Northern Afghan warlord intends to stand against Karzai for president

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (AFP) - A powerful warlord in northern Afghanistan (news - web sites) announced he would stand for president in upcoming October elections, presenting a new challenge to incumbent President Hamid Karzai.


Speaking at a public meeting in Afghanistan's main northern city, military strongman General Rashid Dostam said: "I will be a candidate in the presidential election."


"I will need the help of the people in the new fight, to give me votes," Dostam told a meeting of his supporters at a hotel in Mazar-i-Sharif.


Dostam, a veteran of the anti-Soviet war and fight against the Taliban, is a vice-minister of defence in Kabul's central government and a special advisor to Karzai on northern Afghanistan.

~snip~
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1511&ncid=1511&e=9&u=/afp/20040722/wl_afp/afghanistan_politics_040722184516

1st to install a heated pool in afghanistan after regime change. first to suffocate prisoners in shipping containers...

first in line for a slice of the pie.

Godspeed, General Blowback!

He's a real overachiever, that's for sure...

As soon as I saw the thread title, I thought "Gotta be Dostum!" Sho nuf.

Apart from being a vicious killer, he's at least got a pretty cool salt-n-pepper Russin Mafioso-style Caesar haircut, and sharp leather jackets. The guy could be a local bagman in any Brooklyn neighborhood...the next President of Afghanistan.

Friend (and enemy) to all.
I was wondering when he would pop up again.

n/t

This guy wrote the book on Thugery!

Reading about him in the book Taliban . His brutality is legenday and it is a popular myth that his laugh is so evil that people have died of heart attacks listening to it.

Aside from that, he's remarkably clever. He managed to get payoffs from the Pakistani Government AND the Iranian Government at the same time.

What is interesting is that he already has a very large slice of the pie and now he appears to want the whole thing. He' ll either get the whole pie or start a civil war over it. Either way, he wins.

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq - The decision to hand the top jobs of president and prime minister to Iraqi Arabs has alarmed the country's Kurdish minority, reviving old suspicions across ethnic lines and setting the stage for a divisive political battle over a new constitution.


Kurdish fears over their place in the new Iraq (news - web sites) had already been heightened when the United Nations (news - web sites) refused to endorse an interim Iraqi constitution that guarantees their rights in this mostly Arab nation.


Both slights are perceived by Kurds as part of a long series of double-crosses suffered at the hands of Iraqi Arabs and foreign powers since creation of the modern Iraqi state by colonial Britain after World War I.


They have dampened Kurdish enthusiasm about the future of this country following the downfall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), their tormentor and executioner for 23 years.

~snip~
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=5&u=/ap/20040722/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_kurdish_fears

So, like Karzai, he's highly qualified.

I have my doubts about an honest election under the circumstances. But, if this guy becomes president, one way or another, it would be another ironic chapter in the chimp's "democratization" of the Islamic world.