Afghanistan

[ZenGum]

I am more concerned about the extremely dodgy election they just had.

Many poeple were too scared of retaliation by the talleban to vote, showing that in many places the rule of law is definitiely not estalished.

Many people who wanted to vote complain that their ballot papers never arrived. Yet those areas have recorded full returns with big turnouts, and almost all voting for Karzai.

There are many serious "irregularities" of this sort that materially affect the result.

Karzai will probably continue to be president, but his percieved legitimacy has evaporated.

This will further undermine the authority of the Afghan government, and worse, the constitution; people will be more inclined to flout central authority, and less inclined to risk their lives serving its armies.

This is very bad. Almost 8 years on, and we are at least as far from a viable exit strategy as we have ever been.

So what are we going to do? Walk away and let the talleban continue thier shennanigans, and probably end up in control, if not of the whole country, then of some "tribal regions" like in Pakistan? Or are we going to stay there and bleed indefinitely, continuing to piss off the locals with the occasional regrettable collateral damage incidents?

Anyone got any better ideas? How many troops would it take to "surge" Afghanistan, and for how long?