A lot of hype and hypocricy, Mr Holbrooke, Mr Galbraith, and a little bit of hope

The extent and nature of the hypocrisy which plagues American politics can be best exemplified by a story in last wednesday's 'Guardian' under the headline "US diplomat 'forced out' over stance on Afghan election fraud".

Peter Galbraith, who was the most senior American diplomat at the UN mission in Afghanistan, would appear to be one of those Americans who takes things like democracy seriously and it would appear that, after failing to secure support for an investigation into the fraud that favoured Hamid Karzai, he was forced to resign.

Now while the UN will have done the "dirty work" in actually firing Galbraith his removal would have required the agreement of the Obama administration, and they have obviously agreed despite Obama's own envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, earlier demanding that Karzai "respect the proper election process". Of course, as my earlier posts on Holbrooke suggest, this man exemplifies that type of diplomacy that smiles in public and either turns a blind eye on killing behind close doors or, indeed gets involved in the killing itself. Considering Mr Holbrooke's character, or the lack of such, and with Mr Galbraith's dismissal, one might be forgiven for thinking that his (Holbrooke's) public argument with Karzai back in August was a stage managed attempt to portray a concern for those democratic values which most Americans believe they were brought up to believe in, while in fact the "Weltanschauung" of Holbrooke and his backers in Washington and the implementation the "machiavelliean Realpolitik" that results from that "Weltanschuung" will always have primacy over those values.

Mr Galbraith, might have been unaware of Holbrooke's true character and he might have been unaware of the full extent of the hype and hypocricy that Washington is capable of spouting out. However, I wouldn't want to portray him as being naive, rather he is a wonderful example of what can happen to any American diplomat who actually cares about implementing those values that they were brought up to believe in, while adding that if there should come a day, when people like Mr Galbraith actually prevail, the world will be a better place for all of us.