U.S. Can Only Hurt Afghan Politics

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Author: Lindsay Palmer

I remember where I was in October 2001 when I heard that the United States had started bombing Afghanistan. Though I was only ten years old and didn’t really understand what it meant or why it was happening, judging by everyone else’s reactions, I knew it was bad news. It seems like the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan has continued, for the past eight years, to be bad news. The U.S. involvement in the Afghan election has added to the country’s political chaos and social distress. The U.S. needs to reevaluate its role in Afghanistan because the situation remains a political mess, and the Afghani people are not represented by their government.

In 2001, the U.S. handpicked Hamid Karzai to be president after the Taliban regime was dismantled. It was believed that he would be a good leader, but in fact, many Afghans say that he has too many negative connections with warlords. One Afghan man interviewed by the New Yorker complained that under Karzai, violence in Afghanistan has become overwhelming and that things were better under the Taliban. This points a finger to the United States, who burst into the country, overthrew the Taliban and only offered the unpopular Karzai as the solution to the turmoil.

This year, Karzai’s term came to an end. It was determined that the Afghan presidential election would be held on Aug. 20, 2009. As the date came closer, the country slipped into deep disarray. Karzai and his closest allies, including his vice-presidential candidates, were identified by the international group Human Rights Watch as being linked to “illegal arms groups.” They were also accused of committing war crimes that would make most turn squeamish and cringe. These horrific crimes have included kidnappings and mass executions of innocent people.

One of Karzai’s allies, General Abdul Dostum, has a particularly sickening history. The UK publication Times Online reported that along with orchestrating a massacre of thousands of Taliban soldiers by locking them in cargo tanks until suffocation, Dostum allegedly crushed one of his own dissenting soldiers to death by tying him to the tracks of a tank.

Throughout the year, millions of Afghanis registered to vote for the first time. This would have been a tremendous sign of progress, had it been true. Journalist Anand Gopal noted extensive instances of voter registration fraud, including “phantom voters” and multiple registration cards given to a single citizen.

On top of the fraud and confusion building up to the election, the actual election day was rife with violence. In the days immediately before election day, the number of attacks per day skyrocketed. One international publication, the HeraldGlobe, cited that more than 130 attacks occurred on election day, including roadside bombs, gun battles and rocket attacks. Many citizens believed it would be too dangerous to go to the polls to vote on Aug. 20. Their fears were confirmed with an onslaught of bloodshed as election day commenced. Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) reported in an election day press statement that the Taliban directed violent threats at voters and led gunfire fights to discourage the election process.

As if the trauma surrounding election day was not enough, there was also controversy in the process of counting votes. In Afghanistan, inking the voter’s finger after casting the ballot is a procedure to ensure that voters do not vote more than once – a process deemed ineffective after it was found that the ink was easily removable. This news, as well as reports of ballot box stuffing, all pointed to a flawed election.

The winner was Karzai, but due to a lack of votes and U.S. encouragement, he agreed to a run-off election, which was scheduled for Nov. 7 between himself and his primary opponent Abdullah Abdullah.

Despite the fact that the U.S. initially put Karzai in power, American diplomats were the ones pushing for the run-off election. In realizing the power the Karzai regime represented, the U.S. searched for a way to “democratically” take him out of power. Perhaps Abdullah Abdullah, who realized the inherent crookedness behind the election, could have changed things.

However, Abdullah dropped out of the race a week before the run-off, so Karzai has received another term by default. According to the L.A. Times, “Abdullah said that he withdrew from the race after Karzai rejected a list of demands he believed would help prevent a repeat of the irregularities of the first round, including the removal of the election panel’s top leadership and the suspension of three ministers he accused of abusing their positions to help Karzai’s campaign.” Now that Abdullah is out of the picture, Afghanistan is sentenced to another five years with Karzai and his warlord team.

On the Diane Rehm show Nov. 3, Karen von Hippel summed up the predicament, saying, “We need to change our behavior, too. We need to admit that we haven’t been implementing our aid or even fighting necessarily in the right ways. Afghanistan is in this situation because of poor governance but we’ve also collectively, the international community, mishandled the situation over the last eight to nine years . . . both sides need to make a fresh start.” The U.S. needs to find a way to get out of Afghanistan, and quickly. Let the country rule as it wants to rule, but it has been proven that American meddling only makes things worse.

Lindsay Palmer is an undeclared first-year. She can be reached at lpalmer@oxy.edu.

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