Afghan Election, American Style

Fake Elections Won’t Bring Peace to Afghanistan

"This week’s presidential election in Afghanistan will be an elaborate piece of political theater designed to show increasingly uneasy Western voters that progress is being made in the war-torn nation after seven years of US-led occupation.
Most Afghans already believe they know who will win the vote: the candidate chosen by the United States and its NATO allies.
Voting will mostly be held in urban areas, under the guns of US and NATO troops. The countryside, ruled by Taliban, who are often local farmers moonlighting as fighters, is too dangerous for this electoral charade. Over half of Afghanistan is under Taliban influence by day, 75% at night.
The entire election and vote-counting election commission are financed and run by the US. So are leading candidates. Ten thousand Afghan mercenaries hired by the US will police the polls and intimidate voters. US-financed Afghan media are busy promoting Washington’s candidates.
The Pashtun Taliban, a fiercely anti-Communist, religious movement, is banned from the election. Pashtun tribesmen form over half of Afghanistan’s population but have been largely excluded from power by the Western occupation.
Taliban vows to fight the sham election, which it calls a tool of foreign occupation. Other nationalist and tribal groups battling Western occupation, notably Gulbadin Hekmatyar’s Hisbi Islami and forces of Jalaladin Hakkani, are also excluded from the election.
In fact, all parties are banned; only individuals are allowed to run. This is a favorite tactic of non-democratic regimes, particularly the US-backed dictatorships of the Arab world."