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Upon taking office, Obama immediately announced an escalation of US troops deployed there. Immediately, he encountered questions whether sending more troops would mean enhancing the chances of victory in the war on terror. Many have since suggested that the Afghan war risks becoming Obama's Vietnam. The August 20 presidential election in Afghanistan gave plenty of new ammunition to Obama's detractors. By all accounts, the country is in a morass, perhaps to the extent that it may be unsalvageable. As of yesterday, with more than 60 per cent of the ballots counted, it was all but given that incumbent President Hamid Karzai had won enough of the vote to allow him to avoid a runoff (which one international observer opined "would have made it look more like democracy").

Mr Karzai's main opponent, former foreign minister Dr Abdullah, has pointed out evidence of widespread fraud, irregularities and coercion carried out by state apparatus. He announced he would not accept the result, despite the fact the Independent Election Commission (IEC) had come out with an assessment that, overall, the Afghan election was "free and fair".

If routine and expected election fraud in Thailand - such as vote-buying and ballot-box stuffing - has bothered many of us Thais who have long wished to see real progress in our democratic process, we may take peculiar comfort in the latest charade in Afghan politics, highlighted by the August 20 election.

In one polling booth just a few miles east of Kabul, almost no one came to vote, but it did not mean there were no votes to be tallied. In a matter of just an hour after the polling station opened, 6,000 votes were cast. That would put the average time for one person to vote at 7 seconds. Such speed would deserve an entry in the "Guinness Book of World Records" or "Ripley's Believe It Or Not". It was claimed that 7 million votes had been cast in the election, but this definitely does not mean that 7 million people voted. In a country where there is no voter registration, any figure relating to voter turnout is just nominal.

On election day, 400 insurgent incidents were reported. In a town south of Kabul, a rocket landed in the general area of every polling station, not so much to kill, but to intimidate. The Taleban's threat of cutting off the fingers of anyone who voted turned out, largely, to be just that - a threat - with only a few reports of the atrocious deed. This may have been due to the government's directive imposing a news blackout on reporting of violence during the election. But such intimidation and threats were very effective in rendering some polling stations desolate, which incidentally provided an opportunity for warlords and political operators to gather phantoms to fill the ballot boxes for their chosen candidate, who in most cases was none other than President Karzai himself.

As for President Karzai, he seems to have surrounded himself lately with warlords and people with chequered backgrounds. His running mate - Defence Minister Marshal Muhammad Oasim Fahim - has been labelled by US officials as an active drug trafficker with a Russian plane at his disposal to transport drugs and cash.

It is understandable why Mr Karzai - a Pashtun (who make up 42 per cent of population) - would need the support of Mr Fahim, a Tajik (27 per cent). But the prospect of Mr Fahim becoming the next Afghan vice president has put the US and its coalition partners and Nato in a quandary.

Before the election, Mr Karzai, in an attempt to win support from the most powerful Shi'ite cleric - Sheik Muhammad Asif Mohseni - signed the Shi'ite Personal Status Law that allows Afghan Shi'ite men the legal right to starve their wives to death if their sexual demands are not met. During the Sunni-led Taleban government, the Shi'ites were badly suppressed, so this seems to be another case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

If the August 20 election proves anything to Afghans, it is that democracy is a sham. When president Obama addressed the parliament in Ghana, he said, "No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there."

Many Afghans may feel President Obama took the words out of their mouth. In fact, many critics would go as far as saying the election was not meant for Afghans, but for New York, London, Paris and Rome.

In addition to sending more troops, President Obama called for a new direction in the way the Afghan conflict is being waged. The new Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, compared the Afghan theatre to a bull ring with the coalition being the "powerful but stupid" bull charging pointlessly at the cape of the matador. His strategy is not so much to kill Taleban insurgents as to isolate them by making ordinary Afghans feel secure - an approach that means less force and more economic development. It sounds like a sound strategy considering the painful US lesson in Vietnam, but the question remains if the coalition leaders have the patience to see through a real change of their strategy and mindset.

To add to the complexity, "Taleban" is now a catch-word whose broad constituency ranges from hard-core militia to local warlords aggrieved by the loss of their political clout in recent years. Evidence suggests that negotiations are planned with those "moderate Taleban" who are amenable to being bought off, albeit temporarily. But no one is talking about negotiations with the Taleban high command.

With the Vietnam War a faded photograph, a good reminder is needed. In 1968, Sir Robert Thompson (1916-1992), a British military officer and counter-insurgency expert, said in his article "Squaring the Error" that understanding what Mao Tse-tung called "the time, place and character" of war is the key to winning it. He added a caveat: "If we plan for a long haul, we may get quick results. But if we go for quick results, we may at best get a long haul."

Doubling the resources as much as one can afford, and squaring the error may appease the conscience, but in the final analysis, when the conflict ends, the question will be, as US Senator Dirksen (1896-1969) once contended: "Where will you stand and with whom will you sit?"