Report From Afghanistan

by tristero

RAWA – the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan – was one of the most vocal groups speaking out against the Taliban when no one was listening. Now, one of their members responds to the bromides being wholesaled by a Republican observer to the recent elections. Since those of us in the US have been fed news about Afghanistan that is entirely propaganda, these words probably will read as shrill, hysterical, and suspiciously “radical.” I wish they were, but they are not. I followed international news reports pretty closely of the first Loya Jirga after the Taliban fell, the one which first “elected” Karzai. It was a total sham. The US did everything possible to undermine the proceedings, not that they would have been much less corrupt if the US had stayed away. And RAWA’s description of the Northern Alliance, the drug farmers,the warlords, and the abuse of women’s rights also jibes with numerous reports that fly under the radar of mainstream American news. And for all the suffering the Afghans have endured since what even The Nation described as the “just war” of invasion, the US failed to achieve its prime objective: Bring Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Mullah Omar to justice.

The US started the fracas by not replacing religious tyranny with democracy, by not relying on the people, but rather by siding with the NA, the very worst enemies of our people. It goes without saying that Afghans will not see as their “liberators” those who drove the Taliban wolves through one door and unchained the rabid dogs of the NA through another. How a nation “sees as liberators” those who have blown to shred not the terrorists but thousands of innocents? How can simple Afghans “see Americans as liberators” while the “liberators” are going to woo their men in the government and in the parliament to approve the establishment of the US bases on our soil for decades, which obviously goes contrary to the independence of the country? Our people say that if Americans were their liberators, they should have not allowed about 200 criminals and arch enemies of democracy to pave their way to the parliament and provincial council. After four years the people see that the “liberators’” promises for them were all lies. And bear it in mind, Ms. Tebelius, that our ruined people have no doubt that those with the disgraceful stories of Abu Ghraib cannot be their “liberators”. Do we need to recite abuses of the “liberators” in Afghanistan?

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After 9/11 when the U.S. resorted to bomb our wounded country and take the lives of several thousands innocent civilians it helped the bloodthirsty NA seize power. The NA is comprised of those millionaire rapists busy in the opium trade under the very nose of the US troops. They are the people behind the insecurity, kidnappings, embezzlement of billions of dollars of foreign aids, injustices, anti-women constraints, covering up of the day light murders, and so on and so forth.

They include the likes of Dr Abdullah, Younis Qanooni, Zia Massud, Karim Khalili, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Mohaqiq, Sarwar Danish, Ms. Mosouda Jalal, Nematullah Shahrani, Ismail Khan, Ms. Sediqa Balkhi, Rasul Sayyaf, Ikram Masoomi, Rashid Dostum, Mullah Fazil Hadi Shinwari, Ms. Amena Afzali and others are stained with the blood of tens of thousands of Kabul residents. All of these ladies and gentlemen have the disgraceful scar of inhuman brutalities against our people in the blackest years of 1992-1996. They are “our” ministers, vice presidents and advisors to the president. Most of the Afghan ambassadors, governors, secretaries and other high ranking officials are also affiliated with NA mafia.

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It is not difficult to predict what will be the result of the “miracle” election about which you take comfort. A parliament filled with the most cruel, misogynist, anti-democracy, and reactionary fundamentalists headed by such disgusting drug traders as Sayyaf, Qanoni, Rabbani, Mohaqqiq, Pairam Qul, Hazrat Ali, and their likes. These U.S. backed religious fascists will never “spread democracy”, but rather try to “legitimate” and perpetuate their bloody domination on our people by sitting in the legislature as “lawmakers”.

Ms. Tebelius, anybody who wants to be regarded as a friend of the people of Afghanistan and not of the present regime, she/he has to expose the fundamentalists and their dangerous agenda and avoid to dance to the tune of the US government or its blue-eyed boys in Afghanistan. As Aldous Huxley wrote, “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human”. Please don’t play the role of a propagandist.

Moreover by naming the most scandalous elections in the world “the miracle of Afghanistan”, you have insulted millions of Afghans who didn’t vote for the murderers of their beloved ones. Can’t you feel how painful and disgusting it is to propagate such nonsense?

Update: Jen in comments linked to these beautiful pictures of Afghanistan. It certainly is one of the most photogenic countries in the world.