Current Event #6 - Abdullah Pullout Renders Afghan Runoff Vote Meaningless

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1933787,00.html

Afghanistan held a presidential election about a month ago. Karzai, who had previously been president and was running for re-election, said that he won the election. However, the United Nations, which was monitoring the election, said that there was a lot of fraud involved. The United States which provides most of the aid to Afghanistan, persuaded Karzai to hold a "run-off" election between him and Abdullah Abdullah, who had come in second.

Abdullah has now announced that he is withdrawing from the election. He may boycott the election on the basis that people on the Afghanistan election commission, who had tried to cover up the fraud, had not been replaced. Also, winter is setting in, which would make voting in many parts of Afghanistan very difficult. Abdullah had wanted the election put off until the spring and the election commission reformed.

I think that if Abdullah is correct and if enough people in Afghanistan don't think Karzai is the legitimate president, then it may be harder for our government to support Afghanistan in the battle against the Taliban and Al- Qeada terrorists. If there is not a good government in Afghanistan to support, it would be difficult to understand what we are still doing there. On the other hand, leaving things to the Taliban might be even worse, if they again support Al-Qeada.