Afghanistan: Elections in an occupied Country

10/8/2009

Though it may seem odd to talk about elections in a military occupied country, people in Afghanistan will go to the polls next August 20th to vote for a President who has little or no authority outside the capital.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is likely to be re-elected to the post, is called by the people, the mayor of Kabul, because outside the capital his mandate has little bearing.

Many of the provinces still fighting are under the joint military command of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Other areas are ruled by War Lords that only acknowledge the central government when it suits their needs. And there are other regions so poor and inhospitable that no one cares to rule there.

The upcoming elections are part of a script written in Washington. But no one believes their outcome will help relieve the poverty which affects the country’s population of over 28 million inhabitants.

Apparently, in that Middle East country, the only thriving businesses seem to be drug and weapons trafficking, which make millions of dollars every year.

Eight years of war have not been able to wipe out poppy fields. In fact, 90% of all the opium and its derivatives like morphine and heroin consumed in Europe and the United Sates comes from Afghanistan.

Even though official propaganda claims that that the dirty business is in the hands of the Taliban, the money trail leads to Ahmed Wali, President Karzai’s own brother. On the other hand, Karzai’s main election supporter in the South Sher Muhamad Ajundzada, was found to have 9 tons of poppy in his headquarters back when he was governor of Helmand.

Drug money has infiltrated the whole Afghan economy. And drug trafficking helps War Lords keep their private armies.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the drug sold in western markets makes some 120 billion dollars a year, out of which almost 3 billion remain in Afghanistan; the rest gets laundered around the world.

None of this will change much regardless of the outcome of the upcoming elections.

In fact, the Pentagon is planning to, at least, double its troops there by the end of 2009.

This brings back to memory the time when, in dealing with Viet Nam, then US President L.B. Johnson and his Defense Secretary Robert McNamara thought that in order to win the war they just needed to deploy more soldiers and arms.

When the Bush Administration declared war on Afghanistan in 2001, they argued that they would be ridding the country of drug trafficking and turning it into a democracy.

Thus far, none of that seems anywhere near. The only two things thriving in that country are drug trafficking and the number of troops. On the other hand, elections have not been yet able to provide the people with a sense of wellbeing nor with the enjoyment of human rights. Afghan civilians continue to make the list of war casualties.