¶ The assassination of Ahmed Wali Karzai, one of Hamid Karzai’s six brothers, has dealt the Afghan president a body blow at a very inconvenient time, to say the least.  Alissa Rubin writes, “Without his brother, who gave the president the assurance that he could count on the political and economic backing of at least a quarter of the country — the south — Mr. Karzai’s government appears increasingly adrift.” Her report goes on to catalogue the very serious problems — a blizzard of election fraud and impeachment charges fluryying between the president and Parliament, and the corruption-induced failure of the major banks — that make Taliban-style austerity look functional, however undesirable.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2011 at 10:30 am.