New York- I appeared on Saudi state television’s KSA 2 Friday to discuss the extension and, I suppose, expansion of the American war in Afghanistan (and to a lesser extent Pakistan) from the initially trumpeted July 2011 withdrawal to sometime…
Tag: Afghan Election
All Hail Karzai! To the Victor Go the Spoils…
Kabul, Afghanistan- Well you all heard what happened yesterday, the great Karzai has been ratified another 5-year mandate to run Afghanistan into the ground even further. To paraphrase former CIA dog of war Milt Beardon, “What are we gonna bomb…
Dr. Abdullah and the Fabled City
Kabul, Afghanistan- Dr. Abdullah announced his withdrawal from the presidential race here yesterday. I have a piece in today’s Asia Times if anyone wants to read a bit more on the announcement. This was rumored and it seemed that…
Afghanistan’s Elections: Now What?
The Independent Election Commission held an arduous total of two (2) voting results announcements before they decided to take a well deserved break? The first event on Tuesday was pretty much a disaster and then yesterday independent candidate Ramazan Bashardost…
Neck and Neck?
Urgent Update: I finally made it into the NY Times….in someone else’s photo…in the far lower left. The Afghan Independent Election Commission had a pathetic press conference today. The figures for the votes for the candidates counted thus far didn’t…
Raiders of the Lost Ballots
Went out to the Independent Election Commission warehouse out on Jalalabad road today to watch the ballots for Kabul Province come in via faded, clattering Pakistani lorries. Being ramadan, work went by at a snail’s pace. A few men and…
Post-Election Blues
I’m suddenly feeling down. The adrenalin rush has worn off and the couple other journos I was socializing with have all left. I imagine today’s Safi flight to Dubai was packed with Westerners fleeing temporarily directionless politics and the discipline…
Ballots, Bombs, Bluster and Bullets
Afghanistan now sits in this awkward interim phase on this first day of Ramadan (Ramazan in Farsi) between the election and the official announcement of the preliminary results in about ten days. Allegations of fraud are being hurled back and…
Select, Elect,….but Protect?
Yesterday’s elections in Kabul went off with a few hitches but at least they went. People, mostly men, turned out in numbers that were substantial considering the threat this society is under. Within Kabul’s city limits, there was only one…
Kabul:Where the Green Zone is the Red Zone
I was relaxing at breakfast this morning until the Sky News anchor quoted a Reuters report off the wire that two rockets had just struck the presidential palace deep inside Kabul’s green zone. Looked like I wasn’t going to relax…
Abdullah Abdullah!
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah had a rally of several thousand supporters in Kabul today, primarily Tajiks from the Panjshir Valley and Shomali Plain. The scene was one of rapt intensity as throngs of people, mostly teenage boys, pressed up against the…
Suicide Attack at NATO’s ISAF Headquarters in Kabul
Kabul awoke to a good size suicide attack this morning at 8:30 a.m. Kabul-time killing several civilians and injuring five NATO ISAF troops. Twelve Afghan security forces were injured as well as six Afghan civilians. ISAF Commander General Stanley A. McChrystal…
Bird’s Eye View of FOB Ghazni
We weren’t told we’d be refueling at an 82nd Airborne Forward Operating Base. Even seeing a base like this without an ISAF accreditation or being “embedded” (a concept I loathe) is highly unusual. The American soldiers who refueled us didn’t…
Unraveling the Hazara-Uzbek Alliance
Campaigning in Daykundi Province
Above Ghazni with Dr. Abdullah
Theories of Relativity
Travel through the world’s developing layers is all relative. As I was leaving Abu Dhabi last night, I said to my friend that the U.A.E. will look like the West in the rearview mirror of his Lexus in comparison to…