Something Is Rotten In The State Of Afghanistan

I read these news articles, and I can't help but be suspicious. I don't know if the CIA is involved, or if the Afghani's are just fucking up their own politics, but I guarantee you there's more going on than meets the eye. My instincts are that something sinister either just went down, or is about to go down. Mind you, this is all based on a handful of news and wikipedia articles, and the conclusions it draws are just idle speculation, but here's the situation as it appears to me...

Hamid Karzai was chosen by "prominent Afghan political figures" to lead the provisional government there in 2001, a 6-month term. This was followed by a 2-year appointment to the Presidency by the Loya Jirga, the council of tribal chiefs. In 2004 he was elected President in an actual election. Then, in 2008 he got elected again... but this time the U.N. inspectors discovered that nearly a third of his votes were fraudulent, and he didn't actually have a majority.

At this point, John Kerry flies to Afghanistan, and convinces Hamid Karzai to allow a new run-off election. It would be just Karzai and the next highest vote-getter, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. Now, that seems a reasonable thing to do if your problem is that no single candidate got the majority of votes. But that's not the problem. The problem is that Karzai, as sitting President with power over the election process, engaged in voter fraud.

A second election would have one of two results, obviously, depending on whether or not Karzai had control of the election process again.

• If he did, then he'd likely fudge the numbers again and declare himself the winner.
• If he didn't have control, or chose not to cheat, then he would lose. Because the majority of people didn't vote for him in the first place, and those people now yet have another reason to vote for his opposition - because Karzai is now, according to the U.N. inspectors, a known liar and cheater.

Either Karzai would win, and everyone would know it's because he cheated and lied again, or else he'd lose by a huge overwhelming majority. If you're a powerful foreign government that has found Karzai to be easy to work with, this could be quite the dilemma. Either your man will lose, or he'll win and you'll have to acknowledge you're working with a criminal who subverts the democratic process.

So, instead, 6 days before the run-off election, his opposition suddenly drops out of the race. Instead of transferring his slot to the next candidate down on the list, Karzai's election board decides the only way to proceed is to not proceed at all. The run-off is canceled, and Karzai is declared the winner.

Conveniently, this saves face for his international allies, who now have plausible deniability about Karzai's direct involvement in election-rigging. "Oh, that was just zealous supporters rigging things. He'd told them not to do it, that there'd be stiff punishments for subverting the will of the people. That second election was going to be legit. It's not his fault that the only opposition conceded. I mean if Gore can concede to Bush, then why can't Abdullah concede to Karzai?" Etc. And thus is a major scandal poo-poo-ed and hand-waved away.

The question that bothers me regards the secret backstory of all this. Did Abdullah concede because:

• of a bribe? This would be the happiest scenario. It's also unlikely, since Abdullah still made parting shot comments at Karzai, calling attention to his corruption and election-rigging.
• of threats or danger? Fearing for his life if he continued to resist the President who was desperate to retain power? Again, that he called out Karzai's corruption in his concession speech makes this unlikely, but doesn't completely rule it out.
• of plans to rebel? I don't know much about Abdullah. He's a medical doctor, but he was also a military adviser to one of the leaders of the revolution against the soviets, and then fought against the Taliban. He's comfortable in a western suit, and has visited the Pentagon. That paints a complicated portrait, but at least suggests he's unlikely to go help the Taliban.

A few of the wikipedia articles did point me to some interesting breadcrumbs. Abdullah had been military advisor to Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was the leader of the anti-Taliban resistance prior to 9/11. On September 9th, 2001, Massoud was assassinated. The assassins had stolen Belgian passports, claimed to have been born in Morocco, but were really citizens of Tunisia. As part of their cover as photojournalists, they carried a fancy camera that had been stolen in France. Regardless of what country actually financed, trained, and employed them, the assassins entered Afghanistan from the Pakistan border, and were helped in the getting through Northern Alliance security by one Ustad Abdul Rabi Rasul Sayyaf. Sayyaf was part of the Northern Alliance, but also has connections to Pakistan and has political views that are very Taliban-esque. He struck a deal with Karzai, so Wikipedia tells me, to get one of his pawns declared Chief Justice of the Afghani Supreme Court. The details of the appointment violated the Afghani Constitution. The Justice then reinstituted the Taliban practice of organizing squads whose job it is to discourage and punish "un-Islamic behavior" in women.

In case that's all too dense, I'll pluck out the relevant threads:

• This election-rigging is not the first time Karzai has violated the Constitution of Afghanistan, and at least one such violation has lead to human rights abuses.
  
• Karzai has political ties with a extremist who's suspected of killing Abdullah's good friend.
• Had that friend not been assassinated two days before 9/11, the post-Taliban government in Afghanistan would have been very different.
  

It ain't pretty. From where I'm sitting, it also kinda looks like our government is propping Karzai up, just like it did with the Shah of Iran. You'll recall how well that went over.

But, you know, perhaps it's no worse than what happened here in 2004.

Vote Jake.