"This whole process is a failure"

By Steve Hynd

AFP has some damning words from Haroun Mir, of Afghanistan�s Centre for Research and Policy Studies.

�This whole process is a failure,� ... �I think the accusations of fraud have become so big that even if we go for a run-off I doubt we will be able to rescue any credibility for these elections.�

�It�s just too late, especially in terms of security, as you see we have had another suicide attack in the most secure place in Kabul, outside the Interior Ministry,� he said, referring to Thursday�s bombing which killed 17 people.

I have to wonder why the Obama administration and the COINdinista set behind the current policy in Afghanistan aren't so forthright. COIN wisdom was that an occupier has no chance, zero, zilch, of overcoming an indigenous insurgency without there being a legitimate local government to support. It's in every manual. And then along came the Afghan elections and every single COIN expert and pundit has been looking the other way ever since, ignoring the manuals. If there's one that's come out and said they were no longer expecting COIN to work in Afghanistan to work, I must have missed it.

It's enough to make me wonder too whether the new commander of US training forces for the "Afghan surge" was picked for his training capabilities or his capacity to spin and shill. Lt. Gen William B. Caldwell IV, another of the Petraeus inner circle, has recently been in charge of training at Fort Leavenworth. But before that, he was spokesman for MNF-I during Petreaus tenure there - getting a reputation for bending the truth comparable to his Saddam-era predecessor in glad-news propaganda. Infamously, he shilled for the flawed "I.E.D.'s from Iran" narrative so outrageously that he even demanded anonymity at the disasterous "Baghdad Briefing" when every person in the room knew him as a public figure. His ability to lie through his teeth may well come in handy in his new post.