Not so long ago, Hamid Karzai, the US-installed president of Afghanistan, used to be hailed by Washington and the US media as a noble democrat and statesman.

But as things in Afghanistan went from bad to worse, and Taliban gained strength and popularity, Washington directed its ire at Karzai, who had almost no power of his own and was forced to rely on the US, the Tajik-Uzbek-Communist Northern Alliance, and assorted drug-dealing warlords.

After some of Karzai's henchmen become overzealous in rigging Afghanistan's last already rigged election, Washington exploded in anger and frustration, blaming its wayward puppet for the growing mess in the Hindu Kush.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was sent to Kabul last week like an angry super-nanny to give Hamid Karzai a sound spanking for being such a corrupt bad boy.

Just as Karzai's second inauguration ceremony was getting under way, Mrs. Clinton commanded Karzai reduce rampant corruption in Afghanistan so Washington could justify sending more troops. Karzai had recently suffered similar public humiliation from visiting US Senator, John Kerry.

Mrs. Clinton, we recall, was the former first lady of Arkansas, a state whose high ethics and good governance stands as a model of probity to third world miscreants.

Perhaps she brought election monitors from Chicago, where the dead regularly rise to vote for the Democratic Party machine. From Ohio, where funny voting machines allegedly helped George Bush win reelection, or from those bastions of Athenian democracy, New Jersey and Florida. They have so much to teach wayward Afghans about clean politics.

Like nearly all third world nations, Afghanistan is corrupt. But compared to his western critics and accusers, poor Hamid Karzai is a mere beggar in the Kabul bazaar.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis170.html