Ballots Not Bullets for Afghanistan

On August 20, Afghanistan holds only the second election in its long and often turbulent history. For its own people, this is a historic event. For the many nations helping Afghanistan with troops and aid, it is a critical watershed.

Elections held in a conflict zone are always far more difficult, and the enemies of Afghanistan's freedom and democracy are now far more active and dangerous than they were in 2004 when the first election was held.

In these circumstances, the elections were postponed as a result of decisions taken last year, and rescheduled after a near-political crisis for August 20. The international community, led by the UN and NATO, is supporting these elections with a substantial amount of resources, including international observers, hundreds of millions of dollars, and additional troops.

The goal is clear: whoever governs Afghanistan for the next five years must derive authority and power from the consent of the governed. That means an election that is accepted as legitimate, fair and open. In any election, including our own, there are obvious advantages to incumbency, but in a fair election, there should be constraints on the exercise of those advantages. We have just seen the consequences of abuse of this principle in Afghanistan's western neighbor.

President Obama has set into place a new strategy for Afghanistan with a significantly increased level of support. Others countries from Europe to the Gulf to Japan and China have increased their commitments to Afghanistan.

Some people have charged that our efforts, and statements by the United States and other nations, constitute improper interference in the election. This is nonsense. Our "interference" is merely a necessary involvement to ensure a free and fair election on a level playing field. This is done, at considerable rush and expense, at the request of the Afghan government and under a clear UN mandate.

We will neither favor nor oppose any individual candidate. But as the campaign proceeds, we, along with our allies, will speak out from time to time on the process - and the process only. What follows is a view by Ambassador Time Carney, the head of the special U.S. team assigned to assist in the elections.

-- Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke

Elections provide an opportunity to transform an aspiration for a better future into a reality. We Americans seized the opportunity of our elections on November 4. This August, our partners, the people of Afghanistan, will follow suit as they go to the polls to select a new President and representatives for their 34 Provincial Councils.

Success in Afghanistan depends on Afghans having a government that has been chosen in a manner that is widely accepted as reflecting the electorate's desires: a government that derives its authority from the people; takes their needs into account; offers the best vision for the future; and delivers on its promises. If Afghans believe their government can ensure their basic needs are met, then they will not support those who seek to undermine it through force and intimidation. Above all, an election confers legitimacy on those elected, provided it is accepted by the electorate as just, fair, and open.

That is why we are encouraging the Presidential candidates - 41 in all - to describe their vision of the future of Afghanistan, set out their platforms, and explain their programs. Afghans are telling the candidates they want what humans the world over crave: jobs and economic opportunities, security for themselves and their families, justice and education, and an accountable government. These should be at the heart of the campaign.

The new President will need to be skilled in delivering all of these things, including reintegrating back into society those insurgents who have renounced violence and want to be part of the solution. They will have the full support of the international community, backed by the United Nations, as they vote.

But the elections process in this fledgling democracy is challenging. Free and fair elections are not always easy to achieve, even in established democracies, including - at times - our own. In Afghanistan, a realistic benchmark is that they are credible, secure and inclusive.

Afghanistan's complexities must not daunt its friends or - more importantly - its people. Many Afghans, for example, still broadly believe the United States endorses the incumbent, despite public statements of impartiality. Our President's statement on the first day of election campaigning on June 16 made clear the U.S. does not support or oppose any particular Presidential or Provincial Council candidate. Ambassador Eikenberry, in Kabul, has repeated this point in words and actions. The international community, including the United States, supported extending Hamid Karzai's term until the next President is inaugurated, in order to preserve stability in a war-time situation, and this reflected the preference of most of the authorities and political class, but it did not indicate a preference among the candidates.

Afghans will need to find both our words and our deeds credible. That is the primary purpose of the inter-agency team I run in Afghanistan: to support the United Nations and the Afghan electoral institutions to deliver an impartial process. While no elections are ever perfect, our priority is to help the Afghan election authorities and the UN deliver access to transport for candidates so they can campaign across the country; access to the media so they can set out what they stand for; and access to security to ensure the candidates feel safe to campaign.

We are actively supporting the establishment of comprehensive audit processes to limit potential fraud from bogus registration cards and polling staff collusion. We are supporting the Afghan national civic education campaign on the electoral process and election safeguards. And our civilian and military staff will be monitoring the processes and raising any issues of concern.

The elections, therefore, are a potential milestone of political progress. But what comes afterwards also matters: the willingness of the people to hold their governments to account through their nascent civil society structures - and the ability of that government to respond to the will of its people.

In the end, perfect elections themselves are not the lynchpin of a stronger democracy. Over the past 40 years working on elections throughout the world, I've seen fraud in South Vietnam, aborted counts and jailed opposition in Lesotho, hope and participation in Cambodia, complicated, politically-charged results in Haiti, and joy and reconciliation met with universal approbation in South Africa. And we have the dramatic - but hardly democratic - situation in Iran today - a role model we must avoid. What matters is that people regard and accept the process and the results as being credible, secure and inclusive. Only then can a government attain legitimacy.

"Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets." So said our 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. He could have equally been talking about Afghanistan in 2009. This is an opportunity for Afghan leaders to listen to the calls of the Afghan people, who want their views to be heard through peaceful means.

The U.S. will be there, in partnership and in friendship, with the Afghan people.

Retired Ambassador Tim Carney has spent 42 years in foreign affairs, mainly in areas of conflict and transition. He is at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul leading a U.S. Interagency Electoral Support Team to assist the UN family and our allies help Afghan independent election authorities realize a credible, secure and inclusive electoral process.

Comments

[Darwin256]

This effort is doomed, from:

Stratfor Global Intelligence

"The Taliban have forged relationships among many Afghan (and Pakistani) tribes. These tribes have been alienated by Karzai and the Americans, and far more important, they do not perceive the Americans and Karzai as potential winners in the Afghan conflict. They recall the Russian and British defeats. The tribes have long memories, and they know that foreigners don’t stay very long. . . . The tribes therefore do not want to get on the wrong side of the Taliban."

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090126_strategic_divergence_war_against_taliban_and_war_against_al_qaeda

[Lendall]

The commentators are much more interesting than the article, which only goes to illustrate how insular thinking in our government can be. There is, however, one missing piece to the puzzle, and that can be found in the following HuffPost article by Robert Scheer:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/cold-war-hawks-nesting-wi_b_143180.html?show_comment_id=17933765
We armed the "freedom fighters" (Ronald Reagan's expression) who "came to be united by our CIA with the likes of Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks. It was decades later that the truth came out that the Soviets invaded only after being deliberately provoked by U.S. hawks." Zbiegniew Brzezinski was asked in a 1998 interview whether he regretted "having given arms and advice to future terrorists," and Brzezinski replied: "Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? ... What is most important to the history of the world? ... Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"

[ModernTimes1]

"Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets."
This is a very wise statement by a revered politician. Too bad it was distorted in the headline for this article as " Ballots Not Bullets"
The period of necessary war must be followed by a period of necessary reconciliation and rebuilding. As soon as the bullets stop flying and Talibs and foreign Jihadists are subdued, a feverish rebuilding must take place. This is a blueprint for success, irrespective of which power hungry politician comes on top in Afghanistan.

[MarcusT]

"the enemies of Afghanistan's freedom and democracy "

Kinda over the top, no?

[JerryLevy]

Let's be honest with ourselves here. There would never be any ballots if the Taliban were in control. They are a group of despotic, hate filled, religious fanatics. If they have their way they women will be slaves and men will spend their days praying. Music will be outlawed and it will be a crime just to question the government. Let's kill them all first, then lets have elections in Afghanistan and let the people decide how they wish to be governed. There will be no peace ever as long as the Taliban are fighting.

[ezeflyer]

So what business is it of US what Afghans do? What are we spending our troops lives and public treasure there for? Wasn't Obama supposed to end Bush's wars? If the US is there for oil pipelines and imperialistic purposes, why don't our elected reps come right out and say so instead of trying to fool the public with lame excuses?

[SNusbaumer]

During the presidential campaign, Obama made it clear that he wanted to end the war in Iraq, as for Afghanistan, he wanted to send more troops to that war. He did not talk about ending the Afghanistan War! This was said over and over.

[Cognitive Dissonance]

Thank you for your 42 years of service. As a combat Marine and veteran of Vietnam, I have to ask you this question Ambassador Carney: are you certain that elective franchise will make a fundamental difference to the people of Afghanistan?

[khiva]

No, the ambassador is not sure, because he has never served in Afghanistan outside the minimum security prison we call the American Embassy fortress. I have. A big part of the problem in Afghanistan is that our senior political and military personnel spend virtually all their time in Kabul, talking to the same old tired educated urban nationalist elites whose utterly unrealistic views of their country got us into this mess seven years ago at Bonn. As I have pointed out repeatedly, if you keep asking the same old tired people the same old tired questions, you're going to keep getting the same old tired answers.

The State Department and the UN are institutionally unable to view the world, or interact with the world, through any paradigm other than the discourse created by the Treaty of Westphalia -- the nation state with a strong central government, and capital-to-capital diplomacy. So for seven years they've been throwing money at this castle in the sky over Kabul. The reality is that 98% of Afghanistan is tribal, and the country has never had a strong central government.

AGAIN; The government in Kabul is illegitimate BECAUSE it is elected. Elections are not a source of legitimacy of governance in Afghanistan, any more than monarchies are in America. Elections are a feel-good exercise for the UN. They mean nothing five miles outside of Kabul.

[khiva]

garyg210 is right on the money. Max Weber pointed out there are three sources of legitimacy of governance: traditional, religious, and legal (i.e., western-style elections). Afghanistan has never in the past 2,000 years known anything other than the first two. What the ambassador and other well-meaning but culturally clueless western bueaucrats simply don't grasp is that the Karzai government is illigitimate BECAUSE it is elected. Elections are not a source of legitimacy of governance in Afghanistan, never have been and never will be. The UN foolishly wrote the monarchy out of the new constitution, eliminating the only secular source of legitimacy of governance in Afghanistan. This left only Weber's third source, religion, as a potential source of popularly-perceived legitimacy. That is why the Taliban is winning. They are not popular, but they are legitimate in that culture. It's the same as in Vietnam, really -- the United States has failed to create a legimate puppet government which the people are willing to fight and die for, because we never understood the culture. The election in August is totally meaningless. The government in Kabul is corrupt, illigitimate and irrelevant.

[SNusbaumer]

Is the Taliban winning? I realize this is being repeated and repeated, but I'm not sure what it means. That it is a stalemate and with a stalemate the home team insurgents win? Or that the Taliban is actually gobbling up more and more territory? And "is" is not necessarily static, so what is the case today, or tomorrow.

I like those three sources of legitimacy, but I think there is another, having to do with power. There is something about the powerful in certain societies having a right to govern. That was certainly the case in Iraq, and played a role with the Taliban when they were in charge. It may not be another source of legitimacy to rule, but a step-son to legitimacy requiring other factors.

[William50]

What we have seen threw out the countries we are now saving for democracy is if the people we the Americans, UN or our allies support don't win we get mad, if the enemy does not win the election they continue fighting. The second part is if the people who have not been willing to fight to make a new nation are given the chance to vote they do not understand the realities of the vote and the government, central government is too weak to either allow a complete change of power to another party or protect the people with out millions of dollars, thousands of new troops and protection from the civil unrest.
When Americans, Europeans, the UN stop the madness of thinking We can just overthrow a nation and in a few years allow them to vote we might be willing to allow all parties to be in the government.. I do not believe this will happen. If you read history you will know that unlike America, these tribes and groups hate each other. They will attack each other and will unless there is a super power temporarily in control continue fighting for centuries.

[lilpeg]

Re: your title. Make that ballet and ballots, not bullets!!!!

[Squaker]

Elections in Afghanistan huh?
Do the people who live i the huge areas that we call taliban controlled get to vote?
Or just the people in Kabul?

[garyg210]

I am sorry, but Ambassador Carney’s post is based on assumptions which are incredibly naive. Since Ambassador Carney is presumably not stupid, he must think his audience is. It is no coincidence that this piece was posted coincident with the “surge” in Afghanistan. Shame on Huffington Post for allowing this piece of propaganda on its web page.

The naivete underlying Ambassador Carney’s post is apparent if anyone takes the time to seriously study history or political science in the context of the region known as “Afghanistan.” The fundamental point which seems to elude most North Americans is that Afghanistan is not a real country and never has been. It is a region of tribes which share an overlapping cultural heritage. These tribes have never acknowledged that they are subject to the rule of an integrated central government - not even a feudal or despotic one. There is no history of democracy in Afghanistan. The people do not yearn for the Western ideal of a free and democratic state. They do not want outside “help”. They want what they have always wanted: to be left alone.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan over seven years ago. Now, here it is again, trying to impose its view of the world on others by force of arms. Admiral Carney tells us how great this is going to be for democracy. Somehow this sounds a lot like George W. Bush to me.

No good will come of this.

[OneTop]

Great post !

[JerryLevy]

Horrible post.
The U.S. liberated Afghanistan over seven years ago.
Just ask the relatives of the women executed by the Taliban in stadiums for not wearing burkas.

[provgrays]

Iran's problem is old men who cling to a brutal and repressive reading of a faith that purports to value human dignity.