COMMENT - This is a true breakthrough for the war on Iraq and Afghanistan, internet journalism and the information age. Welcome to the 21st century. Well done Wikileaks.
The New Pentagon Papers: WikiLeaks Releases 90,000+ Secret Military Documents Painting Devastating Picture of Afghanistan War
It’s one of the biggest leaks in US military history. More than 90,000 internal records of US military actions in Afghanistan over the past six years have been published by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.
The documents provide a devastating portrait of the war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, how a secret black ops special forces unit hunts down targets for assassination or detention without trial, how Taliban attacks have soared, and how Pakistan is fueling the insurgency.
We host a roundtable discussion with independent British journalist Stephen Grey; Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg; former State Department official in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh; independent journalist Rick Rowley; and investigative historian Gareth Porter. [includes rush transcript–partial]
WATCH Real Video Stream
Guests:
Stephen Grey, independent journalist based in London. He has been reporting from Afghanistan for the past few years. He is author of Operation Snakebite: The Explosive True Story of an Afghan Desert Siege. He recently interviewed Julian Assange for Channel 4.
Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower.
Rick Rowley, independent journalist with Big Noise Films He just returned from a six-week trip to Afghanistan, where he was embedded with a Marine division in Marjah.
Matthew Hoh, former Marine Corps captain in Iraq and former State Department official in Afghanistan. He is the first-known US official to resign in protest over the Afghan war.
Gareth Porter, investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy.
Fmr. Marine, State Dept. Official Matthew Hoh is First U.S. Official to Resign Over Afghan War
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Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone on the Story that Brought Down Gen. McChrystal and Exposed Widening Disputes Behind the U.S. Debacle in Afghanistan
John Pilger: There Is a War on Journalism
Obama Considers Firing Gen. Stanley McChrystal over Public Criticism of Administration’s Handling of Afghan War Effort
Rush Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: It’s one the biggest leaks in US military history. More than 90,000 internal records from US military actions in Afghanistan over the past six years have been published by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The documents provide a devastating portrait of the war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, how a secret black ops special forces unit hunts down targets for assassination or detention without trial, how Taliban attacks have soared, and how Pakistan is fueling the insurgency. WikiLeaks made the files available this week to the New York Times, The Guardian of London and the German weekly Der Spiegel, who agreed simultaneously to publish their reports on Sunday.
The documents, most of them classified as secret, give a blow-by-blow account of the war in Afghanistan between January 2004 and December of 2009. The findings include detailed reports on 144 attacks on civilians by coalition forces, ranging from the shootings of individuals to massive air strikes, resulting in hundreds of casualties; how a secret black ops special forces unit named Task Force 373 hunts down targets for assassination or detention without trial. The so-called "kill or capture" list of senior Taliban and al-Qaeda figures includes more than 2,000 names and is known as JPEL, the Joint Prioritized Effects List. The files also reveal how coalition forces are increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.
The records reveal there has a been a steep rise in Taliban attacks on coalition troops and that the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles. In addition, the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation on their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.
And the files reveal NATO commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fueling the insurgency. According to the New York Times, the records suggest Pakistan allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.
The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, spoke about the files in an interview with independent journalist Stephen Grey for Channel 4 in Britain.
JULIAN ASSANGE: We have released 91,000 reports about Afghanistan from the United States military. The reports cover the period from 2004 to 2010 in minute detail. They cover essentially all US military operations, with the exclusion of some special forces operations and the CIA. It covers each civilian kill, each military kill that has been internally reported, where it happened, and when it happened. It is the most comprehensive history of a war to have ever been published during the course of a war.
STEPHEN GREY: And how significant is that?
JULIAN ASSANGE: There doesn’t seem to be an equivalent disclosure made during the course of a war, during the time where it might have some effect. The nearest equivalent is perhaps the Pentagon Papers released by Daniel Ellsberg in the '70s. That was about 10,000 pages. But already that was about four years old by the time it was released.
STEPHEN GREY: And how many pages in your report?
JULIAN ASSANGE: There's about 200,000 pages in this material. Pentagon Papers was about 10,000 pages.
STEPHEN GREY: What can you tell us about the source of this material? How do you know it’s—how do you know it’s true?
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, we know from looking at, you know, the material, correlating with the public record, speaking to confidential military sources, that this material is true and accurate. As to the specific source, obviously we can’t comment.
AMY GOODMAN: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The White House has condemned the publication of the files by WikiLeaks. In a statement, National Security Adviser Jim Jones said, quote, "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security." Jones went on to say, quote, "The documents posted by Wikileaks reportedly cover a period of time from January 2004 to December 2009. On December 1, 2009, President Obama announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on al Qaeda and Taliban safe-havens in Pakistan, precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years," he said.
Well, today we’re spending the hour on this unprecedented release of documents during the war with a roundtable of guests. Here in our New York studio we’re joined by Rick Rowley, independent journalist with Big Noise Films, just returned from a six-week trip to Afghanistan, where he was embedded with a Marine division in Marjah. Joining us from Washington, DC, is Matthew Hoh, former Marine Corps captain in Iraq and former State Department official in Afghanistan, the highest-level US official to resign in protest over the Afghan war. Also in DC, Gareth Porter, investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy.
But first we go to London to speak to independent journalist Stephen Grey, who has spent the past few years reporting from Afghanistan and recently interviewed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about this massive leak. He’s author of Operation Snakebite: The Explosive True Story of an Afghan Desert Siege. And we’ll go to Daniel Ellsberg in Mexico, perhaps the country’s most famous whistleblower, who leaked the secret history of the Vietnam War that many are comparing this massive document leak to, 92,000 documents.
Stephen Grey, let’s go to you first. You spent a good deal of this weekend with Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is responsible for this leak. First, talk about its significance and what he understood he was doing when he released these documents.
STEPHEN GREY: Well, I think this is part of, you know, WikiLeaks’s strategy. I mean, it’s been a—it’s a snowball that started with fairly minor disclosures into something that is, you know, absolutely game changing. I mean, I think that this leak is phenomenal. It’s almost an act of sort of cyber war journalism. I mean, this has completely compromised the US military’s secret system. It’s called SIPRNet. It’ll probably cost them a billion dollars, I think, to fix it. And this is only the beginning. I mean, if what we’re hearing is true, there are thousands and thousands of more documents to come out here. But, you know, the actual contents are also really significant. I’ve been spending the weekend as well looking through, as far as you can in a short period of time, these 90,000 documents, you know, looking at mentions of these task forces. They’re special forces task forces. I actually wrote about this Task Force 373 before.
But it’s really the extent of it. I mean, you know, I’m sure some of the other people you’ve got on today have also seen firsthand, you know, incidents like death of civilians. But it’s really in the totality of it all that it becomes shocking. It’s the fact that you’ve got absolutely everything here. OK, not the most secret stuff, but it gives an absolutely compelling portrait. I think it will take months, if not years, to really analyze it. It is—you know, the papers this morning, particularly The Guardian in London, I think have done a very good job pulling together some of its conclusions. But, you know, it is incredible to see the raw detail there, and I think it will pull together an actually—an incredible picture of war.
AMY GOODMAN: As we are broadcasting this show today, the news conference is going on in London that Julian Assange is holding, revealing all of this. I wanted to turn to Daniel Ellsberg in Mexico. You’re hearing of this release. Your response?
DANIEL ELLSBERG: I’m very impressed by the release. It is the first release in thirty-nine years or forty years, since I first gave the Pentagon Papers to the Senate, of the scale of the Pentagon Papers, and not the first as it should have been. I would—how many times in those years should there have been the release of thousands of pages showing our being lied into war in Iraq, as in Vietnam, and the nature of the war in Afghanistan? I hope there will be—I hope this will inspire, despite the charges brought against Manning under the UC, under the Universal Code of Military Justice, which is not civilian law, it’s not First Amendment law. It’s the military law, so he’s in deep water here, as I think he expected. But nevertheless, I hope people will not be deterred from realizing that they have the responsibility that, according to the reports we’ve had of what Manning said in chat logs to the informant, Adrian Lamo, that realize that there is great deception going on, that there is, in Manning’s reported words, horrific material, almost criminal, as he put it, which deserve to be in the public domain, that they will consider doing what’s been done here, and that is risking their own career and their clearance and even their liberty, maybe for life, in order to save many lives. So, whoever did this—and Manning is charged with it—it remains to be seen whether the government can prove a case against him in the particular charges, but in terms of what he’s reported to have said to Lamo, I admire very much the spirit in which he did this. He said that he felt the public needed to know this and that he was prepared to go to prison, even for life—he said that—or even to be executed. That’s the first person I’ve heard in forty years who is in the same state of mind that I was forty years ago.
AMY GOODMAN: Stephen Grey, just to clarify, Dan Ellsberg is talking about Private First Class Bradley Manning, who was in Iraq, had—says he released these documents. He has now been arrested by the military. What did Julian Assange say about Bradley Manning? And this came out in his conversations with Lamo, another blogger online.
STEPHEN GREY: Yeah, I mean, like Daniel Ellsberg, he has, you know, praised what Bradley Manning has said about what he’s doing, but he has not confirmed that he’s the source. I mean, it’s one of the beauties, if you like, of this technology that Julian Assange and his colleagues at WikiLeaks have developed, is that it actually protects the source. So what Julian Assange told me was that he himself does not know who the source is. What they do is verify documents, not sources themselves. So they’re not able to actually verify that that was him. But, I mean, what was striking to me was that Bradley Manning said in his so-called confessions to this informer that he had released 265,000 documents to WikiLeaks. Now, they’ve published 95,000; they say they’ve held back 15,000. Add that up, I think there’s 110,000. So less than half of what he’s handed over has actually been published yet. So there’s—you know, if he indeed is the leak—and I suppose you can—it looks pretty likely—then there’s a lot more to come.
AMY GOODMAN: He’s been charged with passing on fifty State Department cables. We’re talking about the largest document release in US history, outside of Dan Ellsberg, the—actually, including Dan Ellsberg, in the course of a war. Ninety-two thousand pages are being released by WikiLeaks, the website, Julian Assange holding a news conference now in London. Daniel Ellsberg is on the phone with us from Mexico. Stephen Grey, who spent much of the weekend with Julian Assange, is on with us from London. We’ll be joined by others when we come back. Stay with us.
Labels: AFGHANISTAN, NEOCOLONIALISM, WIKILEAKS
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When electoral fraud is met by congratulations
By Stephen Gowans
November 3, 2009
It has become standard practice in many parts of the world for opposition candidates to decry as fraudulent election results that favor the incumbent. Charges of vote fraud are routinely levelled against governing parties that win elections contested by opposition parties backed by Western governments.
For example, after (and even before) Zimbabwe’s last set of elections, the governing Zanu-PF party was accused of vote fraud, but the evidence for the opposition’s claim was gathered by organizations funded by the United States, a major backer of the opposition movement.
Washington makes no secret of its desire to drive the incumbent president, Robert Mugabe, from power, by hook or crook, not because he’s corrupt, despotic or a human rights abuser, as Washington alleges, but because he has done what all foreign leaders back to Lenin have done who have fallen astray of Washington – failed to honor contracts and safeguard private property.
(That’s not to say Mugabe and Lenin are alike in any way other than having committed what in Washington’s view is the supreme crime.)
A cooked exit poll is not beyond the motivations and capabilities of US and British-backed anti-Mugabe forces, but that’s largely beside the point. Mugabe’s Zanu-PF did poorly in the election, and Mugabe, himself, failed to win a first round victory in the presidential election. If Zanu-PF rigged the vote, it blundered badly.
Similarly, the outcome of the last Iranian presidential election, which saw the return to power of the incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was denounced by the opposition as a fraud. The charge was taken up by Western politicians, journalists and a substantial fraction of the Western left, despite the opposition’s failure to produce a single jot of credible evidence that the election was stolen.
Worse, the sole methodologically sound public opinion poll taken prior to the election – funded by the international arm of the Republican Party, the IRI – predicted that Ahmadinejad would win by a wide margin – wider, it turns out, than the margin he actually did win by. This was a case of widespread distaste for Ahmadinejad and Iran’s Islamic Revolution leading to the collective dulling of critical faculties. To be sure, if one hated Ahmadinejad and fundamentalist Islam (or fundamentalist religion, period), witnessing Iranians embrace secular Western enlightenment values was bracing indeed. The only problem was there was no evidence it actually happened.
We might expect, then, that charges of vote fraud will be routinely levelled against governing parties that win elections contested by opposition parties backed by Western governments, and that the Western media will accept the charges uncritically. This happens regularly.
But what of cases in which the weight of evidence points to an incumbent, backed by the US government, winning an election by fraud? How might we expect Western politicians, Western media, and even the UN, to react? One would predict that they would try to cover it up, and failing that, minimize its significance. Conspicuously absent would be the indignant denunciations that attend the electoral losses of parties backed by Western governments.
In Afghanistan’s August presidential elections, the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, who had initially been installed in his position by the US government, failed to win a first round victory. This we know now, largely owing to the efforts of the UN’s former number two man in Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith, who blew the whistle on extensive fraud perpetrated by the Karzai-appointed Independent Electoral Commission. [1] Also involved in the fraud, according to a recent New York Times report, was the president’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai. [2]
Galbraith charged that the Karzai appointed electoral commission abandoned “its published anti-fraud policies, allowing it to include enough fraudulent votes in the final tally to put Karzai over the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff.” Galbraith estimated that “as many as 30 percent of Karzai's votes were fraudulent.” But when he “called the chief electoral officer to urge him to stick with the original guidelines, Karzai issued a formal protest accusing” Galbraith of foreign interference. Galbraith’s boss, Kai Eide “sided with Karzai”, effectively concealing the electoral fraud. [3] Eide told Galbraith that “the UN mandate was only to support the Afghan institutions in their decisions, not to tell them to hold an honest election.” [4]
At the centre of the fraud were ghost polling centres (1,500 inaccessible locations that were physically impossible to confirm the existence of), a corrupt election commission, [5] and the president’s brother. Ahmed Wali Karzai, “a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal trade” receives “regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency." He “orchestrated the manufacture of hundreds of thousands of phony ballots” [6] and “is also believed to have been responsible for setting up dozens of so-called ghost polling stations — existing only on paper — that were used to manufacture tens of thousands of phony ballots.” [7]
In other words, the UN was involved in an attempt to cover up vote fraud, while the CIA, through the president’s brother, was at least indirectly involved in perpetrating it.
Some US news analysts, dismissing the affair as of little consequence, insist the runner-up, Abdullah Abdullah, stood no chance against Karzai in a fair vote anyway. But an honest account of the initial vote “would have had Karzai at 41% and Abdullah at 34%,” [8] putting Abdullah well within striking distance of victory in a run-off election. Abdullah, however, refused to participate, arguing that there was no reason to believe the run-off would be any less corrupt than the initial vote. He has a point. While Karzai’s electoral commission was asked to eliminate “the ghost polling centres and to replace staff who committed fraud,” Karzai increased the number of centres and rehired the authors of the initial fraud. [9]
The sole concern of officials in Washington – who, when their favored candidates abroad fail to win elections, present themselves as champions of fair elections and lead the charge to have the allegedly fraudulent election overturned — has not been that the Afghan election was stolen, or that Abdullah withdrew because the prospects for a fair run-off were slim. On the contrary, with Karzai winning another term as president only because Abdullah withdrew over legitimate fears the run-off election would be unfair, the official US response has been to “congratulate President Karzai on his victory in this historic election and look forward to working with him.” [10]
Instead, Washington’s sole concern has been the exposure of electoral fraud, and its effect in undermining the legitimacy of their man in Kabul (who never had much legitimacy in the first place.)
Contrast the US reaction with the sharp Western criticism of Robert Mugabe after Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from the run-off round of Zimbabwe’s last presidential election, claiming the conditions were not conducive to a fair vote. The difference is as wide as night and day.
Where are the stern lectures, the US-government and ruling class foundation-assisted nonviolent pro-democracy activists, the blanket mass media coverage of Afghanistan’s stolen election, the denunciations of Karzai as a dictator – all which attend the defeat of US-backed opposition movements in elections where the charges of fraud have become routine and the evidence for fraud bare to non-existent?
The reaction to electoral fraud, then, depends on the answer to a single question: Does Washington back the beneficiary of the alleged fraud or not? Or more fundamentally, does the beneficiary promote the sanctity of contracts, private property, free trade, free enterprise and free markets?
If the answer is no, the reaction will be one of indignation and outrage, even where the evidence of fraud is thin to absent.
If the answer is yes, the reaction will be muted, even where the evidence of fraud is voluminous and incontrovertible.
Between Zimbabwe and Iran on the one hand, and Afghanistan on the other, official outrage, and therefore the outrage of the media, and therefore the outrage of the people, including a substantial part of the left, has been inversely proportional to the weight of evidence that fraud has actually occurred.
Washington cares not one whit about democracy — only about the interests of the corporations, investors and banks that dominate its policy-making. If “democracy” comports to those interests, well and good. If not, there are no phoney allegations of electoral fraud Washington is not prepared to take a hand in propagating, and no genuine electoral fraud it is unwilling to live with.
1. Peter W. Galbraith, “What I saw at the Afghan election,” The Washington Post, October 4, 2009.
2. Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti and James Risen, “Brother of Afghan leader is said to be on C.I.A payroll,” The New York Times, October 28, 2009.
3. Galbraith, October 4.
4. Peter Galbraith, “Karzai was hellbent on victory. Afghans will pay the price,” The Guardian (UK), November 2, 2009.
5. Ibid.
6. Filkins, Mazzetti and Risen, October 28.
7. Ibid.
8. Galbraith, November 2.
9. Ibid.
10. Statement of U.S. Embassy in Kabul, reported in Michael Muskal, “U.S. congratulates Afghan President Karzai on another term in office,” Los Angeles Times, November 2, 2009.
Labels: AFGHANISTAN, NEOCOLONIALISM, STEPHEN GOWANS, ZIMBABWE
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Of Afghan elections and MDC-T relevance
Opinion by Tendai Chambati (alias)
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:06:00 +0000
DEAR EDITOR - After the Afghan election fiasco, the US and the UK have no longer any moral authority to lecture Zimbabwe about its elections results. The US was the first off the block to congratulate Harmid Karzai followed by the UK.
Everyone knows that the Afghan elections were fradulent and
for the US, UK and UN to endorse this typifies the double standards and hypocrisy of the West. Trying to impose democracy on other nations is not democratic at all. MDC-T represents the Karzais' of this world.
The West should now leave Zimbabwe alone to solve its problems. We do not want this western imposed democracy via its puppet MDC-T.
The disengagement of MDC-T from the government has shown all right thinking Zimbabweans that MDC-T is only there to serve western interests especially the foreign interests of the US and nothing else.
Life is still going on as usual in Zimbabwe despite Prime Minister Tsvangirai' disengagement and he should now be very aware that Zimbabweans will not come out to support his kind of action.
The big question on the minds of the majority Zimbabweans is whether PM Tsvangirai and his MDC-T party have any relevance in Zimbabwean politics.
Nobody has missed their absence from government. PM Tsvangirai is now busy digging his own grave to political oblivion.
Tendai Chambati (pseudonym)
Labels: AFGHANISTAN, HAMID KARZAI, MDC
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France criticizes US over Afghan policy
AFP.
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:29:00 +0000
FRENCH Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner hit out at the United States and Germany for failing to co-ordinate on Nato policy and branded Afghan President Hamid Karzai "corrupt", in remarks reported yesterday.
According to the New York Times, Kouchner complained that President Barack Obama’s US administration was trying to draw up a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan without consulting its European allies in Nato.
At the same briefing, according to the Financial Times, Kouchner told reporters that Europe had failed to agree its own policy on Afghanistan, partly because German soldiers "are not there to fight". "What is the goal? What is the road? And in the name of what?" Kouchner asked, according to the New York Times report.
"Where are the Americans? It begins to be a problem . . . We need to talk to each other as allies."
Asked about Nato policy, Kouchner said: "It’s not working at all."
"Even as Europeans, we are not talking to each other," he said, according to the Financial Times’ account of the meeting. "This is ridiculous. This is shameful because our soldiers are dying."
The French minister said any new strategy would involve working closely with newly re-appointed Afghan leader Karzai, despite concerns about ballot rigging and corruption at the heart of his regime.
"Karzai is corrupt, OK," he said, according to the Times’ report. "We have to legitimise him."
Karzai was named president for his second term on Monday after a chaotic election in which the first round was marred by massive fraud and the second round abandoned after his main opponent dropped out in disgust.
Nevertheless, Kouchner said the allies had no choice but to work with Karzai in order to get the mission in Afghanistan back on track and build a state capable of protecting its people and holding of the Taliban.
Kouchner’s spokesman Bernard Valero did not deny the frank comments had been made, but sought to put his criticism of allies in a broader context.
On Germany, whose forces in Afghanistan operate under tight rules which limit their ability to go on the offensive, he said: "Bernard Kouchner had the opportunity to talk on this subject with his German counterpart on Monday.
"They publicly reaffirmed their identical views and analyses. Each country sets its own rules of engagement. It’s a subject we talk about. These rules evolve to reinforce the coherence of our collective action." — AFP.
Labels: AFGHANISTAN, FRANCE, HAMID KARZAI, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Afghan election exposes US hypocrisy
Opinion by Tendai Hildegarde Manzvanzvike
Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:53:00 +0000
ZIMBABWE and Afghanistan are thousands and thousands of miles apart. What makes them suitable variables for comparative analysis? Why is the West — the United States and Britain in particular — interested in the two nation states? Why are their recent electoral processes of significance?
After the failure of the illegal regime change project in Zimbabwe, "legitimised" in part by the US sanctions law, the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001, the US and its allies continue to refuse to recognise a Zimbabwe Government in which both President Mugabe and Zanu-PF are major players, preferring their handpicked stooges to be in charge.
They have continued to denounce Zimbabwe’s 2008 harmonised elections and the subsequent Presidential run-off on the basis of alleged issues of governance, rule of law, human rights, etc.
However, the culmination of Afghanistan’s presidential poll has revealed the levels of the West’s hypocrisy and double standards, especially the US, when it comes to Zimbabwe.
The Afghan issue shows that every principle of democracy, which the West preaches about and would want to export to every part of the world, has been thrown into the dumpster because their national interests took precedence over the wishes and interests of the Afghan people.
For, on November 2, Afghanistan’s Independent Electoral Commission announced that there was a new president, and he was none other than former president Hamid Karzai.
The Western world, Washington in particular, was quick to embrace and endorse Karzai as the legitimate leader of Afghanistan.
This contrasted with the West’s reaction to Zimbabwe’s run-off that invited a full-blown diplomatic offensive in order to reject not only the electoral results, but also de-legitimise President Mugabe, in favour of the US, Britain and their allies.
Large sums of money were disbursed through civic organisations in order to change the colour of Zimbabwe’s politics, a desperate attempt meant to reverse the gains of independence, especially the land reform programme, and also derail Zimbabwe’s sovereignty.
People’s memories are still fresh with the attempts made by the Bush administration, through his Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, to influence Sadc and the African Union. There were several vain attempts to have Zimbabwe on the UN Security Council agenda.
In fact, last week’s abortive visit by UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Dr Norman Nowak, was a clear demonstration that until a government of the West’s choice is in power in Zimbabwe; they will not relent in their quest for regime change.
It is a goal and objective that they are pursuing with impunity, even if it means funding parallel government structures within the inclusive Government in pursuance of their interests.
However, on September 15, after monitoring the Afghan elections, former US president Jimmy Carter described the Afghan poll as "despicable".
Said Carter: "Hamid Karzai has stolen the election . . . Now the question is whether he gets away with it."
Carter’s comments followed allegations of massive fraud.
Well, on November 2, it became official. Karzai defied the odds, stole the election and got away with it. If observers had expected disgust and dismay, they were actually surprised to learn that the Obama administration was the first to endorse Karzai as the "new president who (was) the same as the old president".
However, the announcement was just a formality meant to make the farcical exercise look credible because on October 31, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was reported as saying that the Afghan poll would be legitimate even if Abdullah Abdullah boycotted.
Said the reports in the media: "Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, has said the Afghan elections would be legitimate even if Abdullah Abdullah boycotted the run-off poll, leaving President Hamid Karzai unopposed."
Clinton also said that a boycott of the run-off election which had been scheduled for November 7 by runner-up Abdullah would not de-legitimise the poll. This was after the Abdullah camp had refused to "participate in an election which (was) not transparent and fraud-free".
Long before Abdullah announced his withdrawal, both London and Washington were already anticipating that he would retire "graciously".
Clinton also said that the withdrawal of a candidate would not be "unprecedented" and would not affect the legitimacy of the vote.
"We see that happen in our own country where, for whatever combination of reasons, one of the candidates decides not to go forward. I don’t think it has anything to do with the legitimacy of the election."
So now people know where the withdrawals, boycotts and ‘‘disengagements’’ come from.
Washington was the first to endorse Karzai as Afghanistan’s new legitimate leader, after the Independent Electoral Commission had cancelled the run-off in the wake of Abdullah’s withdrawal.
In his congratulatory message, US President Barack Obama threw his weight behind Karzai and acknowledged that although the election was "messy", his administration was happy that the poll had finally been resolved according to the dictates of Afghan law, and expressed hope that there would be fresh efforts to tackle issues that were part of Karzai’s first term: rampant corruption. He also urged a new chapter in Afghan politics.
Meanwhile, other Nato members were talking about a coalition. The allies appeared to be talking about the same thing in a different way. Maybe it was because the likes of Gordon Brown, who spoke about a coalition, were not happy with the final outcome.
It is evident from this that the American experiment plays itself differently in various parts of the globe depending on whose side one is.
Karzai is a liability to his people, but he is an asset to Nato, and a speedy conclusion of this electoral issue was not necessarily meant for the Afghan people.
The Obama administration has also continued with Bush’s so-called war on terror. Instead of pulling troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama is actually looking at sending over 40 000 more soldiers to Afghanistan.
It appeared Karzai had to be endorsed fast since time is not on Uncle Sam’s side as winter is starting, and it will be very difficult to move troops in harsh weather conditions. This is despite the fact that the US administration has been advised that the Afghan war is unwinnable.
The Afghan war is also meant to boost Nato’s morale since the capitalist system is celebrating the demise of communism 20 years ago. This is despite the fact that the geo-political sphere is witnessing a resurgence of major political and economic players like China and Russia.
Labels: AFGHANISTAN, HILLARY CLINTON, NEOCOLONIALISM, SANCTIONS, ZDERA
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