Afghanistan Elections Marred By Peace
From Indian news site, NDTV: Boycott call dropped in Afghanistan
So it wasn’t bomb threats by the Taliban, but allegations of mass irregularities that threatened to derail the three-year march towards democracy.
Uh, moving your worries from “bomb threats” to “mass irregularities” is marching towards democracy. Is it really that unreasonable to expect the first democratic elections in Afghanistan to be portrayed as primarily a positive development? This is a country whose history for my life has entirely consisted of bloody coups, mass arrests, tortures, mass killings, Soviet invasions, secret police, human rights violations, puppet governments, civil war with 40,000 dead, guerilla warfare, the establishment of an Islamic state by a fundamentalist militia, the capital being reduced to rubble, oppression of women, more human rights violations, mass graves, thousands of civilians massacred, more torture and murder of civilians, destruction of historical statues and sites, and, oh, don’t forget UN sanctions.
Look, keep your goddamn bias — Latham and Kerry are fine chaps, vote for them, and support them all you like — but if you’re going to do a story entitled, say, Counting begins in Afghan election, how about showing a little courtesy by spending more than a sentence on the counting, and not just using at as an excuse to promote the posturing of the also-ran candidates?
At least FOX News has a story on the construction in Afghanistan without trying to make the improvements seem like a bad thing. On the other hand, their story on the elections themselves takes the same negative line as everywhere else, Associated Press reprint that it is. And what an utterly ridiculous way to conclude: Islamic poet Abdul Latif Padran, another minor candidate, said: “Today was a very black day. Today was the occupation of Afghanistan by America through elections.”
The Professor summarises the good news.
UPDATE 2004/10/12:
Gag. Via Tech Central Station:
KABUL – It was a regrettably typical comment from an American reporter in this part of the world. “At least it’s news,” he said of the Afghan election scuffle over the weekend. “Otherwise, this is just a success story.”