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A NATO summit on Afghanistan just wrapped up in Portugal over the weekend. NATO officials unveiled a transition plan to hand over military control of the war-torn nation to its own army over the next four years. The July 2011 date that was originally cited by President Obama as the planned end of the occupation, has now been transformed into the start date for US and NATO forces to begin a long-drawn out withdrawal. However, before the drawing down of forces begins, the US military’s Lieutenant General David Rodriguez announced that troop numbers would first increase. Rodriguez is also the commander of NATO’s ISAF Joint Command. But the new infusion of troops will likely lead to an increase in the so-called “night raids” by US forces in Afghan villages, which are so unpopular that even the Afghan President Hamid Karzai has denounced them. Undermining the NATO summit was the embarrassing revelation that a man thought to be one of the highest ranking members of the Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, was actually an impostor. The New York Times broke the story saying that Mansour repeatedly fooled Afghan and NATO officials and was apparently paid large amounts of money. Meanwhile, the results of Afghanistan’s September 18th parliamentary elections were released today. The elections were so wrought with fraud that election officials threw out 1.3 millions votes out of 5.6 million, and disqualified at least 24 candidates, President Karzai’s cousin among them. The results reveal that Pashtuns, the largest ethnic minority, have lost control of the Parliament, while Afghanistan’s notorious Northern Alliance warlords led by Abdullah Abdullah are claiming victory. Karzai’s government, unhappy with the results, has threatened to indict two top election officials.

GUEST: Gareth Porter, investigative journalist and historian specializing in US national security policy, writer for the Inter Press Service

Read Gareth Porter’s work online at www.ipsnews.net.