Afghanistan’s presidential election: a mockery of democracy:

[JimmyJazz]

Confronting a deepening disaster in Iraq, US President Bush has attempted to deflect public attention by pointing to Afghanistan and its presidential poll on October 9 as a beacon of light. Bush’s loyal ally in Australia, John Howard, who is up for reelection on the same day, has also hailed the Afghanistan ballot as a success story, demonstrating that the US-led intervention has brought “democracy” to the country.

...In many ways, however, the thuggery of the warlords and tribal elders are dwarfed by the scope of the methods used by a far more powerful gangster—the Bush administration. Like these petty local despots, the US does not hesitate to use its military force and effective control over the government’s purse strings to call the shots on a broader case throughout Afghanistan as a whole...

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This is from an article from World Socialist Web. Since US papers barely mention Afghanistan any longer and since Bush talked about the upcoming elections in the debate, I thought this was worthy of a thread. Here's the entire article:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/oct2004/afgh-o02.shtml

[Darranar]

1. What was that about emerging "democracy" in Afghanistan?

Another good article on this subject:

Afghan election set to be fiasco

Afghans in the southeastern province of Khost were given a stark warning this week in preparation for the 9 October presidential elections: Vote for Hamid Karzai or get your house burnt down.

Some 300 elders of the Tarzi tribe expanded on their ominous electioneering technique in a public statement released on Friday.

Any man who does not vote for the US-appointed interim president, they said, will not be buried by his family. And he can forget about marrying off his female relatives, too.

But fear is just one part of the everyday reality for millions of ordinary Afghan people, according to more than a dozen national and international organisations.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C020C1F5-93C9-4301-B852-C5187C0F201D.htm