Last year, full of dudgeon, Thus posted a modest and moderate commentary on the 2009 Afghan ‘election’ http://thusmagazine.com/2009/11/afghan-democracy-postponed-in-an-orgy-of-hypocrisy/. Read it and weep – or laugh sardonically, depending upon your smug levels. I’m certainly not proud of stating the obvious, then or now.

The ‘war’ (called, with no hint of irony ‘Operation Enduring Freedom‘ intensified following the ‘surge’ – which in Orwellian fashion was designed to lower the threat of continued violence by killing and maiming as many ‘insurgents’ as possible and winning hearts and minds by drone bombing civilian populations. General Stanley McChrystal, reluctant figurehead of this thinly-disguised ‘shoot-em-up-and-get-the-hell-out-of-here’ attempt to plait sawdust and sell it as a counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, was allegedly none-too-keen in the first place but refused to take the blame for what he and others saw as desperation tactics on the part of certain Obama administration figures. His ‘unwise’ comments to Rolling Stone magazine in July got him carpeted and fired by Nobel Peace Laureate Obama. His replacement, saintly General Petraeus, ‘inventor’ of COIN’s Iraq surge strategy has had the lasting benefit of a recent increase in violence and an effective caliphate of Shia militias, despite the continued presence of over 65,000 US troops and $7 billion spend on ‘aid’ per month (2009).

The McChrystal-led strategy depended upon legitimising the position of Karzai, whom most of the Afghani population and anyone else with a grain of intelligence knows – not including the US and UK governments of the time – presided over an endemically corrupt, kleptocratic regime which was ‘re-elected’ in a fraudulent pantomime of ‘democracy.’ Petraeus will need to work with the same materials. Over 80% of the enormous Afghan ‘aid’ budget is administered by the Afghan government. As the US continues to ‘devolve responsibility to the Afghan people’ Karzai’s extended family will have correspondingly greater access and even less accountability, I’d say the winner of the Afghan conflict/war/insurgency/Jihad – call it what you will –  is none other than His Excellency President Hamid Karzai, dead heating with the Mullah Omar, whose Taleban Ulema will be ‘allowed’ to lark around chopping off heads and hands, tearing out hearts and warping minds in their own special playground in the south – or wherever they like, given the ‘strength’ of the Afghan forces.

At the risk of sounding unfashionably contrarian, I’d advocate making moderate elements of the Taleban – like the IRA, such people do exist – custodians of civilian-targeted regional aid rather than hand it all to the incumbent narco-kleptocrats. Or withdraw all the aid, 80% of which is stolen anyway. Even though former Thus favourite Ashraf Ghani, now on speaking terms with Karzai in what is presumably an attempted reprise of his time as Finance Minister from 2001-4 is there to keep an eye on the US cash, I doubt he will be capable of keeping Karzai under control as the ‘handover process’ accelerates – with increasing velocity as the next US elections approach – which Obama may lose, especially if the US is still in Afghanistan, now America’s longest war after Vietnam, and, like Vietnam (and Iraq), an ideological shitfight which it has clearly lost at huge cost.

John J Kelly

PS. Funny how we don’t hear much about al Qaeda , much less Osama Bin Laden, nowadays. Does anyone know why?

In those great days we were helped by the US, then Imperial apprentices, now big swinging dicks. This time we have stopped short of war. Instead, our very own Great Helmsman, Gordon Brown, recognising the media opportunity, interrupted his Yuletide wassailing to summon the Chinese Ambassador, twice, no less, to the Foreign Office for a stern telling-off. The insolent Chinamens’ excuse was that smuggling more than 50 mg of heroin was an offence punishable by death under their sovereign laws, and claimed that the perpetrator’s 5 kg stash was enough to maim or kill more than 27,000 people. This overlooked the fact that he was British, possibly (but not provenly) suffering from bipolar syndrome (aka manic depression) and was clearly (provenly) delusional – as evidenced by a terrible song which he believed would make him a pop star. Tragic, but hardly worth provoking an international incident.

British heroin smuggler Akmal Shaikh knew what he was doing and did it for money. Bipolar syndrome does not imply the inability to determine right from wrong. China, like all the other countries which endorse or carry out the death penalty – notably the US – should be urged to join the civilised world, but Gordon Brown and his hypocrite cronies are hardly the folk to make them change their point of view. China executes the most people in absolute terms, but is 14th when per capita judicial killing is taken into account, with the US close behind. The Bahamas, a British Commonwealth nation, is top. Singapore, held up as a paragon state by unconvicted mass murderer Tony Blair – is second. Kuwait, whose ‘democratic freedom’ we defended in the first Gulf War, is sixth. British trading partners Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia are all in the top 10.

None of these countries are daft enough to execute a British, much less a US citizen, though Singapore and our lovely Saudi friends have been known to administer the cat o’ nine tails to errant expats for boozing/fornicating, while Thailand and Malaysia have mostly commuted the death sentence for EU citizens caught smuggling drugs (usually out of the country). Afghanistan, of course, is the world’s top exporter of heroin grade opium, while the brother of its democratically-elected and UN endorsed President, the fragrant Hamid Karzai (Thus passim ad nauseam) is allegedly Capo di Tutti Capi of the smack barons. But he’s our man, as banana boy Miliband is wont to remind us.

I’m sad for the family of Akmal Shaikh, but this is not about the rights and wrongs of a tragic individual case. It’s about the rank, steaming hypocrisy of a country which scarcely raised a finger in protest when 1200 citizens of occupied Gaza, mostly women and children, were bombed out of existence precisely one year earlier, on December 27, 2oo8. Britain defended the ‘sovereign right’ of Iraq’s corrupt whacko puppets to publicly hang Saddam Hussein after a laughable show trial. As the Chinese pointed out, a country which has played a lead role in the killing and maiming of at least 200,000 Iraqi citizens and displacement of up to 4 million others, killed and wounded thousands of Afghanis and a growing number of Pakistanis, is in no position to point any fingers whatsoever. The same government gave Chinese Premier Wen a regal welcome in 2008 and brutally suppressed protests from Free Tibet campaigners on his triumphal procession through London before the Beijing Olympics. China was executing/ murdering dissidents (as well as common criminals, for offences less than murder) then as now. We’ll continue to buy its tat, often produced in slave labour conditions. We even sold them our beloved car company, Rover (although this could rank as a subtly hostile act).

This week, 10 Afghan citizens, including 8 children, were executed/murdered by US ‘Special Forces’, according to Afghan investigators. The US claim they were militants/terrorists. Even if they were, does this justify execution without trial of these and several thousand others on other sovereign territories? Ask Brown and Miliband. You won’t get a straight answer.

Britain has lost the high, middle and low ground in international diplomacy, and our citizens will suffer commensurately, as surely as we will lose the phony ‘war on terror.’

However distasteful and repugnant, China’s judicial killing of a British citizen carries more legitimacy than the countless acts of extra-judicial killing perpetrated daily by the US under the banner of liberal intervention. Both are crimes against humanity, but to paraphrase Stalin, one death is a tragedy. 1000 is a statistic.

John J Kelly

Meanwhile, the same UN who spent between USD 150 – 250 million arranging this wet fish in the face of democratic practice, fired Peter Galbraith for daring to suggest that the outcome would be flawed and endorsed Kai Eide, the Norwegian Blue Parrot at the head of the UNAMA license to steal, are lining up to line their pockets anew. Why did the UN (and EU) doggedly stick by the election process, despite all the evidence that this will take the country (even further) down into the depths of violence and authoritarian kleptocracy? Sources in Kabul point to a new round of contracts, estimated at USD 4 billion, for the 5000+ UN agencies and NGOs running around in big white trucks doing fuck all. Bookmark this and see if I’m right. I apologise in advance if no new money is voted, Ban Ki Moon kicks Kai Eide up the arse and the ‘international community’ threatens withdrawal and sanctions. But the awful hypocrisy of  a rush to congratulate to Karzai from puddinghead Gordon Brown, wanky Ban Ki and the increasingly Bushlike Peace Prize Laureate Barack Obama are as emetic as anything I’ve seen for a very long time.

None of this was worth a single dead soldier, much less thousands of dead Afghan civilians. By the way, the ‘bad guys’ are in Pakistan – now. Drone bombing villages is winning no hearts and minds there either.

And another thing: while the grim spectre of mass murderer by proxy Tony Blair becoming EU President recedes, the boat is floating for David Miliband to become EU High Representative. His only qualification, apart from being a Blairite, is undying loyalty to Hillary Clinton and the US. If that’s what we want – the United States of Europe – he’ll be perfect and the EU will be involved in full scale conflicts, wherever liberal intervention sounds like a good idea, before you can skin a banana.

John J Kelly

Thus predicted that widespread fraud would take place in the Afghan elections, based on first source analysis on the ground allied to the hunch that the occupation forces would allow blind faith, optimism, expediency and an ideological fundamentalist belief in ‘democracy’ to triumph over common sense.  Kai Eide, Ostrich-in-Chief of  UNAMA and the EU clown troupe observers decreed the elections ‘fair but not necessarily free‘ before any votes had been counted. On the grounds alone that UNAMA spent an improbable $250 million engineering the mechanisms for this danse macabre on the grave of democracy in a failed state, Mr Eide and his money eaters should be declared unfit for purpose. Expecting the current process to produce a team with the credibility to tackle the insurgency and restore stability is, therefore, not realistic. It is more likely that a disenchanted population that now feels disenfranchised will tolerate an expanded insurgency, thereby endangering allied lives and assets, and significantly increasing the nature and dimensions of the challenge to NATO.

Should the election process be validated and the results accepted, the following consequences are probable: First, the government will become more predatory as the officials who committed fraud will feel emboldened by getting away with large scale corruption. Favours promised will be called in. Second, the population would be disenchanted with the process, the integrity and intentions of the Allied and international mission, and the new government, and withdraw further into devising ways to protect themselves from all sides.   Third, the insurgency, facing an openly illegitimate government, will have a renewed rallying cry and cause for recruitment. Fourth, the neighbours, particularly Iran, will become more assertive in Afghan affairs, and the struggle between intelligence services, particularly that of India, Pakistan and Russia, will increase significantly. Fifth, a weaker international community will not be able to take a strong posture vis-à-vis the government.

Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to Afghanistan, is meanwhile trying to backstop the mess by engineering a runoff between Hamid Karzai and ex-foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah (who declared the election fraudulent at an early stage). This is unlikely to enhance the legitimacy of the outcome, as corrupt chains of entrenched interests allied to both Karzai and Abdullah have already mobilized and near term measures will not suffice to loosen their grip on the levers of power and money. A rerun could consolidate and embolden those interests. Furthermore, an election in October will face major logistical obstacles. Given the discredit brought both on IEC and the UN agencies, proceeding with round 2 is likely to perpetuate some of the same symptoms. Moreover, according to complaints submitted to the Afghan Independent Election Commission, both candidates have engaged in widespread ballot rigging. Afghan sources speculate that if Karzai is disqualified (a big if) then the US should shift its backing to Abdullah on the basis that because he is weak he would be easier to control. The flaw in this twisted logic is that Abdullah has neither the strength, popular mandate nor ethnicity to keep the key warlords in check, his corruption might increase if mandated and once support was withdrawn he would be vaporised. Another option is a Karzai-Abdullah coalition – an infernal tag team if ever there was one.

Ashraf Ghani, whom, like Bashardost, ran on the anti-corruption ticket (as did Abdullah when he saw its potential) has proven experience in establishing governance and financial controls – he was finance minister in the last transitional government – has no presidential mandate (and originally stood reluctantly) but could play a key role as mediator, intermediary and Grand Vizier in a government of national unity, embracing all stakeholders, governed under strict, designed to restore sovereignty to the Afghans – an ostensibly ‘weak’ coalition, but infinitely preferable to a licence to steal for the next five years.

Thus has so far been the only site to point out the seeming anomaly between Karzai’s declaration of dubiously modest assets of $1000.00 plus $10,200 in family jewels‘ and his officially declared campaign war chest of a $2 million dollar interest free loan from the Bank of Ghazanhar. This sum represents 20% of the funds of this ‘bank,’ a philanthropic institution founded and run by the Ghazanfar family. How and when is this modest unassuming man on a salary of $487 per month going to repay the generosity of his altruistic supporters? Rather like the eponymous Producers in the Mel Brooks movie, he has already promised more seats in the new cabinet than currently available, to lovely men such as Dostum (Thus passim). He has polled 3000 votes in stations where observers only recorded 30 people voting. His brother Walid coincidentally hangs out with folks who allegedly control the opium trade while other family members, through sheer hard work no doubt, appear to run the country’s most  lucrative business franchises. He talks of having no truck with the Taliban but shamelessly passed the notorious wife-starving law shortly before the election. Is this a man ‘we’ can do business with? Though it pains me to say it, we have little choice. The most expedient figurehead leader would be Karzai, supported but not endorsed by the international community under strict and irreversible terms of conditionality.

The Taliban, meanwhile, have sat on their hands – having threatened to cut off the hands of anyone who voted – and shrewdly allowed the forces of ‘democracy’ to do their heavy lifting for them. They stand to gain from the continued uncertainty of a protracted runoff, a popular insurrection resulting from forcing through a blatantly corrupt result and a turf war between Tajik, Uzbek and Pashtun forces which would erupt if Abdullah is awarded the paper crown. Time is short: the results will be final on 17 September. So what to do? Clare Lockhart, of the Institute for State Effectiveness, summarises four options thus:

1. Accommodation with Mujahadeen: Accept Karzai’s claim of victory, and put together a Karzai-Abdullah coalition. This government could be stable in the short term, but is likely to be highly corrupt and unstable in the medium term. Some concessions could be extracted, including the inclusion of technocratic positions and commitment to the US 5-point agenda already discussed with candidates and the restoration of Afghan sovereignty. It is questionable as to whether concessions would be agreed upon or adhered to.

2. Formation of a national government headed by Karzai: Instead of waiting for implosion, action is taken now to put together a national government, with inclusion of broad stakeholder interest groups. A set of benchmarks and processes could be followed and the international community and the Afghan government could sign a binding compact.

3. Formation of a Transitional Government for a two to three year period: The election is deemed fatally flawed and the International Community declare it invalid and disqualify Mr Karzai. A Transitional Government is put together, along the lines of the Bonn Agreement 2002-4, with the key change that key figures will commit not to run for elected office in future. This Administration would be tasked with stabilizing the country and building the basic institutions that would allow for exit of the international presence.

4. Form a quasi-protectorate under an US/international driven agenda, creating governance bottom up, and marginalize the Afghan institutions for a period of time.

Option 2 is the most likely and the most expedient. The loser in this entire sorry process has been the notion of democracy, at least in its US interpretation. The bigger loser could be Barack Obama, who will be a one term President if his administration allows Afghanistan to become his Vietnam.

]]> http://thusmagazine.com/2009/09/a-government-of-national-unity-is-the-least-worst-option-for-afghanistan/feed/ 0 http://thusmagazine.com/2009/08/carry-on-up-the-khyber-karzais-lead-narrows-like-we-said-it-would-yesterday/ http://thusmagazine.com/2009/08/carry-on-up-the-khyber-karzais-lead-narrows-like-we-said-it-would-yesterday/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:08:30 +0000 John Kelly http://thusmagazine.com/?p=4127 “If Karzai’s warlord cronies have over-egged the firnee and their boy romps home with an incredible margin, Iran-style riots are almost inevitable. On the other hand, if he narrowly wins, it will be more difficult for the opposition forces to cry foul. Given that he achieved only 54 per cent in 2004, the ‘ideal’ result for Karzai would be a tight margin of victory but no runoff, so we’ll see how these figures change if and when the penny drops.” (Thus passim)

There are more twists in the tale of the Afghan elections than Hamid Karzai’s S shaped bed – not that I’d know, I hasten to add. What I do know is that donkeys laden with ballot boxes are finding their way back to Kabul to deliver the verdict that the international community needs – ‘don’t panic, democracy is flowering in Afghanistan.’ Well I reserve the right to panic. Another four soldiers died today, along with at least 30 civilians and 56 others wounded in Kandahar.

Here’s a suggestion for the Afghan election theme:

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss . . .

We’ll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
And I’ll get on my knees and pray We don’t get fooled again. (The Who: Won’t get fooled again)

The only thing flowering is Poppy, and the chief gardener, who ‘borrowed’ $2 million interest free from the Ghazanfar Bank, (how and in what form will he make repayments?) has now seen his ‘massive lead’ whittled down to a ‘narrow lead’ over the man who spent the second biggest amount campaigning. To this extent, the Afghan campaign followed the ‘democratic’ model of the US – money talks. As I said several posts back, in lieu of a fair result, we might as well accept Karzai in preference to a prolonged period of even more violence and bloodcurdling carryings-on that might be generated in a runoff – but on the other hand, Abdullah has hinted that his supporters might get frisky if the ‘election is seen to be rigged’. Todays preliminary results (based on 10% of the votes cast, give Karzai 41% and Abdullah 39%, but do not include any votes from the south, where Karzai will win whatever votes the Taliban allowed to be cast. I’ve seen more convincing all-in wrestling bouts – in fact, a novel runoff might take the form of Karzai vs Abdullah, mano a mano, in the ring, wearing tights and masks, of course.

But let’s be serious for once. Thus has a brilliant idea (though I say so myself). Why not bring in Jeb Bush, Former Governor of Florida, to supervise and fine tune the election count? No-one could argue with that – after all, they didn’t in the 2000 US elections.

John J Kelly

The same report claimed that only 7.5 million of Afghanistan’s 17.5 million eligible voters had registered. Free and fair?

If Karzai’s warlord cronies have over-egged the firnee and their boy romps home with an incredible margin, Iran-style riots are almost inevitable. On the other hand, if he narrowly wins, it will be more difficult for the opposition forces to cry foul. Given that he achieved only 54 per cent in 2004, the ‘ideal’ result for Karzai would be a tight margin of victory but no runoff, so we’ll see how these figures change if and when the penny drops. Since Abdullah has already declared the election to be rigged, Karzai has retaliated by declaring that he has evidence that Abdullah engaged in fraud and Ghani has submitted evidence to show that both engaged in fraud (previous post) it would perhaps be pruduent to publicly examine these claims before declaring results and certainly before starting the next Karzai puppet show.

Meanwhile, an Aljazeera film report, broadcast on YouTube shows that rumours of Taliban inactivity during the deeply troubled Afghan election may have been wishful thinking on the part of the UN observers. Indeed, the relative calm from the fundamentally religious fanatics may have more to do with the month of Ramadan, when killing and amputating, especially during daylight hours, especially of other Muslims and women, is strictly prohibited, as any Talib scholar knows. The news clip shows Taliban fighters accusing hapless voters of ‘standing in line with the Jews.’ This pointless and immature anti-semitism should not surprise us but adds another horrid ingredient to the devil’s brew in this terrible conflict. If a central plank of the Taliban’s twisted ideology is to equate the US and occupying forces with ‘Jews’ and the Palestine question, this explains why the US cannot leave (and why AIPAC were so keen to get them in there in the first place). However, it has clearly escaped the attention of the men in black that ‘Jews’ aside,  Hamas themselves have been fighting Taliban/Al Quaeda in Gaza and Fatah is likewise fiercely secularist. Ideologically, the Taliban have more in common with fundamentalist Jewish settlers than they do with secular Palestinians, who have more in common with everyday Israelis than politicians on either side would have us believe.

Elections need a bedrock of governance, and Afghanistan is naturally federalist, to say the least. Given the overwhelming evidence of fraud, intimidation and corruption, it would make most sense to form an interim government of national unity charged with establishing  norms of representative governance, auditable finances, prioritising aid and (preferably) development to the benighted swathes of the population who cannot eat votes.  Easy to say – and actually, relatively easy to do, in principle. A constructive task of nation-building would give everyone hope and put some of the whackjobs on the back foot, whilst buying time for the occupying forces to think up a face-saving exit strategy. Legitimising a joke election will sustain a toxic status quo and will almost certainly lead to more instability and bloodshed, which would suit the Taliban just fine. What price democracy? About $250 million if we’re talking about the UNAMA budget to mismanage this farce.

John J Kelly

Whilst acknowledging that Thus supports the Ghani campaign and allowing for the fact that ‘he would say that,’  we publish the Ghani camp complaints without comment and without vouching for the detail, which will no doubt be judged by the Election Complaints Commission. What it demonstrates is that this was neither a free nor a fair election, and the result should not be allowed to stand, at least not under the banner of democracy or any such other fantasy construct. Abdullah Abdullah’s statement today shows that he agrees, and from the look of this document, he’s in a perfect position to know. Here’s the list in full:

Election Fraud Complaints Filed to the ECC by Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai Campaign

John J. Kelly

The Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan put 7000 monitors in the field and confirmed the BBC reports of widespread ballot box stuffing, fraud, bribery and corruption. Today a spokesman tantalisingly stated that it could hardly be deemed free and fair when ‘two candidates’ had extensively employed these tactics. Which two? Let’s hazard a wild guess. Hamid Karzai’s running mate is Muhammad Qasim Fahim, a Tajik warlord with less than democratic credentials, while his other Tajik ‘supporters’ include ex-General Abdul Rashid Dostum (Thus passim) and a crew of narco warlords, allegedly marshalled by his brother and ‘campaign manager’ Walid.  There are plenty of ‘suspects’ to be the ‘other’ overtly corrupt candidate, but since third place contender  Ashraf Ghani (Thus passim) is campaigning on the anti-corruption/anti warlord ticket, likewise fourth place Ramazan Bashardost, they are unlikely candidates. Theconfident demeanours of both Karzai and his leading challenger, Abdullah Abdullah (both declared themselves early victors) suggests  an inside track on the result. Now indeed, Abdullah himself is now saying that the polls were rigged. Another triumphant use of $250 million by the UN, I don’t think.

The election will probably go to a second round, since neither warlord will secure more than 50% of a turnout well below 50% of the population in the first place (free,fair?). Extreme factions of the Taliban did just enough tactical murdering and muttering to drastically reduce the turnout in the Pashtun South, but apathy did the rest. Many ethnic Pashtuns were sufficiently disillusioned with Karzai to sit on their hands rather than get them inky and liable to to chopped off – although the UN ‘incredible’ indelible ink turned out to be as wishy-washy as their election arrangements, thus allowing for multiple voting in areas outside the South where, for example, Abdullah’s faction held sway.

Despite avowals on the part of the two main challengers that they will encourage their supporters to refrain from violence during the runoff, it is entirely possible, and consistent with insurgency tactics, that the Taliban see this whole process as a bear trap which will expose the chimaera of democracy.  They will continue to apply sufficient pressure – a few spectaculars added to the regular intimidation outside the mosques, not dissimilar, in fact, to IRA tactics in Northern Ireland – to discredit the election process (not that they need to try too hard, given the provenance of the protagonists).

We need a hard, impartial look at the evidence of corruption, fraud, bribery, intimidation and the contacts and affilations of the ‘leading’ candidates. It’s ultimately up to the Afghani people as to whether they want these guys to govern them, but if we expect US, British and Canadian soldiers to continue to fight and die in the name of ‘democracy’ then we need to know what form it is taking.  The EU and UNAMA couldn’t monitor an episode of American Idol, never mind an election, so it’s no use asking for their opinion. But it’s pretty obvious that whatever this was, the election was neither free nor fair. Thus, no good will come of it. Mark my words.

John J Kelly

Last night, BBC Newsnight aired a warning that the programme contained ‘extremely strong and violent language’ – which immediately got my full attention – referring to a filmed report of US marines patrolling Helmand, Afghanistan’s most troubled province, demonstrating the ‘new’ counter insurgency strategy of ‘building trust and relationships with the local population.’ The Brits had tried this tactic, we were told, but although they got to know the territory, they hadn’t got enough ‘combat power’ and ‘capability’ to do what had to be done. The implication was that they were ill-equipped (surely not?) and a tad wussy and incompetent.

The marines found and searched an almost-deserted village, the natives having sensibly fled in advance of the hearts and minds brigade. Only a young boy remained, with four old men, including a ‘sinister man in black’ (Johnny Cash?). ”Why is he shaking? What’s he afraid of?” a 19 year old military genius asks, as camouflaged, helmeted goons, bristling with weaponry, jostle the kid at gunpoint after ransacking his house, finding a rifle – which turned out to be a BB gun (air rifle) and ‘urging’ him to reveal the whereabouts of his friends and family. ”Last time we searched this house they wanted nothing to do with us. Ask them why?” Lance-Corporal Bunch demanded of the interpretor. You didn’t need a PhD to answer that question, but the marines decided that the old men standing nearby were intimidating the boy (possibly they were, but telling him ‘you’re fucked, kid’ and threatening to ‘wax this guy’s ass,’ might have had some bearing on his situation). I bet that village can hardly wait for the next patrol to pass by.

In contrast to their base commander and to various gurning politicians, the marines on patrol, some (literally) sick with fear, were respectful of the Taliban’s abilities and skeptical that they would ultimately  ’defeat’ them. The most likely outcome would be to ‘chase their asses into Pakistan’. Later in the sequence, a soldier observes: ”(The) Iraq war was different from this. Here . . this is like some Vietnam shit. No-one even mentions 9/11 here.” He is entitled to be dazed and confused. The ‘War on Terror’ formed the pretext to invade Afghanistan, whose (elected) Taliban government had provided a safe haven for Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden was allowed to escape at Tora Bora as the US turned its attention to Iraq, having ‘defeated’ the Taliban in 2001 (another hubristic Mission Accomplished). Cleverer people than this kid can’t make sense of the tactics or strategy, but the difference is that they, like me, are sitting comfortably outside the firing line. Yesterday almost 200 people died in car bombs in (post-surge) Baghdad, confirming that the ‘surge’ was a chimaera (Thus passim) But hell, they’ve got democracy . . . .

Don't worry about getting elected, Hamid, I didn't and neither did George Bush. Afghanistan is a true democracy now.

Later in the programme we heard that democracy’s beacon, President Karzai’s last act prior to the election had been to confirm a ‘Status Law‘ enshrining the rights of Afghan men to rape or starve their wife if she withholds sexual favours, despite specific condemnation from towering world figures such as Gordon Brown. Douglas Alexander, the ludicrous Blairite UK Development Minister, brushing aside this minor setback, urged us to ‘celebrate’ the fact that no-one knows who will win the election.’ Bollocks. We do, and so does he. Alexander refused to condemn the principle of endorsing and funding – under the pretext of democracy – a government which passes medieval laws and has promised to include internationally-condemned war criminals such as Dostum (see previous post) in their next regime. In short, he is an example of the prevarication, hypocrisy and expedient madness of  bad compromises which have placed the US, UK and the so-called ‘international community’ in the hole into which they are digging themselves deeper by the day.

Thus we were given evidence of how and why the US stands no chance of ‘winning’ and how the election will be spun as a victory regardless of the outcome. The Newsnight bulletin, and the preceding reporting leading up to today’s election, has been enlightening and relatively objective, helped by the absence of posturing hounyhymn jackass, Jeremy Paxman. File under ‘you couldn’t make it up’ – and watch the sequence yourself.

President Karzai failed to turn up for the ‘historic’ first live TV election debate last month, lauded as a sign of Afghanistan’s political maturity, leaving his two main challengers at the time, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, former finance minister, to largely agree that corruption and extreme lack of governance were the root cause of the country’s problems, not to mention over 30 years of foreign occupation, civil war and insurgency. Yesterday, Karzai attended a TV debate, sponsored by Radio Free Europe. This time, leading contender Abdullah was a no-show, leaving Ghani and former planning minister and popular underdog Ramazan Bashardost to belabour the incumbent with allegations of corruption. Karzai repeated his claims that he had ‘saved Afghanistan’ and blamed its problems on the Taliban and the presence of occupying forces, while claiming that, once re-elected, he would convene ‘a grand council, or loyal jirga and other militant islamic groups, to try and negotiate a peace deal.’ (Washington Post).

Welcome back, General Dostum. Not much has changed since we sent you into exile for war crimes

His ace card is the ‘surprise’ return from exile in Turkey of ‘ex-warlord’ General Abdul Rashid Dostum. The former Soviet communist won 10 per cent of the 2004 vote, and leads the Uzbeck minority in the north, where much of Abdullah’s (Tajik) support emanates. In return for a position in the next Karzai administration, he has urged his followers to vote for Karzai and ‘avoid a runoff at all costs.’ His endorsement could neutralise the threat from Abdullah, whom some polls have given as much as a 25% share compared to Karzai’s 40%. (In passing, the ‘polls’ are about as reliable as the election process, in a country where the Taliban have threatened death to voters). The reappearance of Dostum, who changed sides several times in the tribal wars of the 1990s prior to the Taliban government, emphasises the danger and inherent instability of Karzai’s dependence on dark forces to ensure his victory. ‘Aleem Siddique, a U.N. spokesman in Kabul, said Afghanistan “needs more competent politicians and fewer warlords.” A U.S. official said Washington had made its concerns clear to the Afghan government, and Dostum’s reputation “raised questions of his culpability for massive human rights violations.” (Reuters).

As another Kabul car bomb killed 5, including two members of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and rockets were allegedly fired at the presidential palace, NATO occupying forces and the UN have conceded that ‘more than 10%’ of polling stations will be unable to function because of the security threat. Ballot papers are on sale, in bulk, to the highest bidder, dangerous criminals have been released from gaol in return for their votes and just about the only thing all parties, Taliban included, are agreed upon is that they want the freedom of Afghan self-determination. A version of ‘democracy,’ imposed by occupying foreign military forces stands no logical chance of halting the cycle of violence, corruption and tribal and ethnic conflict. Yet only yesterday US President Obama repeated his pledge to increase the number of troops on the ground in a conflict which has now cost over 25% of the Iraq war, and stands even less chance of resolution by belligerent occupation.

The recent elections in Iran were clearly riddled with voting irregularities, fraud and intimidation, leading to street protests and several deaths. They were widely and rightly condemned by ‘The West’ as illegal and ‘undemocratic.’ Before a vote has been cast in Afghanistan, we have already seen more deaths, undeniable evidence of outrageous corruption and yet our politicians and the UN are craving the indulgence that ‘any election is better than no election.’ No it’s not. Afghanistan, Obama’s ‘War of Necessity‘ has already become his Vietnam. This horror show election should not be taking place on these flawed terms and allowing to be used as a vehicle to give Hamid Karzai a mandate to plunge the country further into klepocracy and anarchy is giving the Taliban and the Four Horsemen a mandate for a second term.

John J Kelly