Afghanistan holds today, 18 September, its second parliamentary elections since 2001. These elections constitute an important and visible sign of Afghan sovereignty. I would like to send a message of support to the Afghan people, candidates, voters and all relevant officials, for their commitment to shape the future of their country.
The EU acknowledges the progress that the new leadership of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission(IEC) has made in the conduct of electoral preparations, including the adherence to
established timelines under challenging circumstances. I encourage the IEC to continue its work in a transparent and impartial manner and urge the IEC to follow all established procedures.
The EU acknowledges that the elections will take place in a very challenging security environment. I deplore the electoral violence and the loss of life in the course of the pre-electoral period. I also
commend the positive development in the increase of female registered candidates for this year's elections.
Citizens who want the government out of their wallets, their bedrooms, their businesses, and their lives must vote for venitists. Only venitists try to minimize government and maximize individual liberty. Basil Venitis says it's not a shame to lose an election, but it's a shame to compromise your values in order to win an election. Obsession with polls is a sign of weak soul. The two major parties are willing to say anything and promise everything in order to win an election. Of course, after the election most promises are conveniently forgotten.
Venitis points out kleptocrats promote phobias and bogeys in order to take the attention of voters away from taxation and kleptocracy, and to have a fantastic opportunity to present themselves as Moses who leads the people to salvation! Rabblerousers make a living out of convincing people that the sky is falling. The essence of statesmanship in a venitist society is just the opposite, helping people understand the facts and proposing real solutions to real problems. You have to know when to stop doing something. Hitler did not know. Mousolini did not know. Eurokleptocrats do not know when to stop looting the producers and fooling all citizens. They do not understand that the parasites and the host die together.
Venitis, twitter.com/Venitis, asserts Pakistan is playing a double game of astonishing magnitude in Afghanistan. Terrorist Pakistan is actively collaborating with the Taliban in Afghanistan while accepting U.S. aid! Pakistan is providing Taliban and global terrorists with a haven, and the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI is training insurgents and supplying them with weapons. ISI was even involved in a plot to assassinate Karzai. ISI is not only aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan, but is actually represented in the Taliban's governing apparatus.
Venitis muses that what many Americans bizarrely consider national defense is actually an aggressive and enduring offense, and yet they are always surprised when other nations get offended. In Afghanistan, NATO forces are trying to fight a shadowy enemy that does not wear uniforms, while being told to protect corrupt governments. It is shameful to allow more of our soldiers to die so that our leaders can avoid admitting mistakes.
Those inclined to give credence to the siren song of a Pax Americana must confront reality. Though America may be the world's mightiest nation, it cannot achieve the grandiose goals of the interventionists. If the goal of universal peace under American domination is unrealizable, the attempt to achieve it has imposed heavy costs. Most obviously, the wars undertaken to secure this chimerical goal have caused death, destruction, and resentment against the United States by the people subjected to American assault.
Afghan president Hamid Karzai bites the hand that feeds him, doing his best to irritate the Western countries which keep him in power. Wily Karzai shows his independence, in order to survive the post-NATO era. Karzai is a drug addict, and his brother, Ahmad Wali, is the leading drug lord of Afghanistan, the greatest opium producer in the world. 95% of the opiates originate in Afghanistan! One of Afghanistan's top ministers took a $30 million bribe to give a special deal to a Chinese mining company. Everything seems to be for sale: public offices, access to government services, even a person's freedom.
Many Afghanokleptocrats have purchased expensive villas in Dubai. These include Hamid Karzai, brothers and cousins of Karzai, Karzai's past and present vice presidents and many kith and kin of Mohammad Qasim Fahim, one of the country's two current vice presidents. Asking prices for the stylish Greacoroman houses built along the beaches of the man-made island Palm Jumeirah start at three million euros. This is money robbed from the American and European aid, from the hard-earned income of Westerners.
A cabal of Afghan hustlers who have milked connections to high government officials to earn illicit fortunes have turned Afghanistan's capital into a vampire city, in which the elite live off of drug or Western money. No Afghan politician could long survive without taking care of his family and friends.
It will take a miracle to win the war against the insurgents and restore a viable peace in Afghanistan with the existing Afghan leadership and government. The country lacks the basic prerequisites for a sustainable peace, a legitimate competent and independent government and leadership.
U.S. government handouts have enabled the Afghan government to increase repression of the Afghan people. The U.S. government has poured billions of dollars into building up the Afghan army. But Afghan soldiers are often a pox on their countrymen. Afghan government troops and police in many parts of the southeast region, and parts of Kabul itself, are invading private homes, usually at night, and robbing and assaulting civilians. By force or by ruse, soldiers and police gain entry into homes and hold people hostage for hours, terrorizing them with weapons, stealing their valuables, and sometimes raping women and girls. On the roads and at proliferating official and unofficial checkpoints, local soldiers and police extort money from civilians under the threat of beating or arrest.
Our battle in Afghanistan resembles the battle against the many-headed Hydra monster in Greek mythology. According to Former General Stanley McChrystal's so-called insurgent math, for every insurgent killed, ten more insurgents are created by the collateral damage to civilians. Every coalition attack leads to six retaliatory attacks against our troops within the following six weeks,. These retaliatory attacks must then be acted on by our troops, leading to still more attacks, and so it goes. Violence begets more violence. Eventually more and more Afghanis will view American troops with hostility and seek revenge for the death of a loved one. Meanwhile, we are bleeding ourselves dry, militarily and economically.
Our war against the Taliban is going about as well as our war on drugs, or our war on poverty, or any of our government's wars; they all tend to create more of the thing they purport to eradicate, thereby dodging any excuse to draw down and come to an end. It is hard to imagine ever winning anything this way.
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