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Afghan President Karzai promises will step down in 2014
[Dawn] Afghanistan's President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
said Friday that he would stand down at the end of his second term in 2014 and allow a successor to be freely elected.

"The greatest of my achievements eventually, seen by the Afghan people, will be a proper, well-organized, interference-free election in which the Afghan people can elect their next president," he said.

"And certainly I will be a retired president, and very happily a retired president," he vowed, in response to a question about the 2014 vote at a joint White House presser with US President Barack Obama
How's it going, Sunshine?...
Karzai was elected in 2004 and re-elected in 2009, in two votes marred by allegations of widespread electoral fraud and held against the backdrop of an ongoing war between NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
-backed government forces and Taliban guerrillas.

Both the leaders agreed that American forces would hand the lead in the fight against the Taliban to Afghan forces in the next few months.

"Starting this spring, our troops will have a different mission -- training, advising, assisting Afghan forces. It will be a historic moment and another step toward full Afghan illusory sovereignty," said President B.O..

He said US forces would "still be in harm's way" in Afghanistan after the handover, at least until 2014, but would take a backseat to Afghan forces in offensive operations and the drawdown would come a little quicker than planned.

"Because of the progress that has been made in terms of Afghan cops, their capacity to take the lead, we are able to meet those goals and accelerate them somewhat," Obama said.

Posted by: Fred 2013-01-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=359872