It's No Contest

Hamid Karzai has been declared the winner in Afghanistan after his opponent Abdullah Abdullah dropped out over the weekend ahead of Saturday's runoff election. The meat of the issue:

Observers say Karzai's real test will be whether he can form a government that is seen as legitimate in the eyes of the Afghan people and the international community.

The answer to that is going to be "no way in hell" on the first part and "only in the eyes of the U.S." on the second.

If Afghans do not believe that the Karzai government is legitimate, then we have no path to "victory" in Afghanistan. All we'll end up doing is having American troops die to protect Karzai's regime. We've already spent a good eight years doing that and it has only gotten worse.

Once again, it's time to figure out how to withdraw.