more of the same?

(pic barack obama with 'warlords' in afghanistan)
so i see obama has begun to announce his foreign policy objectives and has been in discussions with general patraeus with regard to shifting focus from iraq to afghanistan (although he still intends to leave at least 30,000 troops in iraq). the obama administration is trying to sell the idea of a 'dream ticket' government in afghanistan to replace the karzai clique. let's have a look at one of the wonderful characters destined to replace karzai and who is being placed in line to rule the afghan people and assist in the furtherance of the United States' shift in policy towards tackling militants in afghanistan and pakistan (a shift which already has the hindu chauvanists in india screaming that they always knew pakistan was the problem).

Gul Agha Sherzai

"A veteran of the wars against the Soviets, Mr Sherzai (whose name means "son of a lion") is a former governor of Kandahar criticised for human rights abuses. He escaped assassination in 2006."

this man is responsible for bloody crimes that makes ridiculous the claim from the obama gang that he could be part of any 'dream ticket'. from 1992 to 94 he was governer of kandahar and was regarded as particularly vicious even by afghan warlord standards. he was known to have been heavily involved in drug dealing, murder, bribery and corruption. in 2001 with the assistance of U.S military planes he retook kandahar from the taliban as part of the U.S. war.

he was appointed governer of nangarhar province in 2004 and again recieved criticism for his warlord like behaviour and his known involvment with the drugs trade.

these are obama's allies in the war on terror? the people of afghanistan have suffered enough, decades of war, against the british empire, the soviet empire, and now, the U.S. empire. 1445 afghan civilians were killed in 2008 alone.this is the 'noble' war that our rulers like to contrast to the occupation of iraq. every year has seen similar death rates for civilians since the 23,000 deaths in the initial invasion in 2001-2003.

they have a saying amongst the poor in afghanistan, 'afghanistan zulumistan' which translates as- 'afghanistan land of tyrants'. it seems that obama is determined to inflict more tyrants on the people of that region, to continue the policy of spreading the 'war on terror' into pakistan and to fuel ,by these actions, recruitment to groups like the taliban.

his 'dream' ticket for the afghan people is just another extension of their long long nightmare.