From one of W's talks today "No one forced [Afghans] to register by the millions,'' Bush added a moment later, "or stand in long lines at polling places." According to some mandatory voter registration was practiced in a particularly afghan way: Freedom is on the march...to burn your house down! It's only by the measure of the spectacular failure in Iraq that the less-spectacular, but no less important, dismal situation in Afghanistan looks decent. EDIT: I should add that its nitpicky of me to complain in the sense that a crappy election is better than nothing at all, I ws just citing it an example of the reality gap from which GWB suffers. EDIT EDIT: I should add that my edit predated basso's tirade, for the record.
only you, and your fellow travelers among the committed bush-haters, would attempt to find the cloud in the silver lining of afghan democracy. i'd suspected as much before, but this thread confirms it. you, and your kith, are pathetic excuses for human beings. too harsh? tell it to the women who three years ago were draped head-to-toe and had to ask their husbands permission to go outside unescorted, and are now voting. tell it to the 3 million refugees who have returned to afghanistan since the fall of the taliban. tell it to your own miserable consience that insists on finding fault in anything that could possibly reflected well on Bush.
Awwwwwwe, poor wittle basso, he's so mad that his "SHIFT" key must be bwoken. No capitaw wetters. except for "Bush", he always gets that courtesy from you, like God for most people, right...? If you want to talk about Afghan "democracy" in substantive terms, I'm all ears. I suggest you read the article in [bush hating, communist, vile rag] The Economist, linked to above, on the state of Afghan "democracy" which features actual reporting from actual people, not Keyboard Patriots like you, or empty political sloganeering by Top Gun wannabe warriors like Bush who have an incentive to lie. Oh, and by the way - how many of those women were voting -so that their houses weren't burnt down per the orders of their local warlord?
Puhleeeeze Are you telling me you ever gave a damn what happened to afghani people or any other central asian or middle eastern person pre-911? I didn't think so. You only care what happens to them as it affects your right wing nut case in the WH. Don't start acting like a defender of the down trodden,neglected and abused and think you can make it stick. You're attempt at being a "bleeding heart " do gooder is pathetic and hypocritical in the extreme.
It's not Bush's fault that Afghani (and middle eastern culture in general) is so authoritarian. That being said, your "Sam and his kith are pathetic human beings" bit was a tad reactionary, basso. Chill out. Bush's "freedom is on the march" does not reflet the reality of the situation, nor does any comment coming fromm the White House regarding his foreign policy decisions. It's to be expected that they'll put their spin on things this election year. Nobody, Sam included, said that the Afghani women are better off. this from plcmts17: is also too strong, but he's got a pont. It's so hilarious that republicans are now the bleeding-heart nation-building party, lol. It's really very fake IMO. The most important aspect of the humanitarian angle is for conservatives to twist it against anyone who dare criticize their president.
It's just remarkable how quickly basso has wedded himself to the myth that Afghanistan is a success story of nationbuilding, even if it had picture perfect elections as he posits/implies with no proof whatsoever. Judging by his emotional response, not only does he believe this but apparently it has been elevated to the level of a sacred cow. As I said, (and, as is made clear in the article from The Economist) the only measure by which its failure looks passable is that of the disaster of Iraq. In fact, the Afghan election, while better than none at all, displayed some alarming and distinctly undemocratic signs such as coercion, corruption & cronysim to an alarming degree; and it is not disputed that the country outside kabul is controlled by warlords, much like in the taliban era, and that the taliban themselves control substantial parts of the south and east where Al Qaeda affiliates still operate, nor that the country's only economic success story to date is the massive increase in heroin production that was probably the only worthwile thing suppressed by the Taliban. But as I said above, he chooses not to live in reality because it has been commanded....
Afghanistan is just sad. Here is a war that almost everyone in world supported and we don't finish the job. The taliban is still in control over large parts of the country and Osama is probably laughing at our incompetence.
