow Chemical , US Steel , and others . American banks were more than happy to hand over BILLIONS to Hitler  while the government looked the other way . Ford , Gm , and Hearst were behind hundreds of pro-Hitler and anti-Semitic publications and broadcasts . IBM was paid huge to develop and lease (so they could make more money) data machines that they KNEW were being used to identify human beings destined to die. They even had specific , separate apps for slave labourers and death-camp railway operations. The SS found their victims because of IBM's final business solution and the financial contributions of corporations with the blessing of many of the most influential Americans , many who either were or became politically powerful . If Germany hadn't declared the U.S. military to be an enemy in 1942 , the government wouldn't have pushed SOME of these sinister activities underground .

In 1973 , The U.S. government overthrew Chile's democratically-elected Allende because they did not like his socialist leanings . They had previously spent millions keeping Allende from being elected in previous attempts . The junta put brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet into power for almost 25 years . Needless to say , Allende was killed . The American government has overthrown elected governments and/or supported dictatorships all over Central and South America . Few nations south of Mexico haven't been affected . Over 80 years of brutality has occured at the behest of various U.S. governments due to blind paranoia over socialism .

  The majority of reasonably educated folk are at least somewhat aware of Western alliance with Iraq's Ba'ath party and Saddam Hussein , but it goes back further than most people could imagine . In 1958 , a man named General Qasim came into power in Iraq , and got far too friendly with communists . He even dared to give some of them jobs and this did not sit well with CIA honcho Alan Dulles . By 1959 , Saddam Hussein was on the CIA payroll with the task of getting rid of Qasim . While the '59 plot did fail , the Ba'ath Party staged a fairly short lived coup in 1963 that was lengthy enough to see Jews forced to carry yellow ID cards and the wholesale massacres of leftists at the behest of Dulles , who even provided a master "Commie List" . (Khomeini did the same thing in 1979 and guess who gave him the list. ) In 1968 , The CIA got the government they wanted and Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was appointed President and Saddam Hussein his right-hand man . Even the fact that Iraq took back ownership of their oil companies from Western interests went unpunished .All was well until Iran's appointed leader was ousted by The Ayatollah Khomeini .

Iran was an ally until the U.S. decided that they did not like coups to occur without thir express written consent and the US supplied Iraq with enough chemical and biological weapons to wreak serious mayhem on the Iranian civilian population . Reagan Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (sound familiar?) even looked away as Hussein's band of thugs GASSED their multiethnic Kurdish minority . When Saddam became a pain in the butt , Bush (I) staged an uprising without offering support that left Shia and Kurdish people as sitting ducks. And this was all before 1992.

Due to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 , some of the ties between the Saudi government and the American were out on display for public consumption in bite-sized pieces. And everything he says is bullet-point , but true . However , the Al-Saud family has ruled their chunk of the desert for eons and will continue to do so with or without U.S. support , so I'm leaving that be .

It IS , however becoming general knowledge that The Taliban regime of Afghanistan was a creation of the CIA , primarily in part because the modern U.S. honchos have fully ADMITTED it . In the 1980's , the CIA provided equipment , training , and in excess of 5 billion dollars to get rid of the Communist Soviets . Usama Bin Laden was a direct benefactor of the money storm and combined with his vast personal wealth financed horrifying attacks on civilians home and abroad. The CIA provided over 3 billion during the 1994-96 period when the Soviets were long gone in order to assist the Taliban to take control of Afghanistan . The American Intelligence community was more than aware that their creation intended to violate human rights and was a threat to the West , but instead of counting their losses , gave the oppressive regime-in-the-making vast funds to see it through . All of this and more can be found in transcripts of Congressional hearings and other interviews where Hillary Clinton admits that her and her husband helped arm the Taliban woman-hating machine after oil-related interests under the Bush (I) administration had ponied up huge sums dubbed as aid. What has been erroneously dubbed "Al Qaeda " provided the U.S. with troops in the Balkan civil wars and fighters to preotect U.S. interests in Chechnya . Colin Powell gave the Afghani regime $43 million to contruct an oil pipeline just months before their sympathisers levelled half of Manhattan.  Al Qaeda is a propaganda tagline used by governments to refer to terrorists that are no longer playing nice with western interests , and we are ALL to blame.

After the supposed fall of communism in Russia and the Eastern States , everyone was overjoyed . Memories of Gorbachev's visions fresh in mind , everyone lined up to embrace these newly free people . But how truly free is a nation that was subjected to Vladimir Putin of KGB fame? New President Dmitri Medvedev was Putin's chosen one and as Prime Minister Vlado still holds the strings . Lucky Oligarch friends of Putin have become billionaires under a system that punishes opponents of the status quo . People like Roman Abramovich (owner of Chelsea Football Club) who have used their vast wealth to support Putin are rewarded while those like Mikhail Khodorkovsky languish for using their wealth for the crime of helping people . Russia is what is is and speaking out can still cost you your life and your family their liberties . Under the watchful eye of the "yay , they're no longer commies" West , people have as few freedoms as under Stalin . Even horrid , draconian practices such as bride kidnapping have become the norm . Russia will continue to operate as it wishes and there really isn't much that the rest of the world can do to stop the world's truest remaining superpower .

So what does all of this have to do with today? Obama has the opportunity to fix a collossal bomb handed to him from the annals of history . He has the troops there and the CHOICE  to enforce democracy , to get rid of their appointed Taliban leader (yup , that's Karzai) , or to run for the hills. While the American Presidents of old cared so little for the true welfare of other human beings , Barack Obama has the chance to fix some historical wrongs done to the Afghan people by his predeccessors . For those confused , troops in Iraq have no idea what they are really fighting for because it isn't clear , but Afghanistan is far differrent . These are people who WANT freedom and have had it stifled by the new Karzai-blessed militias and warlords . Keep in mind that the Karzai family fought as part of the mujahedeen and was trained along with his cohorts by the CIA. Hamid Karzai is another CIA mistake that will come back to kick democracy in the teeth unless something is done about him sooner rather than later .

Mr. Obama has been handed another Hussein and now the ball is in his court.