Blowing Up The Karzai Government ... And Afghanistan
The past September parliament elections in Afghanistan were fraudulent. The Independent Election Commission threw out one fourth of the votes and in a not-transparent way declared some 249 candidates as valid winners. In addition to the rampant and obvious fraud many Pashtuns in the south and east could not or would not vote at all.
The result is a very skewed political body with some districts, though mostly Sunni and Pashtun, only represented by Shia Hazara candidates or many not represented at all. The "western" occupation governments wanted to pamper over the problem and accepted and even lauded the results.
But Karzai could not accept them. He wants to make peace with the Taliban and prevent a new all out civil war. That demands a parliament which at least somewhat represents the Pashtun population, the biggest single group in Afghanistan, and supports his peace efforts. Instead he was now confronted with a future parliament with a non-Pashtun majority that would likely not agree to any compromise with the resistance.
In December Karzai, with the help of the Afghan Supreme Court (something U.S. media tend not to mention), created a Special Court to again look into the fraud issues. Two days ago and with the parliament ready to be inaugurated on Sunday, the Special Court requested another month of investigation time, asked to postpone the inauguration and even hinted towards new elections.
While the candidates who had "lost" where happy with this, the candidates that had "won" did not like these prospects. They threaten to inaugurate themselves anyway.
Unfortunately the "western" forces seem to support them:
"Enough is enough. What Karzai is doing is clearly illegal," a senior diplomat said.Mr. Karzai decided Wednesday to postpone the inauguration by a month to give a special court, which he had created, more time to investigate election-fraud allegations.
The newly elected lawmakers argue that the court is unconstitutional, a view shared by Afghan election authorities and diplomats in the U.S.-led coalition.
(Please notice that the Wall Street Journal and the "senior diplomat" do not mention the Supreme Court which has even named the judges for the Special Court. Do legal opinions of foreign diplomats have a higher standing than those of the Afghan Supreme Court judges?)
Several Western envoys, including U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura, have indicated they planned to attend the inauguration, diplomats involved in the meeting in Kabul Thursday said. Doing so would recognize the new parliament and be a blow to Mr. Karzai."This is a litmus test for the international community," one ambassador said. "Karzai believes he can freely do what he wants, but Sunday will be a wakeup call."
Actually the "international community" failed the litmus test when it agreed to the fraudulent election results.
But I agree with the "wakeup call" designation.
Seating a parliament that in no way represents major parts of the population will be the wakeup call for many more people to join the resistance against the illegal government. The candidates who "lost", with some quite powerful folks beyond them, will certainly seek revenge for their loss of honor. Having lost his face Karzai may well step down and go into exile. Forget any move towards peace.
That will of course suit Petraeus and others who want to prolong the war as much as possible.
Posted by b on January 21, 2011 at 17:22 UTC | Permalink
I am not sure that this is an issue of importance. As long as the US wishes to support Karzai, he will remain in power, whatever he does to fix elections. When the US withdraws, Karzai is likely for the long drop, unless he gets out in time. No doubt he has prepared for that eventuality.
It's not easy to choose the right moment. Ben Ali in Tunisia got out in time. Tunisia is slow, Afghanistan might be more rapid.
Posted by: alexno | Jan 21 2011 21:46 utc | 2
The election fit up results matter to Afghans who would prefer that alla these loud-mouthed dropkicks from such assholes of the universe as amerika & england piss off & quit murdering their families. For that to happen sufficient numbers of the puppet regime need to reach an agreement with Afghanistan’s armed freedom fighters that are constantly & imo incorrectly all referred to as the Taliban. (All Taliban may be freedom fighters but all Afghani freedom fighters aren’t talib, it is the northern provinces where fighting against invaders has increased the most, and up that way the people aren’t all Pashtun, yet Taliban movement has always been a primarily Pashtun movement).
Antonio Giustozzi and Christoph Reuter composed a paper for the Afghanistan analysts’ network in June 2010. The Afghanistan Analysts Network is a whitefella run NGO, primarily Norwegian & Swedish funded which prolly means that it willingly sucks amerikan cock but is less willing to receive that amerikan cock all the way up its ass that in turn means they point out some truths about escalated fighting in the North but still refer to all armed opposition as Taliban to play neatly into the USuk meme)
The actual paper is titled The Northern Front; the Afghan insurgency spreading beyond the Pashtuns contains some interesting stuff that will have Karzai concerned in a way the invaders would not be.
It says:
The ongoing conflict in Afghanistan has been characterized until recently as largely a southern Afghan and Pashtun phenomenon. Such a characterization has had important implications both in strategic and political terms. As long as the insurgency was understood as contained in a limited portion of the country, its ability to cause the existing government to implode was seen to be inevitably limited. Moreover, at least half or more of the country could still be presented as broadly supportive of international intervention and of the policies determined in Kabul. But if the north is also perceived as being destabilised, the implications are enormous. . .. . . The Greater North is best known for its opposition to the advancing Taleban during the 1990s. This opposition was led by three main groups: Junbesh e Milli(led by General Abdul Rashid Dostum), Jamiat e Islami (led by Ustad Burhanuddin Rabbani and commander Ahmad Shah Massud) and Hezb e Wahdat (led by Mohammed Mohaqqeq). What is less well known, however, is that both Junbesh and Jamiat initially flirted with the Taleban in their early phases of expansion, and that from the time the Taleban took the north in 1998 until the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001, collaboration with the Taleban was actually relatively widespread.
There are some parts of the Vietnam defeat which still have an enormous hold over amerikan imperial thinking. Perhaps the most pervasive, strongly subscribed-to meme, is that amerika really shot itself in the foot when the empire murdered Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm in 1963. Amerika had stage managed a fraudulent poll in 1955 which gave Diem power consequently they felt just as they do in Afghanistan today, that really they were the boss of the nation, and that their puppet should shut up and do as he’s told. (anyone know any women puppets? – hang on uuummm Golda Meir & that’s right wasshername -Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia; both of them sucked amerikan cock just like the boys, I think Sirleaf still does)
Thing is tho killing Diệm was a big mistake, everything went downhill from there. It turns out that however craven corrupt and loathed the puppet you pick before you invade may be, any you pick after you’re knee deep in their compatriot’s blood are a hundred times more craven corrupt & loathed. It makes sense when you think about it.
Karzai isn’t silly over the years he has carefully tested the boundaries of his prison cell/golden cage and as well as being pretty sure of where the hidden markers are, he has also succeeded in expanding the boundaries, so he has a good idea of how to play the empire back if he wants or needs to.
Like all dictators he has become convinced that he is destined for this gig and like all leaders inevitably decide, Karzai has put his continued reign miles ahead of any of the reasons he was given the gig in the first place.
Whatever it is the amerikans told him should be his goals back in 01 has been forgotten. Karzai sees his presidency as far more important, and he is coming to the inevitable realisation that if he wants to keep the gig he is eventually going to have to flick USuk and the murdering rapists. Trouble is he has to get the Afghans on side long before he does that & that is hard to do ‘nicely’ without getting sprung by the murdering rapists before he has his shit all lined up.
At the moment he isn’t allowed to talk to the freedom fighters & has got into the pooh a couple of times when they suspected he had. The amerikans have been trying to talk to the insurgents but they end up in a deep tete a tete with a Khandihar shoe salesman when they try it because even after 9 years killing and raping afghans, they still don’t know their asshole from a hole in the ground.
If Karzai had a ‘democratically elected’ parliament (ie a mob of slimy pols that amerika declared were ‘democratically elected’) at that parliament instructed old Hamid to begin talking to the freedom fighters, well, that would make it fuckin hard for the chief murderer to tell him not to.
As b pointed out Karzai needs these candidates which the amerikans, who have a fair idea what he is up to don’t want, to get elected and begin pushing for ‘dialogue’. This isn’t about public perception, amerika could make Karzai dead in a lot of different ways which would barely raise a murmer. Some sort of accident where a couple of their own diplomats also got killed is an oldie but a goodie. But the issue is; if not Karzai who? Every time they ask that question, the answer they are most likely to get is “we got lotsa potentials but they are all worse than Karzai “. That realisation must be keeping Karzai in the prez gig.
Of course if Hamid ever did pull it off, that is get his new parliament, cut a deal with the freedomistas, & then flick out oblamblam and his whitefella posse, one bunch or another of Pashtu would have the quisling weasel swinging from a lamp post in no time. Karzai may be smart but there is nothing like a dictator’s hubris to hide the bleeding obvious.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 22 2011 6:34 utc | 3
It seems some of the "western" folks had second thoughts and now try to pull back:
West Presses Karzai on Delay in Seating Parliament
“It is a signal that we’re serious about standing behind democratic institutions in Afghanistan,” said a Western official of the United Nations statement. [a laughable lie]A divided government would worsen the already fragile security situation, raising the possibility of violence among rival ethnic groups on top of the Taliban insurgency, said two diplomats, speaking on the condition of anonymity. None of that helps Western efforts to begin to transfer responsibility for security to Afghans over the next three years.
Yet after a day of frantic discussions and cables fired back and forth between Kabul and Western capitals, the United Nations and NATO countries in the end muted their statement, backing away from demanding the seating of the Parliament on Sunday and trying to leave the door open for a compromise.
Mr. Karzai, who has been in Russia, invited members of Parliament to lunch on Saturday to discuss the situation, and Western diplomats said they hoped he would use the chance to work out a deal that would allow the Parliament to open, but also would let everyone save face.
@b suprise suprise, the invaders blinked first. Old Hanid seems to really know exactly how far to test things. There will be a delay during which time there will be some serious horse trading over which of the 'good old boys' did infact get "democratically elected" The trouble for USuk & the rest of the whitefella ass-lickers is that once they allow Karzai an extension on the inauguration, he really doesn't need them for anuthing else much with this.
As you pointed out b Karzai has the controls of the special electoral court and they will give him exactly what he needs, more MPs who have some credibility with afghans, so he can organise a way to over-rule the empire's pro-consul using a technique that amerika will really struggle to persuasively find fault with.
I still think Karzai is gonna get killed pretty soon. The septic tanks (amerikans) won't knock him as they are scared of blowback onto their own lives.
As soon as the amerikans have drawn down their deployment, it will be open season on Karzai for any afghan loyalist.
He must realise that - surely.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 22 2011 11:21 utc | 5
Karzai Agrees to Seat New Afghan Parliament
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai backed down on Saturday from his plan to put off the inauguration of a new Parliament by another month, agreeing to convene it this week after intense pressure from legislators and the international community.
...
Mr. Karzai rushed back to Kabul on Saturday from an official visit to Moscow to try to mend fences, and invited the 249 members of Parliament’s important lower house for lunch at the Presidential Palace. The lunch dragged on past dinnertime, but finally legislators persuaded the president to inaugurate Parliament on Wednesday, only three days later than they had threatened.
...
“There is no convincing justification for delaying the inauguration,” said Fawzia Kufi, a lawmaker from Badakhshan Province. “All this does is give the insurgency legitimacy.”Pacha Khan Zadran, who lost the seat he held in the last election and has staged protests blocking vital highways to his province, Paktia, made the same warning if inauguration does take place.
“There are already too many people who have gone to the mountains to fight,” he said. “This will make more distance with the government, and send more people up to the mountains.”
Oh well either Karzai seriously underestimated his traction, which is highly possible, or he felt he had done sufficient to boost credibility with the freedom fighters. The problem with the second scenario is that for however much his stocks increased with the freedom fighters, it will have fallen with the Parliament. Still it is a pretty much executive powered government so legislators may feel that they can't let themselves get too offside with Karzai or he will pull them off the front tit. We shall see.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 23 2011 8:39 utc | 7
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"pamper over" is a great turn of phrase for all this shit.
Posted by: Biklett | Jan 21 2011 18:23 utc | 1