Why die for Karzai?

Why die for Karzai?
Does U.S. support for the Afghan president really make sense?
By Tom Hayden | LA Times

Fifty-nine Americans died in October fighting to protect the corrupt Afghan electoral process that resulted in a second five-year term for Hamid Karzai. Since July and the run-up to the August election, 195 Americans were killed and more than 1,000 were wounded, a higher casualty rate than during the 2007 military "surge" in Iraq. A principal purpose cited by President Obama for sending 17,000 more combat troops to Afghanistan earlier this year was to protect the election, which, according to most observers, Karzai stole.

Has it occurred to anyone in the White House national security circles or the pundit class that these recent American deaths were wasteful and immoral? That sending Americans to die for an unpopular regime of warlords, landlords, drug dealers and CIA assets (Karzai's brother) is impossible to justify? And that rather than admitting the mistake, the president and his advisors are preparing to compound it?

I suspect that part of the U.S. unhappiness with Karzai has nothing to do with his well-known incompetence and corruption. After all, with Afghanistan's economy almost entirely dependent on heroin, how could the government not resemble a mafia state? What worries the Pentagon even more is that Karzai, in response to Afghan public opinion, may want to negotiate with the Taliban before the Pentagon can turn the tide of war. Read more.