Carry On Up The Karzai

Corrupt Karzai has 'won' joke Afghan 'elections'. What a carry on. Brave souls have paid a high price to prop up a crooked government, sent to die in Afghan killing fields. What a waste of life.

Bold as brass, deluded Brown had the bare-faced cheek to "congratulate" corrupt Karzai on his re-election "victory". The public must be scratching their heads in disbelief.

The Downing Street spin machine talked up the discredited sham of Afghan 'elections' to dupe voters in an unwinnable war. Embedded reporters were dispatched to prop up the mess. Today it all fell apart.

The first round of the 'vote' was marred by the sickening spectacle of mass electoral fraud. Now election chiefs in the president's pocket have ruled there is no need for a run off, after the other guy pulled out because it wasn't "fair and free."

That leaves Karzai on his lonesome, with the might of the US and UK administrations for comfort and a 'statesman' accolade from Obama's poodle Brown.

But where does that leave Brown's October 20 statement during talk of a second ballot: "It is vital that the new Afghan government has legitimacy in the eyes of its people."

Moves to bring western style democracy to Afghanistan was doomed from start to finish. Outside the tight enclave of central Kabul, the country runs on tribal loyalties, not a US-backed centralised outfit.

The Karzai "victory" however does let a few off the hook, not least dithering Brown and Obama, still pondering over a new troop surge, while the echoes of a new Vietnam ring louder on Capitol Hill.

With unopposed and unelected Karzai top dog, the 'do nothing' option becomes that much more appealing. Both the US and UK could not have planned it better if they tried. It will be all over by Christmas. Fat chance.

'Do nothing' still means the senseless killing of civilians devastated by drone attacks. 'Do nothing' still means troops sent to their deaths to prop up a corrupt regime. 'Do nothing' still means fighting a war which few real people have the stomach for or believe there is a cat in hell's chance of winning.

A war which the Orange Party suspects is being fought here between a weakened, sceptical foreign office on the one hand and an MoD and the powerful ever-growing empire of the department for international development (DFID) on the other.

Once again our troops and voters are left out in the cold and out of the loop.

Pulling out now before it's too late has long been the Orange Party's stand on this hopeless war. Use some cash saved to beef up homeland security.

Couple that with Ashdown's idea of decentralised federalist Afghanistan, based on those deeply entrenched tribal loyalties and a solution to long term stability may just be possible.

But then isn't that why corrupt Karzai blocked the former LibDem leader's move as UN envoy in the first place.

Karzai was declared the "elected president of Afghanistan" by poll officials, reports the BBC, after they scrapped the planned second round of the vote a day after Karzai's sole challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, pulled out of the race.

But the whole point of holding a deciding vote was to try to restore some legitimacy to the mess of an election after the discredited first round. The Karzai carry on throws up once again the legitimacy of his "presidency" and confirms his "government" is nothing more than a corrupt puppet regime.

Meanwhile the public has to suffer daily reports of deaths by numbers, shameful embedded reports from the "front line" and a discredited government relentlessly exposed for penny pinching with every coroners' inquest and official inquiry.

Mid picture: Private Eye cover