Victory remains within our grasp - as it always is no matter the truth.
Hamid Karzai is a man that more people should educate themselves about. We are, after all, talking about an individual that, after turning down the Taliban’s offer of becoming their Ambassador to the United Nations, went into exile in Pakistan where he worked to have Afghanistan’s Shah reinstated. In short, the man that became the face of Afghan democracy spent his time lobbying for the return of a monarch before becoming the West’s post invasion go-to guy.
Eight years later, he now finds himself exchanging heated words with Richard Holbrooke, one of numerous foreign and domestic representatives and leaders displeased with the massively fraudulent nature of the recent elections…
“Facing the prospect of several more weeks of counting the dubious results of August’s presidential election, Afghan tribal elders met today in the city of Kabul to demand that President Hamid Karzai resign so that an interim government could be installed to hold clean elections.
Karzai’s presumptive landslide victory comes amid thousands of reports of widespread voter fraud and intimidation by Karzai loyalists. His chief opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, has ruled out joining any sort of unity government, though he did urge a “calm” reaction to the results.
On the day of the election reports were already emerging that extra voting cards could be bought on the open market for as little as $8, and that the “indelible” ink provided turned out to be easily washed off. That was nothing compared to what was to come.
The election commission reported last week that they now had around 700 complaints which were considered “category A,” meaning any one of them is large enough to have swayed the outcome. Media reports also suggest that thousands of the claimed voters in some districts may not have showed up at all.”
To be honest, Mr. Holbrooke doesn’t have a leg to stand on. The United States placed their weight firmly behind Karzai after the invasion and they’re simply reaping what they’ve sown. It’s not as if US puppets haven’t come to life in the past and decided to take matters into their own hands given the opportunity to do so, making Karzai simply one more example of dubious American judgment.
Every day it’s something new. The war is being refocused, past mistakes are being corrected, more troops are required, a new strategy needs to be embraced…
“As the page closed on August, the deadliest month yet for US soldiers in Afghanistan, top US commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal admitted that the current strategy, which was itself a new strategy presented only five months ago to replace the previous new strategy, isn’t working at that yet another new strategy is needed.”
McChrystal claims that success is still achievable, though concedes that it will take some time. Given that US forces have been occupying the country for the last eight years, how much time is “more time”, and how many more months ahead will become the new “deadliest month” for troops in Afghanistan?
The Taliban is currently operating at pre-9/11 strength. Of course, it’s now a misconception to claim the Taliban a single entity. In truth, it’s become one that is bolstered by numerous other anti-occupational groups, making the sum total a far more complex creature to deal with. Like “al-Qaede in Iraq”, the term “Taliban” has become a media buzz word. Thanks to the occupation, the reality is that those that oppose the occupation are not limited to membership within a single group, nor do they all subscribe to the same ideologies. Of course, that doesn’t matter given that they all do agree on one thing – that occupational forces must be confronted, an area in which they have significant experience.
That fact brings up a rather disturbing parallel, as The Guardian’s Jonathan Steele explains…
“It is deja vu on a huge and bloody scale. General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, is about to advise his president that “the Afghan people are undergoing a crisis of confidence because the war against the Taliban has not made their lives better”, according to leaked reports. Change the word “Taliban” to “mujahideen”, and you have an exact repetition of what the Russians found a quarter of a century ago.
Like Nato today, the Kremlin realised its forces had little control outside the main cities. The parallels don’t end there. The Russians called their Afghan enemies dukhy (ghosts), ever-present but invisible, as hidden in death as they were when alive – which echoes Sean Smith’s recent photographic account of the fighting in Helmand and the failure of the British units he was with to find a single Talib body.”
This thing is going to get uglier. The price of our stupidity will, once again, be paid for by those that do not form policy but simply enact it. Some 130 Canadians have lost their lives doing just that. Maybe it’s time Mr. Harper’s entire cabinet was dropped into Kandahar to fight so that they can experience first hand the conditions into which they have been sending Canadian forces. Mind you, our current government shouldn’t go alone. We should dredge up the last one that agreed to partake in this pointless exercise to go with them.
Come to think of it, let’s send most of Parliament. I’d give them all four or five days at most. After that we could hold new elections with the knowledge that those running for office are terrified of having the same thing done to them and might actually think before sending their countrymen to jump off proverbial cliffs.