Nation: Ballots and Bullets for Afghanistan

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Ballots and Bullets for Afghanistan
By Ann Jones

August 18, 2009


With only days to go before the election in Afghanistan, it looks like the fix is in. That's what most Afghans have been saying all along.

The danger now is not that the election might be tainted by backroom deals or fraud. That's old news. Even international bodies charged with facilitating the process have given up the goal of "free and fair" elections. They aim instead for "credible" elections--which means results that look pretty good, even when they're not.

No, the real danger is that those international bodies, led by the United States, will validate the crooked election as "credible" even when it doesn't look good at all. Yet the hopes of the US-led international community ride on a credible outcome to provide evidence of Afghanistan's conversion to "democracy." Not to mention their vested interests--including an estimated $500 million to stage this extravaganza. If they were going to fess up to fraud, they should have done so long ago.

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Which brings us to another great danger: the United States has seized upon the election as the occasion and the excuse for unprecedented expansion of Afghan military and paramilitary forces, not to mention the influx of more and more American troops. We're not democratizing Afghanistan. We're militarizing it.

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To ignore history is never a good idea. Remember when US policy embraced Islamic fundamentalists as our natural allies (as a Christian nation) against godless communism? And where are they now? Out there--among the FOBs and the soldiers of the ANP and the ANA and the pseudo Sons of Iraq and the brand-new same-old militias and the Taliban. If the contest at the ballot box doesn't move the country to greater violence, all this "security" should do the trick.

It's too bad about Afghans though. Given half a chance, they'd vote for change and peace and reconciliation and no more soldiers.

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http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090831/jones