Ted Rall - A Laughably Fake Election in Afghanistan

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&e=1&u=/ucru/20041007/cm_ucru/potemkindemocracy

POTEMKIN DEMOCRACY

Wed Oct 6,10:20 PM ET

By Ted Rall

A Laughably Fake Election in Afghanistan (news - web sites)

TORONTO--One early morning in November 2001 found me and a dozen fellow journalists bouncing around the back of an ancient pickup truck a few miles into northern Afghanistan. As we passed one bombed-out village after another, a fortyish correspondent for Moscow radio stretched out his arms. "It's great to be back," he grinned broadly. I squinted under the white-hot sun, focusing on the spiderweb-shaped bullet wound running up his arm. Field surgery, courtesy of a Soviet medic. I asked why he was so pleased. "Because this time," he elaborated, "all of this crap"--he waved his other arm through the dust--"belongs to you!"

The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was a dry run for George Bush (news - web sites)'s Iraqi oil grab. Kabul was the proving ground for new bombs and missiles destined for Baghdad. Changing rationales for war--first it was about catching Osama, then about closing Al Qaeda training camps, then liberating Afghan women--presaged the Administration's throw-every-excuse-at-the-wall-to-see-if-it-sticks strategy for Iraq (news - web sites). Most of the mistakes that led to failure in Iraq were first made in the war against Afghanistan: unpopular foreign exiles appointed as puppet rulers by the CIA (news - web sites), failing to send enough troops to provide basic security, unsavory no-bid deals with White House-connected corporations to exploit energy resources, torture and murder of detainees and POWs, propping up tribal chiefs with histories of genocide, and making life for the average Afghan even more difficult than it was under the previous despotic regime. And, like the Iraq war, the Fourth Afghan War was a substitute for the war we should be fighting--against the 9/11 criminals, who were all in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Afghanistan will again preview future failure in Iraq on October 9, when the United States will hold its first occupation-era national election. A real Afghan election? Not now; not in 20 years.

Afghanistan doesn't even have a government. Puppet president/former Unocal oil consultant Hamid Karzai is the weak, ineffectual mayor of Kabul. As Agence France reports, "Karzai has tried and largely failed to extend his control outside the capital of Kabul and into medieval-era provinces which remain under the sway of regional warlords." In 95 percent of the country, the warlords and their thuggish commanders issue visas to travel through their districts and charge entry fees to travelers. And the Taliban are back. U.S. military officers have already ceded several large provinces to Taliban governors.

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