Courting warlords and rapists

Afghan president Hamid Karzai speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Two stories out of Afghanistan this week probably bode well for Hamid Karzai's re-election bid -- but they also highlight why Karzai is so unpopular in the West, and raise questions about what kind of government the U.S. is protecting in Afghanistan.

The first, which Evan documented this afternoon, is Afghanistan's new "rape law," which allows Shi'a men to starve their wives if they "do not meet his sexual needs." Karzai promised to review the law, but broke that promise to avoid angering Shi'a clerics.

And now there are reports that Karzai picked up a last-minute endorsement from one of the most brutal figures in modern Afghanistan.

After months spent living in Turkey to avoid arrest after an altercation with a rival commander, Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum, the leader of an Uzbek militia, held a rally on the last day of the campaign in the northern Afghan city of Shebergan to urge his followers to vote for Karzai.

Dostum is best known for killing hundreds (if not thousands) of Taliban prisoners of war shortly after the U.S. invasion in 2001. As many as 1,500 prisoners were packed into sealed metal shipping containers without food or water. Hundreds suffocated; others died when guards opened fire on the containers. They were buried in a mass grave in the desert.

Here's what Robert Fisk wrote about Dostum when the warlord's troops took Mazar-i-Sharif in November of that year:

General Rashid Dostum, our hero now that he has recaptured Mazar-i-Sharif, is in the habit of punishing his soldiers by tying them to tank tracks and then driving the tanks around his barracks' square to turn them into mincemeat. You wouldn't have thought this, would you, when you heard the jubilant reports of General Dostum's victory on Monday night?

Despite his brutality, Dostum's endorsement is a big deal for Karzai. Dostum won 10 percent of the vote in the last presidential election, in 2004, and he commands a sizable following in Afghanistan's Uzbek population. The Washington Post estimates that Dostum could deliver 400,000 to 600,000 votes for Karzai.

That begs the question: What does he get in return?

Sayed Noorullah Sadat, a leader of Dostum's political party, said that Karzai has not offered Dostum a specific job in a future government but that it is possible Dostum could serve as a governor or cabinet minister.

Karzai hasn't confirmed or denied those reports. But let's be clear: Dostum's support doesn't come free. If Karzai wins, he will expect to be repaid.

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