December 7, 2004;"We have now left a hard and dark past behind us"

[dajoki]

Last chance for Afghanistan?
POSTED: 1113 GMT (1913 HKT), September 26, 2006
By Paul Sussman for CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/26/afghanistan.lead/


(CNN) -- "We have now left a hard and dark past behind us," declared Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai in his inauguration address of December 7, 2004. "Today we are opening a new chapter in our history."

It was a sentiment echoed at the time by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, one of some 150 foreign dignitaries gathered in Kabul to witness Karzai's swearing-in.

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Crisis and instability
Touted as a showcase of the success Washington's "War on Terror," Afghanistan has become increasingly unstable and crisis-ridden over the last 12 months, with Karzai's power, never broad-based at the best of times, now effectively limited to the capital Kabul and its immediate surroundings (detractors have long dismissed him as "The Mayor of Kabul.")

Elsewhere in the country, and despite the presence of some 41,000 NATO and U.S. troops, the picture is one of spiraling instability and lawlessness. Especially in the south, in provinces such as Helmand and Kandahar, a resurgent Taliban have been inflicting significant casualties on both coalition troops and on a demoralized, underpaid Afghan army.

Civilian casualties have likewise been mounting at an alarming rate -- a suicide bomb attack in Helmand on Tuesday left nine civilians and nine Afghan soldiers dead.