The Grate Game

by pessimist

Hidden behind this week's Allawi dog-and-pony show presentation lies the growing mess that is Afghanistan. George Walkaway Bu$h, having abandoned Afghanistan to its current rudderless condition to rustle a little of Saddam's West Asian Texas Tea, now wants to have another 'Mission Accomplished' banner to hang in the background when his next stage-managed event occurs.

The 'Mission' to be 'Accomplished' is the (s)election of Hamid Karzai and the apparent legitimization of this US puppet in the eyes of the world, thus opening the door after years of effort to Unocal's Caspian Sea pipeline project.

But in order to accomplish this accomplishment, once again We The People get to go play soldier in George the Grate's Army of Multinational Corporate Invasion:

US to send more troops ahead of Afghan election

As parts of its efforts to boost security in Afghanistan, the United states has decided to send additional troops ahead of the landmark Oct. 9 presidential elections, a US military spokesman said Monday. "The United States is also deploying a force of more than 1,000 additional soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to areas in southern Afghanistan," Scott Nelson told journalists here. He said these troops would arrive at the end of September but he declined to give the exact date.

REMEMBER THESE WORDS:

However, he noted that "these troops would leave for Afghanistan within two to three months depending on the situation."

With the arrival of these contingents, the strength of the US army in Afghanistan would surpass 18,000. The strength of the US troops in the post-Taliban central Asian state has been constantly increasing since its deployment in late 2001 after the fall of Taliban.One US infantry company was deployed in Afghanistan under the flag of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). More than 20,000 US-led coalition troops plus 10,000-strong ISAF force in coordination of Afghan National Army and Police have been tasked to ensure security for the upcoming Afghan presidential polls. Spain and Italy sent two battalions to Afghanistan to help ensure security for the elections.

Taliban's regime was ousted under a US-led military campaign nearly three years ago but its die-hard remnants launched a guerilla-like war, in which hundreds including the rebels, US and Afghan troops have been killed over the past two years. The number of US troops in early 2002 was 11,700 but Taliban's continued insurgency forced Pentagon to beef up its military presence gradually. Taliban's leader Mullah Mohammad and his fundamentalist allies,who termed the forthcoming presidential poll a "US-made election," have vowed to derail it by any possible means.

All's Fair In Shove-In War

U.S. soldiers die in firefight

Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a firefight with insurgents yesterday, while an Afghan vice-president escaped a bomb attack on his convoy in the latest assassination attempt on a political leader ahead of key elections in October. Yesterday's violence followed a failed assassination attempt last week on U.S.-backed interim President Hamid Karzai.

In northern Afghanistan, Nayiamatullah Shahrani, one of the country's four vice-presidents, and a cabinet minister were en route to inspect a road project when their convoy struck a bomb in the Khanabad district of Kunduz province. The bomb damaged a car carrying Shahrani's bodyguards in the 20-vehicle convoy, police Chief Mutaleb Beg said.

Karzai aide escapes roadside blast

On Thursday, Karzai aborted his first major campaign event when suspected Taliban fighters fired a rocket at the U.S. military helicopter carrying him to a school opening in southeastern Afghanistan. No one was hurt in that attack, but it underscored the threat against Karzai and his U.S.-backed government in the face of a stubborn Taliban-led insurgency. More than 900 people, including 12 election workers, have died in political violence across Afghanistan so far this year.

Afghan vice president survives attack

A convoy carrying Vice President Nematullah Shahrani was attacked by remote-control explosives Monday in northern Afghanistan, just four days after President Hamid Karzai’s helicopter was rocketed as it attempted to land at a school in southern Afghanistan. The roadside bomb attack in Kunduz Province, in which Shahrani was unhurt but a driver was injured, came amid escalating threats from Islamic extremists and other groups who seek to sabotage the country’s first-ever presidential elections Oct. 9.

The attack coincided with the deaths of two U.S. soldiers in a gun battle with Islamic militants in Paktika Province, with reports that three Afghan soldiers were beheaded in Zabul Province, and with warnings from a renegade Afghan militia leader in Pakistan that Afghan refugees there will be at risk of attack if they vote.

Sort of like the kind of 'friendly advice' certain Florida law enforcement officials spread about in largely Democratic Black neighborhoods recently! That would be meddling with an election!

AFGHAN ELECTION: Candidates accuse U.S. of meddling

Since coming to power after the American-led invasion that overthrew the Taliban in 2001, the interim Afghan government largely has been beholden to the United States for its survival. The United States has deployed about 18,000 troops and is spending about $1 billion a year on reconstruction in the Central Asian nation. Karzai depends on the Americans for his safety: DynCorp, a Virginia-based company, has provided his bodyguards since November 2002 under a contract with the State Department. The president, who is usually holed up in his heavily fortified palace because of threats to his life, has made only one campaign trip outside Kabul since the election campaign began Sept. 7. That trip last Thursday was aborted when a rocket missed the U.S. military helicopter in which he was traveling.

Yup! Peace and freedom! Just Like George the Grate says it is!

There are 18 candidates in Afghanistan's presidential election. Such a divided field is expected to favor Karzai, whom Afghans hear and see frequently on state-controlled radio and television.

Run by FAUX?

Make 'em an offer that we can accept

Mohammed Mohaqiq says he was getting ready to make his run for the Afghan presidency when U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad dropped by his campaign office and proposed a deal. "He told me to drop out of the elections, but not in a way to put pressure," Mohaqiq said. "It was like a request." After the hour long meeting last month, the ethnic Hazara warlord said in an interview Tuesday, he wasn't satisfied with the rewards offered for quitting, which he did not detail.

If at first you don't succeed, ...

Mohaqiq was still determined to run for president - though, he said, the U.S. ambassador wouldn't give up trying to elbow him out of the race. "He left, and then called my most loyal men, and the most educated people in my party or campaign, to the presidential palace and told them to make me - or request me - to resign the nomination. And he told my men to ask me what I need in return." Mohaqiq said his senior aides met the U.S. ambassador at the presidential palace, without Karzai. The aides agreed to go back to their candidate for another try at persuading him to drop out of the race and throw his support behind the incumbent, Mohaqiq said.

Clouting it out of the park

Mohaqiq, who is running in the Oct. 9 election, is one of several candidates who maintain that the U.S. ambassador and his aides are pushing behind the scenes to ensure a convincing victory by the pro-American incumbent, President Hamid Karzai. The Americans deny doing so. "It is not only me," Mohaqiq said. "They have been doing the same thing with all candidates. That is why all people think that not only Khalilzad is like this, but the whole U.S. government is the same. They all want Karzai - and this election is just a show."

Naming the price

Mohaqiq commands strong loyalty among Hazaras and, if he chooses to step aside and endorse Karzai, probably could deliver a large bloc of votes. Mohaqiq said Tuesday that he might still do so - for the right deal. "I was very interested in taking part in the elections, but since many of my men were asking me to accept Khalilzad's ideas - and he was also telling me to do so - I didn't have much choice, and I was ready to agree," Mohaqiq said. The pressure was so intense that he agreed to quit under certain conditions, he added.

Mohaqiq said his demands, in the event of Karzai's victory, would be four Cabinet posts for his party, four governorships in the mainly Hazara provinces of central Afghanistan and a new road from Kabul into the region, informally known as Hazarajat. Mohaqiq said Khalilzad told him that the new road would not be a problem, but that his party would have to settle for two ministerial posts, two deputy spots in other ministries and one governorship. "But a good thing happened, and Karzai didn't agree with those terms," he added. "I don't know why."

Got 'em all talking!

The charges were repeated by several other candidates and their senior campaign staff in interviews here. They reflected anger over what many Afghans see as foreign interference that could undermine the shaky foundations of a democracy the United States promised to build. "This doesn't suit the representative of a nation that has helped us in the past," said Sayed Mustafa Sadat Ophyani, campaign manager for Younis Qanooni, Karzai's leading rival. "You have seen Afghanistan suffering for 25 years, from the Russians, then the Taliban. Why is the U.S. government now looking to make people of Afghanistan accept whatever the U.S. government says?" Qanooni said he and 13 other presidential candidates planned to meet Thursday in Kabul, the capital, to air complaints about Khalilzad's interference.

All The pRezdint's Man

Khalilzad has been nicknamed "the Viceroy" because the influence he wields over the Afghan government reminds some Afghans of the excesses of British colonialism. Some of Karzai's rivals think that the ambassador has taken on a new role: presidential campaign manager. In a statement released this week, Khalilzad denied the allegations that he and his staff were meddling in the election. "U.S. Embassy officials regularly keep in touch with all presidential candidates, and we listen to their ideas and proposals," he said in an e-mailed response from New York, where he was attending the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. "Officials from the U.S. mission support the elections process, not individuals," the statement added. "No U.S. official can or will endorse or campaign on behalf of any individual presidential candidate." Khalilzad also said he "has never asked a candidate to withdraw -- this is a decision for each candidate to make for him or herself."

This is not the first time Khalilzad has been accused of meddling in Afghan politics. Delegates to gatherings that named Karzai interim president in 2002 and ratified Afghanistan's new Constitution last December also accused the ambassador of interfering, even of paying delegates for their support. Khalilzad denies the claims.

Image IS Everything

The latest allegations are perhaps more serious because the Bush administration is portraying Afghanistan's presidential election as a democratic victory for the country's people, who had suffered under more than two decades of war and rule by warlords. President Bush has also touted Afghan democracy as a foreign policy success in his own election campaign.

Pre-Polling Pow-wow

Several leaders of the Northern Alliance, whose troops ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001 with the help of U.S. air power, met in Kabul on Friday to discuss what they said was Khalilzad's electoral arm-twisting, said Mohammed Qasem Mohseni, one of presidential candidate Abdul Latif Pedram's two running mates. Mohseni said the summit participants included Foreign Minister Abdullah, who goes by one name; former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who like Abdullah is a member of the Tajik minority; and Ustad Abdul Rasul Sayyaf who, like Karzai, is a Pushtun, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group.

"In this meeting, Ustad Sayyaf said that we have been under pressure for 25 days by the U.S. government, by Khalilzad, to make Younis Qanooni resign from the post of candidate for the presidency," Mohseni said. Qanooni is not expected to win the race. However, he could prevent Karzai from gaining more than 50 percent of the votes, forcing a runoff and prolonging a campaign that already has drawn violent attacks by Taliban and other insurgents. Qanooni's campaign aides said Khalilzad was trying to persuade the candidate to accept defeat before any ballots were counted and to agree to join Karzai in a coalition government after the vote.

Way of the Jackal

Khalilzad appears to be working to draw Rabbani, the former president, to Karzai's side, which would deepen the split in Qanooni's Northern Alliance. Qanooni supporters say that Rabbani, whose son-in-law is one of Karzai's running mates, visited Badakhshan province last month with Khalilzad and urged local militia commanders to back the incumbent. The former president insists that the discussions in his home province dealt only with reconstruction issues.

Thanks, But No Thanks

In a separate political development Monday that could dramatically affect the election, Karzai’s chief rival for the presidency, former education minister Yonus Qanooni, publicly rejected a proposal by Karzai that they join forces in a future government and said he would announce his campaign platform today.

Qanooni, 43, is viewed as Karzai’s only serious challenger. He had been part of Karzai’s cabinet since the government was formed under a U.N. plan in December 2001, but he decided to run against Karzai in July after Karzai dropped a close Qanooni ally, Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim, as a vice presidential running mate.

Goin' to the Mattresses

Karzai's chief challenger calls for transparent elections

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's archrival in the Oct. 9 national presidential election Mohammad Yunus Qanooni on Tuesday called for transparent elections. "The upcoming presidential elections in Afghanistan should be fair, transparent and free of interference," he told a group of his supporters and journalists while announcing his electoral platform. "We will not accept the result of a rigged and forged election," he added.

Rejecting the possibility of compromise with president Karzai, Qanooni said he would not enter any coalition with the incumbent in the next setup. However he confirmed having had talks with Karzai. "There were discussions between our friends and Karzai but the people who came to me opposed it," he disclosed.

The former Education Minister who enjoys the support of Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim, also a military leader of the former Northern Alliance and other resistance figures, Qanooni also repeated the possibility of boycotting balloting. "Our threat to boycott the presidential polls still is valid and we will use it as the last option," he stressed.

Karzai's 17 opponents, gathered under the umbrella of Shurai Humkari Kandidaha or "Council for Cooperation of Candidates" have for several times threatened to boycott the elections if he does not resign before Oct. 9 poll. The US-backed Afghan serving president dismissed the demand as unconstitutional saying he would stay in office until the new president is elected. Karzai, who earlier said he would welcome Qanooni's return in his side, according to observers would sweep the election in the post-war Afghanistan.

Karzai rules out coalition govt if he wins October elections

Washington, Sep 20 (PTI) Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has ruled out forming a coalition government in the trouble-torn country if he wins next month's elections. "I will not form a coalition government under any circumstances," Karzai, who is here to attend the UN General Assembly's annual session, told the Voice of America today. A coalition government had been regarded as inevitable because of the different ethnic groups in the country.

During his stay, Karzai will also meet US President Bush and Pakistan President Musharraf.

To figure out how to catch Osama in time for our own election?

All this for a country where this story can be headline news:

Afghanistan is one of the main suppliers of heroin and opium in the world. The Interior Ministry of Afghanistan said 5,849 pounds of opium, 371 pounds of heroin, 52 pounds of morphine, 8,951 pounds of hashish and 839 bottles of alcohol [taken in recent raids] were burned.

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