Posted by The Editors
on November 2, 2009, 2:36 pm
A vital clear thinking voice on the left on these issues...
Eds
Friends: Clearly, the Americans are far more adept at rigging election outcomes than are (for example) the Iranians. When the official results in Iran's June 12 presidential election went 2 to 1 in favor of the incumbent, Western capitals, the Western media, and the Western "left" came out overwhelmingly (a 90%-plus lockstep) against Iran's official results and in favor of Iran's "democratic" opposition, with displays of "solidarity" that continue to this day. "Whose side are you on?" asked one strain of the totalitarian "left" in the States and beyond. (Reese Erlich, "Iran and Leftist Confusion," CommonDreams, June 29, 2009.) But now that there won't even be an election in U.S. occupied Afghanistan, and with all of the Afghan resistance to foreign occupiers long since branded "terrorists" and "insurgents" and "Islamic militants," "Al Qaeda" and "The Taliban," will the "internationalists" and the "cosmopolitans" of the (putative and largely non-existent) global struggle for democracy come out in the same force against this ultimate in rigged outcomes (one candidate, no election, a declared victor!), the way they did in June and July, when, in coming out against Iran's official election results, they aligned with the United States and the West against a common Enemy? The Americans wrote the book on How Best To Stage -- And Cancel, When Necessary -- Demonstration Elections. A book to which the American "left" in 2009 added a scandalous Appendix.
-- David Peterson
Chicago, USA
davidepet@comcast.net
PS. The involvement of the United Nations in this process is perhaps the ultimate scandal. The corruption -- or capture, to use a popular term -- of the United Nations by American Power is one of most ominous developments the contemporary period.
Agence France Presse
November 2, 2009
Karzai: Afghan president for a second term
Hamid Karzai, handed another five years in power Monday, is the former darling of the West whose fortunes have slumped since being catapulted to the Afghan leadership when the Taliban were toppled.
Discredited by massive fraud which disqualified about a third of his votes in a first round election, Karzai now has to win back the trust of his traditional backers who helped bring him to power eight years ago.
Growing impatience from the 51-year-old's international allies has mirrored a pattern of increasing Afghan malaise that contributed to his rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, attracting sizeable support.
Corruption, a spiralling Taliban insurgency, the worst security in years, controversy over a women's law and criticism of his choice of running mate have all contributed to a distinct cooling of ties between Karzai and the West.
Anticipating Karzai's return to power after Abdullah's pullout Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated the US was ready to move past the scandal-plagued elections, saying Washington "will support the next president and the people of Afghanistan , who seek and deserve a better future."
Congratulating Karzai on his re-election, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Karzai must now form a government which can win the support of all the Afghan people.
"Afghanistan now faces significant challenges and the new president must move swiftly to form a government that is able to command the support of both the Afghan people and the international community," said Ban.
In typically blunt fashion, Karzai had dismissed allegations of widespread fraud in the August 20 poll as fabricated and politically driven.
But when election organisers announced he had fallen a fraction short of outright victory, Karzai declared that he wanted to move on.
"I call upon our nation to change this into an opportunity to strengthen our resolve and determination, to move our country forward and to participate in the new round of elections," he said.
His bid for re-election in August was focused on backroom deals with power-brokers in the ethnically divided nation, rather than public campaigning.
His pick for vice-president, former defence minister Mohammed Qasim Fahim, has been widely accused of rights abuses including murder during Afghanistan's nearly three decades of war.
Ashraf Ghani, Karzai's one-time finance minister who stood as a candidate in the election, is now withering in his criticism, accusing his old boss of a "relentless desire for power".
Karzai was handed the enormous task of leading his crippled nation in December 2001 when the dust had barely settled on a US-led invasion that drove out the extremist Taliban regime for sheltering Al-Qaeda after 9/11.
Often charming and a fluent English-speaker, Karzai had guaranteed influence as a tribal leader.
He was appointed chairman of a transitional administration at UN-sponsored talks in Bonn, Germany that pledged to work towards democracy.
Six months later, a traditional Afghan assembly of around 2,000 people, called a loya jirga, confirmed him as president of the transitional government.
In 2004 he went on to win Afghanistan's first presidential election with 55.4 percent of the vote. His nearest rival managed just over 16 percent.
As president, Karzai has survived at least two assassination attempts, the latest in April last year.
He was born in December 1957 in southern Afghanistan to the Popalzai, an influential tribe in Afghanistan's majority Pashtun ethnic group.
The son of a wealthy father, he studied politics in India for six years, obtaining a masters degree in 1983.
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, while he was at university, and on graduation he moved to Pakistan to join the resistance, rising through the political ranks.
With the Red Army defeated in 1989, Karzai returned to his homeland and took a position in the government of anti-Soviet factions formed in 1992.
But the factions soon turned on each other, dragging the country into civil war, and Karzai left again for Pakistan.
He briefly threw his weight behind the Taliban movement that emerged in the early 1990s but soon withdrew his support.
Karzai has a son, born in 2007, with his physician wife, Zenat Karzai.
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