The Obama Adminstration has fired a top US diplomat at the UN for the heinous crime of insisting that the manifest and widespread fraud in the recent Afghan elections be vigorously investigated.
Peter Galbraith — the deputy UN special envoy for electoral matters — was technically fired by the United Nations, specifically by UN Secretary General Bai ki-Moon. But as the Guardian points out, “the recall of Galbraith would have required the agreement of the Obama administration.”
Galbraith clashed with UN and US officials over his insistence that the fraudulent election of putative Afghan President Hamid Karzai be subjected to “a full and robust investigation,” the Guardian notes. Galbraith had been particularly critical of a decision by the so-called Afghan Independent Election Commission to reverse an earlier decision to throw out multitudes of obviously fraudulent votes. The reversal came after heavy political pressure from Afghanistan’s true masters in Washington.
As the paper notes, the sacking of Galbraith comes hard on the heels of reports that Obama and NATO have decided to keep Karzai in office — even if the vote probe showed that he won less than 50 percent of the vote, which legally would require a run-off with his opponent, Abdullah Abdullah.
In other words, the White House has decided to bite the bullet and keep the corrupt and ineffectual oil man that George W. Bush installed in office over the conquered land — no matter what the Afghan voters might want. And Galbraith’s continued insistence on actually investigating the vote fraud — which mirrors almost exactly the manipulations in Iran over which Obama and his war partners shed so many salt tears scant weeks ago — is now highly inconvenient. And so he is out.
But deep in the Guardian story comes the real money shot:
The exit of Galbraith would appear to further reduce Obama’s scope for manoeuvre in Afghanistan at a time when he is facing calls from his military commander, General Stanley McChrystal, for up to 40,000 more soldiers.
One by one, the White House and Pentagon — whatever their internal disputes, if any — are closing the doors on any option other than a disastrous and literally murderous escalation of some kind on the “Af-Pak” front. We noted here a few days ago the machinations of the militarists to ensure that the civilian government remains firmly on board the war wagon. Today’s action by the White House — its clear acquiescence in the very public decapitation of a U.S. official pushing for the truth about the puppet regime in Kabul — was entirely the free choice of the civilian government, and dovetails exactly with the militarist agenda.
So despite all the recent hand-wringing amongst the Establishmentry about “conflicts” between the military and civilian sides of the government, it looks like the White House and Pentagon are, as usual, singing from the same hymn sheet.
And the song being sung is, as always, that perennial old favorite from days of yore: “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.”