Free Republic

ISLAMABAD - Abdullah Abdullah, who this week withdrew from the presidential election runoff in Afghanistan, thereby handing victory to the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, did so under pressure from the United States, Asia Times Online has learned. In exchange for the pullout of the non-Pashtun Abdullah, Pakistan's military has agreed to actively mediate between Washington and the Taliban over a reconciliation plan that will allow the US to exit from Afghanistan, as it is doing in Iraq, with a semblance of success. A senior Pakistani diplomat involved in backchannel negotiations on Pakistan, Afghanistan and US relations told Asia Times Online on...

A senior U.S. senator on Sunday said the shootings at Fort Hood could have been a terrorist attack, and that he would launch a congressional investigation into whether the U.S. military could have prevented it.Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut who heads the Senate's Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, said initial evidence suggested that the alleged shooter, Army Major Nidal Hasan, was a "self-radicalized, home-grown terrorist" who had turned to Islamic extremism while under personal stress. Mr. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, had opened fire Thursday at a soldier processing center at Fort Hood, Tex., killing 13 and wounding...

New York City bicycle cabbie who mocked the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl and posted a prayer on the Web calling for the murder of Jews is now sending a "Get Well Soon" message to the suspected Fort Hood gunman, the New York Post reported. Yousef al-Khattab, 41, a radical Muslim in the borough of Queens who runs RevolutionMuslim.com, claims on the site that the soldiers massacred at the Texas base deserved to be massacred, and he insists the victims are in "eternal hellfire." As for the suspected gunman — Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan — Al-Khattab hails...

What interpretation of Islam influ enced Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan? As often before, the trail leads to the official sect of Saudi Arabia -- known as Wahhabism to most of us of who denounce it. Confronting the role of radical Islam here is not Islamophobic, but common sense -- and the first response moderate Muslims themselves will have. Hasan, though born in America, refused to have his picture taken with women -- an attitude distinct to fundamentalist radicalism among Muslims. The Prophet Mohammed cautioned his followers that when they go to live in non-Muslim lands they must accept the laws...

Major Hassan's actions Friday clearly had something to do with him being a Muslim and to state otherwise is akin to a willful suspension of disbelief. One day back when I was the Operations Sergeant for an Army Provost Marshal Office in Europe, the Provost Marshal (a Major) called me on the carpet for signing off on an investigation where I determined the charges were founded and agreed the facts indicated the named subject had committed the crime for which he was cited. The Major disagreed yet, by his words, revealed he had been unduly influenced into dropping the charges....

Tough Choices by Ari Bussel Many are worried that, if left on its own, the Jewish state will at one point have a non-Jewish majority. Thus, they claim, by democratic process alone, Israel will become a country of all its citizens, i.e. cease to be a Jewish state. Recognizing what they call “the inevitable,” some call for the creation of two separate states. I call them those of little faith. They surrender in advance, yielding to an idea that will bring only one solution: The Destruction of the Israeli (Jewish) State. Regrettably, many “centrists” in Israel have accepted the supposition...

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was declared "not a terrorist" before the facts were out - even before officials were sure whether the attacker was alive or dead. Failing to honestly name a terrorist attack despite the evidence is as destructive and dishonest as leaping to call an attack terrorism without the facts to support that. Apparently, the claim was based largely on the fact that Maj. Hasan appears to have been a lone gunman. However, terrorism is defined not by the number of people involved, but by the motivations and intentions of the attacker. If reports about him are true,...

NASIRIYAH — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is improving quality of life and the environment here through the renovation of the Nasiriyah Meat Processing Plant. According to USACE Project Engineer Greg Croon, prior to rehabbing, the butchers could only process a few animals each day due to the poor conditions of the plant. “Most processing is taking place at various sites inside the township which is outside of any controlled health and environmental framework,” Croon said. “Local legislation requires animal butchering only inside the facility. However, as the old facility was so neglected and rundown, there was no...

Members of the Iraqi Police hold Iraqi flags during a graduation ceremony at the Furat Police Training Center in Baghdad, Oct. 29. Photo by Sgt. Kenneth Bince, 49th Military Police Brigade. BAGHDAD — A training milestone for the Iraqi Police (IP) was reached when more than 1,600 new IP officers graduated the Furat Iraqi Police Training Center’s Basic Recruit Training Course, Oct. 29. The 100-yard-wide courtyard was filled with multiple company-sized formations of graduating IP. In front of each separate group, one IP proudly displayed the unit's colors. Surrounding this massive formation, dozens of uniformed guards wielded four-foot by six-foot...

FORT HOOD, Texas – Mourners were asked to pray for the man authorities say went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood, and an Army chaplain exhorted his congregation on Sunday to draw together even if the gunman's motives may never be fully known. "Lord, all those around us search for motive, search for meaning, search for something, someone to blame. That is so frustrating," Col. Frank Jackson told a group of about 120 people gathered at the post's chapel. "Today, we pause to hear from you. So Lord, as we pray together, we focus on things we know."

Sen. Joe Lieberman called the Fort Hood massacre an act of "Islamist extremism" - even as top Army brass warned Sunday against guessing at a motive, fearing backlash against Muslim soldiers. "There are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act," Lieberman (I-Conn) told Fox News on Sunday. "If the reports that we're receiving of various statements he made, acts he took are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism." Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential candidate, chairs the Senate Homeland Security committee. Nidal Malik Hasan,...

In God’s Image? By Norma Zager “… Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth ..." Genesis 9:16 A couple I have known most of my life lost their young son to a hit and run driver. Questions need to be answered once again, and no one can legitimately explain to me why God lets these things happen. Of all the questions that plague me about the state...

General George Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, said on Sunday that he was concerned that speculation about the religious beliefs of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of killing 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian and wounding 30 0thers in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, could “cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers.” “I’ve asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that,” General Casey said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union. “It would be a shame — as great a tragedy as this was — it would be a shame...

FBI foils LeT plan to carry out major terror attack in India Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba was planning to use an American national to carry out a major terrorist attack in India, US investigating authorities said on Tuesday. The man, identified as David Coleman Headley, was arrested early this month by FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force at O'Hare International Airport before boarding a flight to Philadelphia, intending to travel on to Pakistan. 49-year-old Headley, along with a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin, have been arrested on charges of plotting a terror attack against the facilities and employees of a Danish...

WASHINGTON — The Army's chief of staff says the Army is taking a hard look at itself to make certain that something like the Fort Hood rampage doesn't happen again.The shootings left 13 dead and 29 wounded. The alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan (nih-DAHL' mah-LEEK' hah-SAHN'), was wounded by civilian police.Gen. George Casey warns against reaching conclusions about motives until investigators have fully explored the attack. Early reports suggest Hasan, a Muslim, was angry about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and worried about his pending deployment to Afghanistan.Casey says focusing on Hasan's Islamic roots could "heighten the backlash"...

I see that Maher Arar, the huckster who lied his way into $10.5 million of our tax dollars, has had less luck with the U.S. legal system than he had with ours. A U.S. appeals court threw out his nuisance claim against the U.S. government. Now, that's not quite fair of me, is it? I mean, it's not fair to Canada's legal system because, had Arar actually gone to trial here, his case would have been thrown out, too. Arar's testimony would have been torn to shreds; he would have wilted under cross-examination. He would have been proved the liar...

Concerns are growing in Israel's government over the possibility of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence within the 1967 borders, a move which could potentially be recognized by the United Nations Security Council. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently asked the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama to veto any such proposal, after reports reached Jerusalem of support for such a declaration from major European Union countries, and apparently also certain U.S. officials. The reports indicated that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration over U.S. recognition of an independent Palestinian state. Such recognition...

We just saw the worst terror attack on America since 9/11. And Obama couldn’t adjust his schedule to support our grieving troops. Instead, we got his subtle defense of the perp: Unwilling to use the word “terror,” let alone the phrase “Islamist terror,” Obama warned us not to “rush to judgment.” Let me kill the harassment myth right now: Political correctness rules in today’s Army. We even protect our enemies these days. Had any soldier harassed Hasan because of his Islamist nuttiness, that soldier would’ve disappeared faster than a Franklin on a Times Square sidewalk. Any snarky remarks directed toward...

The Queen today lead the annual ceremony for Britain's war dead in the first Remembrance Sunday not attended by any veterans of World War I. As Big Ben chimed 11am, the queen joined thousands of troops, veterans and civilians in the traditional two-minute silence. The silence was broken by a single artillery blast and the sound of the Royal Marine buglers playing the 'Last Post'. Each year, thousands of poppies are placed in the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey to remember all those killed by the war. This year the field also has plots dedicated to those killed in...

[..] It is easy to understand why these supporters of Israel and a two state solution would consider the expansion of settlements an obstacle to the two state solution. That's why they supported Obama's demand for a freeze, in part, if not in whole. But what about Israel. Israelis are in favour of building in Jerusalem but less supportive of building in the rest of Judea and Samaria. Those who support continued construction do not support a two state solution save for those who firmly believe that only through such construction can the Arabs be forced to make a deal....

Memo to ABC: There's a Reason He's Not Called Smith By C. Edmund Wright Diane Sawyer - either espousing her editorial fantasy or a quoting a third hand comment from an anonymous "military wife" -- was dreadfully upset that the mass murderer from Fort Hood was not named Smith. One can only imagine how thrilled she'd have been had he been named something like, oh I don't know, Palin. From what I can deduce, had his name been Smith it would be much easier for the Diane Sawyers of the Jurassic media to cover up what they fear really went...

The Jihadis will return. We know this, in the same way that we know about death and taxes. Thanks in large part to the weakening of our defensive efforts under the new administration, there will be further attacks against this country's population, perhaps even worse than those of 9/11.  (This week's attack by Nidal Malik Hasan serves to underline the threat.) When this attack occurs, we will see an end to all the nonsense. Our present drift regarding terror policy is occurring only because Americans have been encouraged to put unpleasant realities at a distance, to live in a dream...

NEW YORK – Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter in yesterday's massacre at Fort Hood, played a homeland security advisory role in President Barack Obama's transition into the White House

U.S. Islamic street preachers declare slaughtered soldiers got just desertsA radical Muslim group was videotaped condoning the massacre at Fort Hood by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan because it was a military target. "America's chickens have come home to roost," shouted a representative of the group. A website run by Revolution Muslim is also honoring Hasan, the man accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas, as an "Officer and a Gentleman," saying his actions should not be denounced...

And so a personnel file already teeming with red flags gets another giant one. If you’re wondering how a British newspaper managed to track down this information when the U.S. military apparently couldn’t, you’re not alone. There’s no question now that we need congressional hearings into how the army missed the warning signs on Hasan, especially given the suspicions as to why they might have looked the other way. Chop chop, Messrs. Boehner and Cantor. Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 7, 2009) — American society may be less religious than it was a few generations ago, but its religious diversity has greatly increased. That change has dramatically impacted the Army, which must now offer religious services not only for Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants but also for a wide variety of different Christian denominations and minority faiths. That’s far different from what Lt. Col. John Bjarnason, Fort Leonard Wood’s family life chaplain, saw when he joined the Army in 1969. “We have a wide range of all kinds of different choices for our trainees to...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 7, 2009) — Shortly before Army personnel nationwide conducted a moment of silence for the 13 soldiers and others killed by an Army psychiatrist Friday afternoon at Fort Hood in Texas, an Army chaplain assigned to family life issues at Fort Leonard Wood explained how the Army tries to help soldiers and families. “Our military is grieving now this great loss at Fort Hood,” said Lt. Col. John Bjarnason. “We feel very sad for the families that have lost a dear one there.” Bjarnason, 64, entered the Army during the Vietnam era, returned to active...

The grieving mother of a heroic Sergeant-Major gunned down by a rogue Afghan policeman has accused Labour of treating British troops like 'peasants'. Heartbroken Elizabeth Chant, whose son Darren was killed last week, is calling on the Government to invest in better accommodation. Warrant Officer Class 1 'Daz' Chant, 40, of 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, was one of five off-duty British soldiers shot dead last Tuesday by a man dressed in an Afghan police uniform who opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle at a police station in southern Afghanistan. Mrs Chant, 59, said: 'Every day now we are hearing...

Tuesday 4pm It may have been the first, small clue that an apparently ordinary week at the world's largest army base was about to become something horrifically different, when neighbours saw Major Nidal Hasan escorting a visitor into his flat. Other residents at the Casa del Norte apartment complex were surprised to see the mild-mannered army officer accompanied by another man in Islamic dress. Alice Thompson, 53, who manages the two storey block of simple dwellings with her husband John, told The Sunday Telegraph: "It was very unusual because he had never had anyone round before. His visitor had long...

Ignorance is not bliss.  We have learned that  members of the mosque attended by Nidal Hasan are telling the media that they "have no pity" on the people murdered and wounded by Hasan, and we are finding out that Hasan was listed as a participant in a Homeland Security Policy Institute's presidential transition task force last year.  Now we are finding out that Hasan worshipped under the same radical Yemini imam as 3 of the 9-11 terrorists.  We cannot afford to ignore what is going on in the Muslim world.   There are those who do not understand what I have meant...

Former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura Bush quietly visited the wounded from the Ft. Hood massacre on Friday. Barack Obama mentioned the attack at the end of some comments he made at a conference and on Saturday, Obama headed out to Camp David for a little R&R. Bush visits Ft. Hood, Obama goes to Camp David. What is wrong with this picture? Even more troubling, is there an Obama, Hassan connection?It has been a bit disconcerting that the President of the United States has seemed so terribly disengaged from a terrorist attack on a military base in...

After meeting with the FBI and the Defense Department about their investigation into the Fort Hood shooting, President Barack Obama used his weekly radio address on Saturday to again offer his condolences to the families and friends of those killed and injured. On Thursday Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan opened fire on soldiers at a medical processing center on the Fort Hood, Texas military base killing 13 and wounding at least 38 others. Hasan was shot four times by security personnel at the base and was still alive as of Saturday. Obama said that while the “crime against our nation” exemplified...

Note: This is satire designed to show the ludicrous nature of the media coverage on the Ft. Hood issue. It is not designed to trivialize a terrible event but to make people understand better what happened and how the event is being dangerously distorted.] By Barry Rubin When John Wilkes Booth opened fire on President Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre in April 1865, the media was puzzled. “True, the actor was outspoken in his Confederate sympathies and viewed himself as a Southerner,” said someone who knew him, “but that was no reason he might want Lincoln to be dead.” The...

As word spread that a gunman had opened fire at Fort Hood leaving a trail of carnage, a chilling realization swept across the U.S. Muslim community: He has an Islamic name. From a professor who just testified in Congress, to a White House adviser appearing before a Jewish group and a former Marine driving home from work, Muslims across the country were shocked, angry and afraid that the attack would erode efforts to erase anti-Islamic stereotypes. Many Islamic leaders said the Fort Hood tragedy that left 13 dead and 30 wounded including the alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, could...

FORT HOOD, Texas -- There was the classroom presentation that justified suicide bombings. Comments to colleagues about a climate of persecution faced by Muslims in the military. Conversations with a mosque leader that became incoherent. As a student, some who knew Nidal Malik Hasan said they saw clear signs the young Army psychiatrist - who authorities say went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and 29 others wounded - had no place in the military. After arriving at Fort Hood, he was conflicted about what to tell fellow Muslim soldiers about the fighting in Iraq...

With her head held high, applauding and with a beaming grin, Christina Schmid did not look like a typical war widow as she watched her husband's coffin parade through the streets of Wootton Bassett this week. The brave wife of Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, who died dismantling a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, even managed a thumbs-up as she watched her husband of two years return home. Yesterday she revealed that after the homecoming parade of 30-year-old Sgt Schmid, known as Oz, she cried so much that she did not have an ounce of make-up left. But she said he had...

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon's Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri will announce a new national unity government to include Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah in the next few days, politicians said on Saturday. Lebanon has been without a functioning government since Hariri led his coalition, backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia, to victory in a June parliamentary election against Hezbollah and its allies. Politicians from both sides said Hariri had now clinched a deal with the opposition on the new government's make-up. A government acceptable to all main parties is seen as key to maintaining stability in a country facing sectarian...

BBC interview by Gavin Lee with a member of the Killeen, Texas mosque outside Ft Hood, the Islamic Community Center of Greater Killeen, where Malik Nidal Hasan was currently attending. In the interview, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nrvhp#p0051bjj mosque member "Duane" not only refuses to condemn Hasan, but justifies their murder because "they were troops who were going to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill Muslims". Duane : "I'm not going to condemn him for what he did. I don't know why he did it. I will not, absolutely not, condemn him for what he had done though. If he had done it for selfish...

An Army major behind the murders of 13 US soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, expressed sympathy for suicide bombers and support for terrorists waging war against US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Police shot and wounded Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist, after he went on a killing spree outside a readiness center for troops preparing to deploy to Iraq. Hasan, a Muslim American, opened fire with handguns on soldiers at the center. Eleven US soldiers were killed and 31 more were wounded before Hasan was shot by members of a SWAT team and detained by police. Initial reports indicated...

Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a "spiritual adviser" to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001. By Philip Sherwell and Alex Spillius Published: 8:17PM GMT 07 Nov 2009 Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas Photo: GETTY Imam Anwar al-Awlaki The radical Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, accused of supporting attacks on British troops Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers...

I don’t claim to be knowledgeable about US Immigration law, but I do know the process, the legal one that is. I met my wife while she was attending a medical convention on Down syndrome in New York. She is from Brasil and was here on a visitor visa. As they say, the rest is history. What I know about the legal immigration process came from personal experience that eventually saw my wife become a naturalized American citizen after nearly nine years of filing forms and jumping through hoops. One form in particular caught my attention. I don’t recall the...

KILLEEN — Sgt. Fahad Kamal attended prayer services at the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen on Friday just as he has frequently since arriving at Fort Hood seven months ago. This day, though, the 26-year-old medic, who served in Afghanistan from January 2007 to April 2008, wore his uniform. This day, the devout Muslim from Houston was seeking to strike a far different image than that of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who is accused of shooting 43 people at Fort Hood on Thursday. Kamal said he had come to the mosque from a gloomy base, where "soldiers aren't really talking...

Survivors of the Fort Hood massacre described today how Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly gunned down unarmed soldiers, and then shot them again as they lay wounded on the floor. Investigators believe more than 100 shots were fired from Hasan's gun in a matter of minutes. He was described as calm and methodical in his attack, pausing only to reload. Soldier Keara Bono survived the onslaught although she was wounded slightly in the back and grazed in the head. Bono told "Good Morning America" today that she initially thought the scene of Hasan standing up, praising Allah and starting to...

They were soldiers preparing to go to war, sometimes for the second or third time. They were also sons, daughters, fathers and a mother-to-be. They were 21-year-old Jason Dean Hunt, who his sister said was proudest behind the wheel of his Bradley Armored Vehicle, from rural Oklahoma; Francheska Velez, 21, who was looking forward to the birth of her first child, from Chicago; and Amy Krueger, 29, a sports and outdoors enthusiast, from tiny Kiel, Wis. These were three of the 13 people -- a dozen soldiers and a civilian Defense Department police officer -- killed Thursday when an Army...

Today, recruiting more Muslims is a top priority for many branches of the military. Under the Army's "09 Lima" program, Muslims willing to enlist and serve in Iraq and Afghanistan as military translators and cultural advisers receive hefty signing bonuses and expedited paths to citizenship. The Army recently established its first full unit of Muslim personnel recruited under the program, the 51st Translator Interpreter Company at California's Fort Irwin. The unit has more than 120 soldiers who are native speakers of Arabic, Farsi, Pashto and Dari. In interviews in recent years, more than a half-dozen Muslim soldiers serving in Iraq...

Sgt. Kimberly Munley, 34, a civilian Department of Defense police officer at the base, is credited with stopping the firing rampage of U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan at the Soldier Readiness Center within a few minutes after he launched his attack. Munley, described by neighbor Brooke Beato, as "very petite, with long blonde hair and a strong personality," was credited by base officials with preventing further carnage by aggressively engaging Hasan as he shot at her. She rounded a corner, took aim at Hasan and brought him down, officials said. "It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this...

Add another conservative activist to the ranks of people blaming the Ft. Hood massacre on Islam. Here’s Gary Bauer, in his end-of-day email sent to supporters, arguing that while some Muslims are all well and good, “there are also ’sleeper cells’ or ’sleeper individuals’ who are jihadist ticking time bombs inside our own ranks.” Whole letter after the jump. Jihad at Fort Hood Every American this morning should be outraged not only about the murderous rampage against U.S. soldiers in Ft. Hood, Texas, by Major Nidal M. Hasan, but also by the sickening effort of Big Media, and even some...

Kirkuk's Provincial Reconstruction Team Public Diplomacy Officer, Stacy Barrios (seated left), speaks with teachers and students during the opening of the new Chemin Primary School in Kirkuk province, Nov. 3. Photo by Staff Sgt. Jason Douglas, 1st Cavalry Division. KIRKUK — Replacing the traditional mud-hut schools here with safe, modern, well-equipped buildings is a high priority for the Iraqi government and U.S. forces. The village of Chemin commemorated the opening of a new primary school, the 28th project completed out of a planned 48, with a ribbon cutting ceremony here, Nov. 3.Attending the ceremony was Deputy Director General of Education,...

A Muslim leader says the Army psychiatrist suspected of going on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood asked him for advice on what he should tell soldiers who had concerns about going to fight Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. Osman Danquah is the co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen. He says he had a bad feeling about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan after the two talked twice in late summer. Danquah says Hasan never mentioned any anger toward the Army or indicated any plans for violence but seemed incoherent during their second conversation. Danquah says he told Hasan that...

In the protracted Washington debate over the war in Afghanistan, the most concise analysis so far has come from America’s top soldier: “If we don’t get a level of legitimacy and governance (there), then all the troops in the world aren’t going to make any difference.”Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was speaking two days after Hamid Karzai was declared the winner, by default, in August elections so massively rigged that a U.N.-backed electoral complaints committee threw out about a million Karzai votes. That forced a run-off from which his challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah...