8 October 2004Mike Whitney
"We know that true peace will only be achieved when we give the Afghan people the means to achieve their own aspirations…We're working hard in Afghanistan. We're clearing minefields. We're rebuilding roads. We're improving medical care. And we will work to help Afghanistan to develop an economy that can feed its people without feeding the world's demand for drugs…By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall. Marshall knew that our military victory against enemies in World War II had to be followed by a moral victory that resulted in better lives for individual human beings.” President George Bush, promising a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan.
“The new Afghan government promised us new schools, clinics, water pumps, but it has done nothing at all. People are so disappointed. At least the Taliban would grade the roads, build madras’s, while this government has done nothing.” Nyamatullah, Zabul tribal leader
One thing is certain about tomorrow’s elections in Afghanistan; they will change nothing.
The entire event has been stage managed on behalf of a gullible American public who stick to the belief that we are making great strides towards democracy. Not so; and the facts are available to anyone willing to look objectively at what is happening on the ground. Afghanistan has slipped into pre-Taliban anarchy. The opium trade continues to flourish (providing 75% of the world’s heroin), Taliban attacks are on the upswing, and warlords dominate the entire countryside beyond the confines of Kabul. Simply put, it is a failed state, whose prospects for stability or prosperity are no greater because of the American intervention. Behold the great Bush-Marshall Plan; a ramshackle state, devoid of security, dependent on the illicit drug trade for its meager survival. No “nation building” for Afghanistan; just a “Karl Rove” face lift every four years around election time, and a few random bombings in the hinterland.
The elections come at great expense to the American taxpayer who may be investing as much as $500,000 million in this charlatan’s scheme. The investment of troops has also caused a strain on current deployments. Just months ago Afghanistan had a paltry 7,800 “boots on the ground” (never enough to establish security) Now those levels have been raised to 20,000 troops to address the increasing likelihood of attacks during the elections. Still, with 50,000 voting locations and a mere 9,000 international observers, widespread voter fraud is a virtual certainty. In fact, most polls will be supervised by members of the militias; insuring that the warlords have a hand in the results and that freedom of choice is precluded. At this point, the threat of intervention by the warlords is considerably greater than the threat of violence from the Taliban.
The questions surrounding the Afghanistan election have gotten scant coverage in the American media. One notable exception, however, was an article by Paul Watson in the LA Times. Watson details how candidates running against American puppet, Hamid Karzai, have been pressured by the US embassy to withdraw from the contest. Zalmay Khalilzad, (US ambassador and former Unocal employee) has confronted a number of candidates and told them to “drop out of the race.”
“The charges have been repeated by several other candidates and their senior campaign staff in interviews here. They reflected anger over what many Afghans see as foreign interference that could undermine the shaky foundations of a democracy the U.S. promised to build.” (LA Times) Watson does an admirable job in outlining some of the ways the Bush administration is overturning Afghanistan’s fledgling democracy. Ambassador Khalilzad’s method of direct coercion appears to be the preferred technique. The contempt for the process that Team Bush displayed in the Florida elections has only grown in intensity. Voter registration is another issue that has cast doubt on the legitimacy of the elections. The New York Times reports that, “While 1.8 million Afghans registered over the winter months, the number ballooned over the summer to more than 10 million.” This means that the registration numbers were “up to 140 per cent of the estimated number of eligible voters;” a sure sign of a vote-rigging scheme. (Seattle Times)
There are also strong indications that Afghanis are being pressured to participate in the system against their will. Al Jazeera reports that, “residents have never felt so insecure and so much distrust. They are being harassed by both government officials and Taliban supporters. Some residents have been threatened with the withholding of medical facilities, food aid and security if they do not register for what Afghans call a "Karzai card" (voter card).”
Similar tales of government bullying to register reluctant citizens have appeared throughout the region. The quest to make the elections appear credible to the American public and, thus, enhance Bush’s chances for reelection, is the motivating force behind this widespread coercion. Even a cursory examination of tomorrow’s elections demonstrates that the process has been intentionally corrupted by the Bush administration. Voter registration has been conspicuously manipulated, and both candidates and citizens have been abused. The elections will go forward amid the turmoil of ongoing violence, abandoned commitments and calculated negligence.
The administration’s PR chicanery has done nothing to diffuse an increasingly tense situation on the ground. Instead, it has simply added another layer of smoke to an already hazy (and bleak) situation. The elections are a cynical way of restoring Washington’s client, Karzai, to power and hoodwinking the American public into believing that Bush is a man of his word. They are intended to conceal the blatant failure of America’s policy decisions behind fanfare and patriotic rhetoric. In reality, the same dark forces that subverted the process in Florida are succeeding once again. The only thing lacking is Kathryn Harris and five scoundrels in black robes.
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=6384§ionID=49
