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Ear to the Ground

Ex-U.N. Official Slams Afghan Elections

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Posted on Oct 4, 2009
U.S. Army / Staff Sgt. Ken Denny

Democracy has been slow to develop in Afghanistan, where violence and terror have disrupted polling stations and fraud has undermined election results.

A former U.N. diplomat has attacked the process and results of the recent Afghan elections, claiming that almost one in three votes cast for incumbent President Hamid Karzai was fraudulent and that the elections seriously weakened the democratic process in the eyes of the Afghan people. As a consequence, the Taliban is stronger, says Peter Galbraith, who was fired in a dispute over the voting.

The Guardian:

A former senior United Nations diplomat in Kabul has launched a scathing attack on the UN’s handling of Afghanistan’s disputed elections, claiming that almost one in three of the votes cast for president Hamid Karzai were fraudulent.

Writing in today’s Washington Post, Peter Galbraith, the former deputy head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, singled out his former boss Kai Eide for criticism, saying that he had deliberately downplayed the level of cheating in an election where in one region “10 times as many votes were recorded as voters actually cast”.

Galbraith, who was sacked last week after his disagreements with Eide about how to deal with electoral fraud became public, said the extraordinary level of fraud in the August vote “has handed the Taliban its greatest strategic victory in eight years of fighting the United States and its Afghan partners”.

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By tropicgirl, October 5 at 2:26 pm #

Galbrith has absolutely NOTHING to base this on.

At least they did some recounts which the US stopped illegally in Bush/Gore.

An occupation “fixes” everything don’tcha think? Its pretty stupid to be talking
about elections with that going on.

Report this

By Folktruther, October 4 at 5:47 pm #

the irony is, PSmith, that Galbrith is doing his best to defend US imperialism as best he can, but it is simply too corrupt to serve it best long term interes.

Report this

By PSmith, October 4 at 2:36 pm #

NEOCON PROPAGANDA

Thank you for shilling for the Neocons, Peter Galbraith.

CHICKEN-BRAINED - WH0, US?

NEOCON TALKING POINT
> “Afghan Election Scam a Terrifying Tragedy”

This is a Neocon talking point. So Peter Galbraith and Richard Holbrooke are annoyed that the Unocal mayor of Kabul may have helped himself win the US’s phony election. Richard Holbrooke the Neocon and backer of the El Salvador policy in, naturally, El Salvador, and now Iraq and Afghanistan—the murder, torture and genocide of tens of thousands of locals by US trained death squads until the locals sue for surrender. Richard Holbrooke who appears to want to replace US stooge Karzai with shiny new US stooge Abdullah Abdullah.

Fixed? Of course the election was fixed. Hello, it’s an _OCCUPATION_—think ‘the Germans fixing the election results in Vichy France’—not CIA death squads singing Kumbaya around their Afghan campfires.

The only point of interest is that the US’s fix seems to have been outsmarted by Karzai and good luck to him; as a US ally he has the life expectancy of a snowball in hell; or the Diem brothers in South Vietnam; or Benazir Bhutto who listened to the wrong US faction and ignored Cheney and his P20G team. Talk about Oops! That certainly didn’t end well for her.

But for the locals, this may actually be better; keep the same figurehead in charge whose followers have already looted the treasury—the new man would have to loot the treasury all over again - his supporters would demand it. Remember the last eight years here—and that fellow sucking his thumb in the corner, reading My Pet Goat—Hello _figurehead_; Hello _treasury_looted_—Oh, never mind.

Democracy? What colour is the sun on your planet? The US will not be be giving the Afghans democracy before hell freezes over. That is the line for the rubes. Sheesh.

MONTY PYTHON
Say what you like about the British, but they did give the world the Monty Python team - who single-handedly demolished most of the myths of British Empire. If only the US had the same.

Roger of the Raj. - Trouble with the Pathans? - Michael Palin -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dIw5aYLHJU

Will enough people work to spread the word so that the great ‘silent majority’ of US chicken-brains wake up and make a break for the wire? - Chicken Run -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KASNBIYt1a8#t=01m11s

“You’ll all be welcome in Virginia.” ER, Europe - the dastardly Colin Firth - Shakespeare in Love - @2:06 -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgjyk253WV8#t=02m06s

CHICKEN-BRAINED - WH0, US?

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