<Right now there is a US installed Afghan president. He needs to be protected by US Special Forces. Why?

Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, was chosen by United States representatives as the man most suitable to head a new country allied with the West, but he won over his people on his own, and was elected to office by current representatives (AKA, warlords) of the Afghan people.

Mohammed Zahir Shah, the ousted and former king of Afghanistan, may have had thoughts of tossing his own hat into Kabul’s political ring for the top-dog position, but he had already publicly declined, and more than once. At his arrival in-country, his people greeted him as subjects, though he insisted he was merely coming home to the troubled country as an Afghan citizen, and nothing more. He did not have the health required for the office, in its current state. It is true that the U.S. representatives did not wish for the king’s return to power, and were working to dissuade any attempts he might make at rallying his people to him for campaign purposes, but his refusal to take the nations reins was at his own choice.

As to the security force, dummy, Afghanistan is a war zone. Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, is located within Afghanistan. Abdul Qadir, the elected vice president of Afghanistan, was recently assassinated. Enemy forces are still at large in Afghanistan, and within the capital city of Kabul. The Afghan security forces were not up to the task of protecting the vice president, so the president requested U.S. security. The man got it. Afghan SS is currently being trained to replace the American soldiers detailed to securing President Karzai’s life.

Do you think the Afghans would like that any more than if the French installed a US president and protected him/her with the Foreign Legion? Would you remember that? Not the protection, but that he/she was unpopular and had to be protected?

At the moment, the only people angered with his being voted into office are the al-Quai’da.

President Bush has to be protected as well, as did Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge -- and so forth. If the United States was at war, where the conflict could be found at the steps to the White House, I would think our leader’s security might be considered a mission of some significance toward the stabilization of the nation.

Well, Afghanistan needs to be stabilized as well, and that’s not going to happen if we fail to support and protect the nation’s leader while we are there.

Dan