the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Oct 26, 2009
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has caved in to U.S. pressure and accepted a United Nations audit, which found that he had NOT won more than 50% of the vote in the presidential election two months ago. Thus he announced a run-off election on November 7 between him and his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
A run-off? The audit found that ONE-THIRD of Karzai’s votes were fake. If that’s true, then Karzai should not only be barred from running again, but stand trial for corruption!
And not only Karzai. The same U.N. audit indicts Abdullah for vote fraud too. Not surprisingly, the fraudulent vote counts that favor Abdullah came from Northern Afghanistan, where warlords allied with him are in charge–while the false counts favoring Karzai are from the South, where Karzai’s henchmen run the show!
The Obama administration and the media had trumpeted this election as an important step towards “democracy” in Afghanistan. How can “democracy” co-exist with a war that is devastating the country? What does a vote mean in a country controlled by warlords and invading U.S., British and French armies?
Even before this vote-counting scandal, everyone knew the election was a complete sham, nothing but a propaganda ploy–not intended for Afghan people, who know the political realities of their country all too well. No, this show is intended for domestic consumption in countries that have troops in Afghanistan–countries where popular opposition against the war has been growing steadily, along with the casualties of war.