Democracy?

Below is an article from MSN quickly explains the difficulty associated with a western style democracy for Afghans struggling to live: Consider contrasting these ideas with the ideas of the anonymus poster on the merits of democracy.

KABUL - Mubaruz Khan didn't bother to vote when Afghans went to the polls in the country's second-ever democratic election last month. He was too busy eking out a living selling cigarettes and soda for $3 a day, and didn't think voting would make a difference in his life.

Millions like Khan stayed home on Aug. 20, a sharp contrast to 2004, when Afghans jammed polling stations to give President HamidKarzai his first term. Ominous warnings from the Taliban suppressed turnout, but some Afghans said they were also discouraged by the government's failure to halt endemic corruption, spiraling unemployment and crumbling security.

"We want peace. We want security. We want job opportunities," the 55-year-old Khan said Monday. "Otherwise, the democracy and the elections that they are all shouting about every day mean nothing to us."

Articles By U.S. Troops/Timeline of Afghan History

Sorry to be talking again. But I found a website where Americans stationed in Afghanistan post articles on what they do and see during their deployment. Please do not blame me if it's not 100% kosher; I didn't look at it all and you know the heat must get to our boys over there.

http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2007/03/driving_in_afgh.html

Also, a (hopefully accurate) timeline of Afghan history that helped me understand this stuff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Afghanistan

Democracy in Afghanistan

Hey, Newsies

I just came across this article about democracy in Afghanistan. According to AfghanNews, many people are skeptical that it has done them any good. Apparently millions of people were non-voters at the last presidential election, which is drastically different from the impressive turnout in 2004 (the day they elected President Hamid Karzai). Both distrust of democracy and bullying from the Taliban contributed to the lack of voters, according to this source, but could there be another reason?

Afghan culture is vastly different from American culture. Do you guys think that democracy will ever work in Afghanistan? Should they keep trying, or find a different system then meshes better with their country?

I would like to hear your thoughts.
-AbbyF

P.S. Here is the link to the article: http://www.afghannews.net/index.php?action=show&type=news&id=3570

There is also another article and an interesting photo on this page:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009afghan/2009-08/21/content_8606856.htm

Reprint from NY Times

As Vote Count Gives Karzai a Majority, a Recount Is Ordered

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By CARLOTTA GALL and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

Published: September 8, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan election officials declared that President Hamid Karzai had won a majority of the vote based on preliminary results announced Tuesday, even as the United Nations-backed commission serving as the ultimate arbiter of the elections said it had found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” in a number of polling stations and ordered a partial recount.

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Farzana Wahidy/Associated Press

A poster for President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. Preliminary Afghan election results gave Mr. Karzai 54.1 percent of the vote.

Notes from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other areas of conflict in the post-9/11 era.Go to the Blog »

Related

At War: A Soldier Writes: History Lessons (September 8, 2009)

U.S. in Delicate Spot as Fraud Claims Mount in Afghan Vote(September 9, 2009)

Merkel Warns of ‘Premature Judgments’ of Afghan Raid(September 9, 2009)

Times Topics: Afghanistan

Room for Debate: Is It Time to Negotiate With the Taliban?

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Manish Swarup/Associated Press

Abdullah Abdullah at his home in Kabul on Tuesday. His campaign denounced Tuesday’s vote tally as illegitimate.

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Afghan election officials said that with votes from 91.6 percent of the polling places counted, Mr. Karzai had 54.1 percent, and his main challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, had 28.3 percent. The tally, if certified, would mean that Mr. Karzai would be declared the victor without a runoff because he received more than 50 percent of the vote.

But international election officials and observers immediately cast doubt on those figures, warning that the new results were severely tainted by large-scale ballot stuffing. Hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes are included in the count, they said — an amount that could prove to be the margin Mr. Karzai needs to win the election outright.

The United Nations-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, an Afghan and international panel, on Tuesday ordered a recount of ballot boxes where turnout was exceptionally high or where one candidate won 95 percent or more of votes at polling stations that had at least 100 ballots cast.

One Western official said that had the Afghan Independent Election Commission not decided on Monday to undo a decision it made the day before to enforce stricter safeguards, Mr. Karzai’s vote total would still be under 50 percent, forcing him into a second election against Mr. Abdullah.

The election commission had moved on Sunday to carry out precautions intended to catch a number of voting irregularities. But as it became clear that those safeguards would prevent Mr. Karzai from surpassing the 50 percent threshold, the decision was reversed Monday, and the election commission announced that it had no legal authority to exclude the ballots, the Western official said.

“He was below 50 percent when you exclude the obviously fraudulent votes,” said the official, who spoke anonymously according to diplomatic protocol.

Some United Nations staff members were so “disgusted” by the election commission’s refusal to enforce more reasonable safeguards that most of the normal complement of staff members who would have attended the commission’s news conference on Tuesday boycotted the event instead, said one staff member, who spoke anonymously because of the delicacy of the matter.

Visions of Afghan and Somali Emirates

Visions of Afghan and Somali Emirates

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Saudis and Israelis

05 July, 2009

Saudis and Israelis

There's an old saying that countries don't have friends, only interests. Like many old sayings, there's a germ of truth in it. And while the enemy of my enemy is most assuredly not my friend, he may be someone I can work with to achieve a common end. Case in point:

The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad’s director since 2002, held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility.

The Israeli press has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, held meetings with Saudi colleagues. The reports were denied by Saudi officials.

“The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source said last week.

The countries don't have formal diplomatic relations, but that doesn't mean much--especially in a part of the world that's noted for deal-making, deception, and war. The Saudis would have to pay a political price, and they would have to accept the risk of playing a battlefield in a regional war. The move is a threat to the regime on several levels. However, the threat, especially if it is denied by the governments involved, could rattle the Iranians, and both Israel and Saudi Arabia have reason to consider that a good thing. Posted by Daniel Mc Intosh on: secureliberty.blogspot.com/

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