Afghanistan postpones parliamentary elections – latimes.com
The LAT lays out the basic facts around the postponement of parliamentary elections in Afghanistan. The Afghan press stresses two factors aboveall:
Afghanpaper.com writing in Dari Persian says it was told by concerned Afghan officials who declined to allow their names to be used that the four-month delay was almost entirely a result of pressure from the Obama administration and its Western allies, and was aimed at allowing UN election workers to allow for anti-fraud and anti-corruption measures to be taken so as to forestall a fiasco like the August presidential election, where substantial numbers of ballots were disqualified.
In addition, the electoral commission says it only has $70 mn. in the kitty to hold the parliamentary elections, which will cost $120. President Hamid Karzai is asking the international community for the other $50 mn., so presumably he had the Independent Electoral Commission make this announcement now so that he can go hat in hand to international donors at the Istanbul and London conferences. So the postponement is being positioned by Karzai and his people as a fundraising stunt (the political scientists would speak of the extraction of strategic rent).
But Afghanpaper.com suggests that the money shortfall is only a cover story, and if we took that position seriously it would indicate that the Obama team just does not want another election fiasco in Afghanistan in the build-up to the 2010 midterms.
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Nobody cares about 'elections' in Afghanistan. Between the bail outs for the banksters and the 'health care' debacle the Dems are going to get slaughtered in 2010.Then we will have three more years of stagnation in the real economy (main street). Come 2012 Obama will be viewed as a miserable failure and we'll be stuck with Tea-Partying Republican.
"the Dems are going to get slaughtered in 2010… Come 2012 Obama will be viewed as a miserable failure and we'll be stuck with Tea-Partying Republican."
And deservedly so, because of defeatist rhetoric on the left, a refusal to tap into populist sentiment by the DNC, and a total lack of commitment by the Democratic constituency.
Stop whining and get organized. Grow a pair. Show the Right that we're more than just a bunch of sniveling sycophantic wimps. Otherwise we deserve to live in a Fascist State.
God I am sick of this yellow-bellied crap. I am disgusted with the Dems playing nice with the obstructionist Right, even those within thier own party. I'm quitting the Democratic Party and joining the Greens.
As for the elections in Afghanistan, if Karzai were a serious candidate devoted to democracy he would have immediately fired all election officials involved in the last election and declared a date for the new one.
I'm not sure how you're interpreting Gaza as a nationalist issue.
Gaza doesn't need a two state solution to be relieved, it needs Israel or Egypt to stop enforcing the blockade.
If you think Israel or Egypt could only lift their blockade as part of progress towards, or after a two state solution is reached, that is a perception that is not shared by Bin Laden or likely anyone in the region.
In his fatwas, Bin Laden has always emphasized the suffering and killing of Muslims. In that vein, Bin Laden's mention of the suffering of Gaza is consistent with his previous messages.
Arnold Evans, dude, you've posted your comment to the wrong thread. This is the AFGHANISTAN ELECTIONS thread, dude. Word of advice: close your window on that bondage messageboard & give your attention to where you are posting on this blog.