by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has created a “law” that give him and him alone the total power to appoint all the five members of the Electoral Complaints Commission.
Brilliant! He can now rule supreme and create a total “yes, President” cabinet. What makes him now different from a dictator? Absolutely nothing. Karzai is a Pashtoon warlord and wants to run the country for his tribe, period, and he is now holding all the strings and keys to the electoral process.
The USA, and Britain especially, in the person of Gordon Brown, are talking that we must allow the Afganization of the process in Afghanistan and this seems the way it is going to go.
But what is Afghanization?
In the eyes of the powers that talk thus it is a process of letting the Afghans run their affairs though, I guess, hopes in a democratic way as the West understands it. The problem is that Afghanistan is totally different and western democratic systems are alien to their ways.
If Afghanization in the Afghan way is the aim then it is time we went home and left the Afghans to get on with it, in whichever way.
Either the job in Afghanistan is to bring peace, stability and democracy to the country or it is not.
So, what are we really doing in Afghanistan?
The truth is a different one from the one to liberating the country from the Taliban and hunting Al Queda; one that few ordinary people in the West would think about, it seems.
The USA and others needed a “pliable” leader in that country and hence they put in Karzai to start with, and allowed the farce of that election in 2009 to continue and Karzai's “victory”.
Hamid Karzai is a stooge, put in by the Americans to do their bidding and he is also someone who will want to stay on, and do so at all costs.
He is and was a warlord and runs the country as Afghanistan has always been run; by a system of family and clan dependencies and allegiances and by outright bribery and corruption (as we would understand it).
Karzai wold not want true democracy in Afghanistan as that would not get him to do the things that he wants and that his puppet masters want him to do.
NATO soldiers, American, British, German, and others die for a cause only a few will benefit from and those are not the poor Afghans.
They are used to fight the Taliban for it is the Taliban, however much one might despise them for their treatment of girls and women and non-believers, who wold stand against such corrupt practices by the likes of Karzai.
In fact Karzai had fled Afghanistan when the Taliban came power and, while others tried to rid themselves of the Taliban and Al Queda and suffered all manner of things he sat abroad, getting buy very nicely, thank you.
Do we, the people, really want to allow our leaders to continue waste lives there in that country in order to prop up a junta that does not represent the people proper and will never permit proper representation of the people by the people?
I do not think so! And we should make that crystal clear to our elected representatives. Whether that will do any good or not is another question and will also show as to how democratic and representative our own countries and governments are.
I love my country but I fear its government.
© 2010
