Democracy in the Mirror of Afghanistan
"[W]e believe that our government is weak, stupid, overbearing, dishonest, and inefficient, and also believe it to be the best in the world and would like to offer it to others." This insight of Professor Michael Kammen came to mind as I drove around the teeming, dusty streets of Kabul last week.
The United States has an enormous military, political, and economic presence in Afghanistan, which will increase before it decreases, trying to bring to the Afghan people the kind of government against which Americans have been screaming in so-called towns meetings recently. Many Afghanis are dying and risking their lives to achieve even a semblance of the kind of government many Americans seem to distrust at best and hate at worst.
Perhaps it is because this ancient culture -- an historic truck stop of sorts for traders from the days of Marco Polo and the Silk Route, the gladiatorial arena for aspiring world powers over the centuries, and, as a new book calls it, "the graveyard of empires" -- simply is tired and wishes a halt to everyone using it as a modern day version of the OK Corral or Chicago-in-the-1920s style running gun battle arena between the U.S. Army and the Taliban.
Unlike Iraq, however, we didn't send our army there because we wanted to; we did so because our most recent day of infamy, 9/11, originated there. And, partly because we chose not to finish the job in 2002, we are now back to pick up where we left off seven years ago.
As a member of a small international group observing the second presidential election in this very old country's history, these reflections are rendered not to stimulate debate about American policy in Afghanistan but to consider 21st century democracy and what it means through a different set of eyes and, strangely enough, to ponder whether the Afghan people, even in their desperate life-and-death struggle, might have a lesson for us.
A small army of media, non-governmental organizations, and members of the international community blanketed last week's election focusing on the same questions that dominate U.S. elections: winners and losers; voter turn-out; rumors of manipulation and fraud; and, in this case, numbers of dead and wounded. Within 48 hours most of this army was at the airport headed for the next war zone or arena of excitement.
The skeptics concluded that the turn-out was low, especially in the hostile south and east, too many women stayed away out of fear, and as many as 50 or more were killed on election day. For the smaller group of us who saw the glass half full, however, it was an inspiring experience. Despite ancient cultural and religious traditions of misogyny, a surprising number of candidates of provincial councils were women, and women voted in appreciable numbers in the safer regions. Unlike the only previous national presidential election in 2004, this election was managed by the Afghan government and included an independent election commission. The candidates spoke to issues of great public concern and avoided attacks and acrimony much more, it must be said, than in American elections. No one called any of the candidates "socialists" or "communists."
Though we do not know for certain yet, the turn-out could be in the range of 40 percent of eligible voters. This was considered a set-back, even a failure, by some media analysts. Asked my opinion at a press conference on Saturday, I stated this: "I do not know of one mature democracy, including my own, where, faced with the threat of death for voting, the turn-out would be 40 percent."
Against incredible odds, the Afghani people showed amazing courage, fortitude, and determination. They are to be respected, admired, and honored. Many stood in lines, amidst heat and dust, for considerable periods of time, exposed not just to the elements, but to potential rocket propelled grenades, car bombs, and drive-by assassins. Only a few years before, in a soccer stadium not far from the U.S. Embassy, 30,000 people or more filled the seats to watch masked Taliban thugs force women to their knees, then shot them in the back of the head.
Last Thursday, a woman called Nurzia, the mother of four, took her children with her to vote. Like many others she was asked if she was afraid. "Why should we be afraid," she said. "We came to have a say in our future and for our children."
It is left to us to ponder whether any of us has her courage or her understanding of what genuine democracy truly means.
This post also appears in the Denver Post.
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We must allow our military the chance to drive the Taliban back out of Afghanistan. That opportunity was paid lip service to, but completely missed due to the occupation of Iraq. And yes, there will be increased casualties during summer months since the weather during the winter months limit most military action.
As areas are made secure, the U.S. should do what it has promised, but failed to deliver on before -- provide humanitarian services and rebuild infrastructure. Win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people and educate their children. (It worked in Germany and Japan). Afghans don't want the Taliban, but if they're the only game in town and only paying gig, what are their options?
(Btw-Afghanis are a unit of Afghan money. Afghans are the people. I would think that Mr Hart would know these basics.)
You sent your army because you wanted to. Were frantic, to, in fact. Started a whole other war because this one wasn't going to be enough.
Gary Hart is just another peace-spouting, warmongering liberal Democrat (like President Obama) (and Hart is even from the Vietnam era), who is trying to double talk an anti-war public into supporting another cowardly war of gunboat diplomacy against an enemy geometrically weaker economically and militarily that has a friendly puppet government. Obama and Hart, are basing their warmongering push for a never-ending, unaffordable, depression-causing war in Afghanistan on a lie bigger than the lies war criminal Bush told regarding WMDs in Iraq and Saddam's involvement inn 9/11 in order to justify the catastrophic, financial-calamity Iraq invasion -- Obama's bigger lie being that this weak, backwards country is such a threat to US interests that the cowardly, unaffordable, bankruptcy-causing war is a "war of necessity".
Send in Gary and the military-age family members of those Congresspersons and non-civil service Administration political employees who fund and work in the Administration that conducts these depression-causing wars to the front lines for the duration of the wars they fund and conduct to lose their lives and limbs if they consider their war so important. And pull out all US troops and contractors immediately and safely.
Liberal Democrats gave us Vietnam just as neo-Cons gave us Iraq. We don't need another stupid, anti-US interests, bankruptcy-causing, never-ending, cowardly incursion into Afghanistan to use up our human treasure and resources against US interests.
Out immediately and safely.
"Peace-spouting, warmongering liberal Democrat"? Who is it that is trying to double talk?
amen.
The proof of how complete the treacherous, despicable NeoCon takeover
(Joe Lieberman RADICAL RIGHT-WING RETHUGLICAN WAR-MONGERS & TREASURY-LOOTING Big Finance Swindlers, POSING as "Democrats")
of the Democrat Party is, is -
#1. DC Democrats REFUSE to TAKE CREDIT FOR 100 years of DEMOCRATIC, "liberal," progressive progress! From WOMEN's VOTE to MINIMUM food safety standards in meat-packing industry;
to minimum JOB SAFETY standards in hazardous mines and factories, to a 40hour work week & overtime pay, to ENDING CHILD LABOR, to union negotiating rights vs ruthless companies (mine owners once had open-season to MACHINE-GUN striking miners), to pensions & job benefits, to GI bill & oversight of banks (FDIC insurance) & securities markets, to civil rights (which ONLY gave teeth to the 15th AMENDMENT, which had been IGNORED for previous 100years), to SOCIAL SECURITY & MEDICARE - the Democrats have been SO CORRUPTED by the BIG FINANCE & WAR LOBBIES, that they CAN'T ARTICULATE how those programs ARE, CURRENTLY, HELPING the very Americans who are SQUEALING about how they HATE "Socialism" !!!
IF you don't like "SOCIALIZED BIG GOVERNMENT SPENDING,
- STAY OFF OUR PUBLIC Roads & Highways!"
(not only is the US INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM __THE__ biggest example of "SOCIALIZED BIG GOVERNMENT SPENDING," it is not only THE BIGGEST CONSTRUCTION PROJECT in world history, it is also THE FOUNDATION of our ENTIRE American ECONOMY, AND society (/lifestyle) !!!
Democrats have LOST THE ABILITY TO PROUDLY defend the above, because they've been SO TAKEN OVER by the WAR- & BIG
.......Dem
... which would be quite bad enough (trying to denigrate, deny, and ignore the CONTRIBUTIONS "liberalism" and progressive, Democratic politics have made for America over the past 100 years) coming from the Republican Party...
...but coming from those who POSE as "Democrats", it is SHEER TREACHERY & DECIET !!!
This is a great story.
Never been a great fan, or foe, but Kudos too you, for recognizing and speaking too, a point so few are capable of grasping. Our children.
Our generations have failed in a most important, awesome responsibility. Teaching basic humanity is simple, stop teaching ignorance and hate too our children, and show them we understand our responsibility, and expect to be held accountable for decisions that effect future generations.
Perhaps having a bit more faith in humanity, and a bit less in religion, could teach our grown ups that sometimes, it is better just to shut up, and allow the voice of our children to be heard.
Dear Mr. Hart:
< Unlike Iraq, however, we didn't send our army there because we wanted to; we did so because our most recent day of infamy, 9/11, originated there. And, partly because we chose not to finish the job in 2002, we are now back to pick up where we left off seven years ago. >
The above is true, to the point that after the 9-11 terror attacks, we Americans insisted on the right to attack the nation THAT WE HAD IGNORED after the Red Army exit from their Afghanistan war, and which had devolved into civil war, massacre, and Taliban rule.
But this rational for invading Afghanistan overlooks the fact that the US government was well aware of Al Qaida's hijack & suicide bombing plans, and that Vice President Cheney WET-BLANKETED __ANY__ US government efforts to prevent the attack.
(Here, CIA Director Tenet made a PERSONAL VISIT TO WHITE HOUSE, SPECIFICALLY to WARN the president & vice-president about the looming terrorist attack plans, on JULY 10, 2001 -
http://www
and here, just 2 or 3 weeks later, Attorney Ashcroft gets a PRIVATE CHARTER JET, citing "A THREAT ASSESSMENT" - but WITHOUT mentioning the word "terrorist" !
http://www
In short, we Americans accept the necessity of a PERMANENT OCCUPATION of Afghanistan, based on the TREACHERY of Vice President Cheney.
Keeps that oil flowing and the notion that we have with alternative energy sources farther back in our thoughts though.
Mission accomplished for the Musim-owned, oil-sucking neo-cons.
We supplied the mujahedine in their fight against the Soviet invasion. We watched the Soviet Union fall and did not follow through with our promise to the Afghan people. We let poverty ferment in a broken country and wonder why the people turned against us. After all, we knew from history that a charismatic leader in a broken country were the recipes for war-post WW1 Germany and Hitler. People are not stupid. The Afghans know the Taliban are power hungry dictators. We need to spend our effort and dollars helping them rebuild their society
For what strategic purpose? Why should we spend our blood and treasure on a "nation" that at best will become a puppet "democracy?"
The country has nothing we need. Let Pakistan, Iran, India and the Afghan people deal with extremists. It's their land, let them chose their own way of life.
Even if we could pacify Afghanistan (which would take more blood and treasure than we have the political will for), the terrorists would go someplace else, e.g. Pakistan. As long as there are boots on the ground and exploitation of Muslim lands, there will be terrorists activity.
Sunni terrorists attacked us on 9/11 because of our occupation and exploitation of their lands. This is the cost of our empire. The question is not whether we should pour more money and troops to build the puppet nation of Afghanistan, but rather is our empire worth the cost of 3,000 dead Americans on a bright Tuesday morning in September.
And don't forget, none of the people who actually did the deed to us came from or through Afghanistan. They were Saudis granted Fast Track visas.
Democracy. A word that describes a form of government where the most ignorant and uninformed people can be persuaded to elect representatives to that government who will steal their resourses, impoverish them, take away their human dignity etc., and deal them economic blows from which they can never recover. Why does the oil industry, health care industries, banks, big corporations etc. love democracy? Because it allows them to defraud the population of the country where democracy is established. Who gets to run the government in the end? Just ask, who owns the US government now. The banks, the insurance industry, the big corporations, the oil industry. Of course they love democracy, it allows them to rule to the detriment of the other 98% of unfortunate bastards in the country. In the end only the top 1% wins out. That is why democracy is a Trojan Horse. It kills a country from within. Marx had it right. capitalism ( democracy's ugly step sister.) would drive down wages and living standards. The USA is living proof that he was right..
don't knock democracy - it works really well when it's actually tried =) the problem is simply that the bugs in our democratic system are constantly exploited by influential factions to further their interests. the remedy isn't to abandon democracy - the remedy is to repair and enhance what we've got. sitting on the sidelines and whining that democracy kills countries from within decidedly does not help.
not to mention that it makes you look like a typical passport-less american. have you hung out in the scandanavian countries much? democracy is *great* =D
The problem is the bad guys (money) have figured out how to game our democracy, rendering it virtually useless.
Right now, democracy is a show. We get sick of the fundamentalist nuts raping our global standing and economy for 8 years - bring in the cool black guy. Very Hollywood. And don't get me wrong, I love Obama. It's just clear that the Presidency is an image and not an actual position of power.
Because we're still in Afghanistan - a country no army in history could bring to heel.
We're still in Iraq. And that will eventually bankrupt us and unravel.
We still are run by the military industrial complex.
Wall street continues our multi-trillion dollar rape.
The insurance industry (which owns most of our congress) will allow a phony show of health reform, which will somehow fatten their bonuses, and it will be business as usual.
Democracy is great.
If we had a real one.
well said.
If Afghanistan didn't exist the generals and the political/ industrial machine would have to create it. I am 60+ years old and I can scarcely remember a time that our country was at peace in the world. I was born at the onset of the Korean War, fought in Viet Nam, watched as we amassed arms during the "cold war" and covertly meddled in South and Central America. Now it's Iraq and Afghanistan. We ducked and covered in grade school and held our breath during the Cuban Missile crisis. I try to imagine a country that dosen't feel the need to send off it's youth with guns blazing somewhere in the world with every new generation. The truth is, war is big business. War isn't fought over idealism or religion anymore despite the belief that it is. Those differences can usually be worked out by cooler heads at some level if both sides are willing to give a little long before the guns start firing. War in America is fought because the greedy industrialist make tons of money producing weapons and the politicians they control sell us on the idea using lies and deceit just as they did with Iraq. Personally, I'm tired of war and the misery it inflicts on everyone just so the industrialist can have a better bottom line on their quarterly reports.
sad; but so true.
this is our next vietnam. putin is sitting in his home reading your blog and thinking "stupid americans.
Only when the pipelines are done. Because that's the right wing ideal....s
The pipeline through Afghanistan is never going to happen. We can't even maintain the ring road, let alone build the infrastructure to support a pipeline there. Besides, the Black Sea is widely regarded as the better option - and circumvents Afghanistan all together.
I understand the cynacism, but oil isn't the primary undercurrent in the Afghan war.
is there a draft? are neighbor governments overtly supporting the taliban? are we propping up a colonial empire, and does the threat of global nuclear war overshadow our every action? do most afghans want us to leave? no, no, no, no, and no - so no, this isn't terribly similar to vietnam. also, the russians have been helping us in afghanistan for years. we're on the same side - they don't want fanatical takfiri movements in destabalizing the other central asian countries any more then we do...
the people of afghanistan are caught between a rock and a hard place: on the one hand, a brutally corrupt and incompetent “government” that promises development and hasn't delivered, and on the other hand, a brutally honest and totalitarian insurgency that promises and in fact delivers its stark-but-reliable “protectio
don't oversimplify the situation.
if we do our jobs right, when we pack up and leave afghanistan will be capable of supporting, securing, and governing itself. that's what we were invited there ensure.
don't forget, we were invited - by a wide range of leaders, in fact, including the UN-recognized government (such as it was). this was confirmed during the bonn conference and joya jirga. there was a legitimate process and high hopes. the fact that we have disappointed those hopes remains the most shameful thing about our efforts there.
i never knew we were invited into afghanistan.
see, you learn something new every day.
Afghanistan - A country where over 70% of the population does not have electricity and their major economy is based on growing Poppies for narcotics.
Democracy for Afghanistan is something that would be down on my 1-N list. Rooting out the havens for terrorists is important. I would sit down with the Soviet's, agree that Afghanistan is a mutual problem and then jointly clean the place out. If you cannot make the country civil, expecting any form of reasonable government in Afghanistan is a fools mission.
that's basically the plan. however, just cleaning the place out isn't going to work if that leaves a power vacuum behind, which is why nationbuilding is so important in this kind of situation.
Afghanistan is a waste land. Keeping the terrorists out is an impossible task. The boarder states will have no desire to do that since it keeps them out of their own back yard.
There is no solution to that hell hole. Serving notice to those states that sponsor terrorism is what is necessary and taking hard and firm action the key. Attacking Iraq was stupid. Going after Syria and then telling the Saudi's we are sick of their nonsense would have been the right action. Why did that not happen? Oil money. Bush and Cheney for all their tough talk were bought. Chicken hawks faking they are tough and the idea we are safer because of their policies is pure bull.
If they wanted to go to war with Iraq we should have leveled it and if the other Arab states complained, put the hurting on them. We were attacked on US soil and Americans killed. This police action, bringing Democracy to people who don't understand it and don't want it foolish. You need to go to war, fight to win if not then don't waste 1 American kid for nothing.
join with the Soviets to clean out Afghanista
like it or not, Obama knows where the problem really lies - in Pakistan, but nobody dares do anything there!
Mr. Hart,
I have to disagree with you whole heartedly. The problem in Afghanistan is not what our troops have been doing (although mistakes have been made), as you allude to. Rather, it is the sad nature of the government that our policy makers have enabled - especially the acquiescence we have put up with regarding corruption, and our turning to warlords to govern. Furthermore, it is the limited presence of the State Department that has been there since the beginning, largely stemming from Rumsfeld appartent disdain for foreign policy and diplomacy.
I take offense to your line regarding the US using "it as a modern day version of the OK Corral or Chicago-in
well put sir. i've said it before and i'll say it again:
"given that the afghan government seems to view the people as some sort of slow-moving easily-milkable beast which happens to frequently wander by for the squeezing, the people are faced with a choice: on the one hand, a brutally corrupt and incompetent “government” that promises development and hasn't delivered, and on the other hand, a brutally honest and totalitarian insurgency that promises and in fact delivers its stark-but-reliable “protectio
American democracy has to be spread to other countries by the killings of hundreds of thousands. It is maintained at home with the most prisoners of any country in the world. The bloated, decaying Empire is in its last days.
Mr. Hart., much as I admire you, you are wrong.
Afghanistan was not where Islamic fundamentalism has its roots nor is it where the attacks of nine-eleven were planned. It is Turkey - a nation which claims to be our ally but actually funds, trains, and wholly supports terrorism. Our relationship with Turkey is based on access they provide while we provide cover for their lucrative heroin trade.
If this is the basis for a stable partnership in the "Stan" region, I am Walt Disney.
You must mean Saudi arabia.
Turkey is a sekular muslim country and an eager allied agaisnt the wahabists that executed 911.
Your right, it IS Saudi Arabia.
ALL the reports I've seen point to there. Remember the Bin Ladens are the second most powerful family there... bitter rivals of the Saudi Royal Family. And what with the birth and rise of Wahhabism there...(o
Maybe he'll try Argentina next or Latvia. Gives you an insight into how Bush's brain operated, doesn't it?
All's quiet on the Anti-war left Front?
Afghanistan and Iraq ARE NOT DEMOCRACIES!
THEY ARE ISLAMIC REPUBLICS!
THEY ARE ISLAMIC REPUBLICS!
THEY ARE ISLAMIC REPUBLICS!
Please, Gary, do your research.
The CLERGY is the ultimate arbiter in these countries, not the people!
"A glass half empty", hey Gary?
THE USA IS NOT A FUNCTIONING DEMOCRACY, IT"S A PLUTOCRACY, with Theocratic leanings.
The bankers and CEO's are the arbitrators, not the people!
And we are broke! End the world imperial wars and occupations, solver our own problems.
please read the afghan constitution. the clergy does not have the final say. their role is advisory only. they have far more power then i'd like, but whatever - this just shows that the US didn't write their constitution for them.
"Those to whom much is given, much is expected".
Senator Kennedy was a champion of the underdog.
Thank you for all of your years of service to our country.
Rest in Peace.
Pam
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