Afghanistan: Deeper Into the Mire(Almost as Many Troops in Afghanistan as in Iraq)

Source: Workers' Liberty

There are now almost as many US and allied troops in Afghanistan as there are in Iraq — 100,000 in Afghanistan, including 62,000 Americans, and 120,000 in Iraq.

For the present those troops in Afghanistan have one overriding immediate aim: to try to make Afghanistan’s presidential election on 20 August look plausible.

That it should actually be plausible is more or less ruled out. In a country dominated by warlordism and traditional hierarchical allegiances, votes measure not democracy but who is best at doing deals with power-brokers.

But 2004’s presidential election looked plausible, with a 70% turnout. The 2005 parliamentary election looked passable, with 55%.

Ahmed Rashid, author of several relevant books — Taliban, Descent Into Chaos, and Jihad — says in a recent interview:

“This election has sucked up all of the energy of the Obama administration... There’s a total preoccupation by the US military and the civilian side to make sure that these elections go through... It will suck up the oxygen from development and from reconstruction”.

The Americans, says Rashid, fear “a drastically low turnout of under 30 percent. If it’s under 30 percent, there will be appeals by almost everyone to say that this is not a legitimate election, and that we’ll need another election”.

They also fear a result on the first round that is close enough to require a second-round run-off. “If there is a run-off, you will have this critical six to eight weeks in which there will be accusations, charges, countercharges, a vacuum of leadership. It will be a very tricky political situation. Anything could happen in that period. There could be assassinations and the Taliban will step up their campaign. Internally, there could be a constitutional deadlock”.

The US government is open about its low opinion of the sitting president, Hamid Karzai, but desperately hopes that he wins a clear victory with a plausible vote.

Why might the vote slump from 70% in 2004 to below 30% now? Rashid says that it is because of increased Taliban power.

more: http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/08/29/afghanistan-deeper-mire