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Saturday, October 09, 2004
Afghan elections
AllahPundit has a good post up on the Afghan elections, with pix. InstaPundit of course has pix and links too. The Commisar says, and I agree, that
[i]n October, 2001, when we started bombing the Taliban, that felt pretty good. But this is better. A lot better.
The Argus has lots of fabulous election pix — the antidote to videos of beheadings.
And special presidential envoy and U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad writes in a fact-filled article in the Wall Street Journal Online:
The best market test to understand how Afghans view the future is the fact that 3.3 million refugees have returned from Pakistan and Iran since 2002 — the largest voluntary repatriation in history. These refugees would not return unless they believed the quality of life for their families is better in Afghanistan.
Distressed people vote with their feet — they flee. Hopeful people also vote with their feet — they return. And when they've returned, they vote with ballots. (The absence of refugees flowing out of Iraq is a key reason why I refuse to accept the relentless mainstream media spin about how awful things are there.)
President Bush's remarks today get this exactly right:
We're getting close to voting time here in this country. But who's counting the days? (Laughter.) There was voting time elsewhere in this world today. A marvelous thing is happening in Afghanistan. Freedom is powerful. Think about a society in which young girls couldn't go to school and their mothers were whipped in the public square. And today, they're holding a presidential election. (Applause.)
The first person to vote in the presidential election, three years after the Taliban ruled that country with such barbarism, was a 19-year-old woman, an Afghan refugee, who fled her homeland during the civil war. Here's what she said: "I cannot explain my feelings, just how happy I am. I would never have thought I would be able to vote in this election." She's voting in this election because the United States of America believes that freedom is the Almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world. (Applause.) And today is an appropriate day for Americans to remember and thank the men and women of our Armed Forces who liberated Afghanistan. (Applause.)
Whether Dubya wins or loses, this is an accomplishment — for him, for his administration, for our military, for our country, for our allies (yes, even Germany and France) who've helped in Afghanistan. Whether you pray to Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, "Reason," or whomever — if you have anyone to whom you pray, ever — then today's a day to give a prayer of thanks.
Posted by Beldar at 04:21 PM in Global War on Terror, Sports | Permalink
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Comments
(1) Connecticut_Yankee made the following comment | Oct 9, 2004 8:40:31 PM | Permalink
Wonderful photos--thank you for the link. And while we're thanking our volunteer Armed Forces for their service in Afghanistan-- thought you'd like to know, if you haven't already seen it, that Dave Kopel mentioned this blog in his latest op-ed on CBS' peddling of the draft myth.
Money graf: "CBS never vouched for the veracity of the lies contained in the e-mails, but neither did CBS debunk the e-mails. Instead, CBS brought forward a mother who was supposedly a Bush supporter from Philadelphia, but who was fearful about the draft. What CBS didn't tell the viewers is that this mother is actually an anti-war activist who has been part of the campaign spreading phony draft rumors. For details, including CBS' weak defense of the story, see Beldar Blog for Sept. 29 (http://beldar.blogs.com/ beldarblog/), and the INDC Journal weblog for Sept. 30 ("INDC Interviews the CBS Evening News" at http://www.indcjournal.com/ archives/2004_09.php)."
Your blog should draw even more daily viewers now-- keep up the good work!
(2) Allan Yackey made the following comment | Oct 9, 2004 10:56:55 PM | Permalink
Sometimes the most significant junctures in human history pass unnoticed.
What was the press interested in on the day that IBM gave a contract to a college dropout named Bill Gates to do something with a comuter software program called a "Disk Operating System" for something called a "Personal Computer"?
Bonus point question:
If George W Bush thought that this idea had promise what would John Kerry have said about it?
(3) Ignore The Man Behind The Curtain made the following comment | Oct 15, 2004 11:33:50 AM | Permalink
I had the great privilege of spending much of 2002 in Afghanistan. The bulk of my unit then was stationed in Uzbekistan; I was one of several senior NCO’s tasked to roam pretty much at the Cmdr’s will, riding “shotgun” on the then nascent logistics lines then spread tenuously throughout the country. Like most of our “end use” customers in the SF community, I “commuted” to work via the USAF provided transit system most of the time—like when it worked, heh, heh.
Our unit’s concentrated (individual) effort was in the area of MES, but taskings took me from Herat in the far west, to Kandahar in the south, up thru Paktia to Orgun, Gardez, Khowst, etc and over to Bamien back, finally to Bagram (outside Kabul). Allowed the privilege of acting like a heavily armed tourist in many respects, it was a sobering experience, and as I may have indicated elsewheres in this format, this wasn’t my first rodeo (then).
Twelve days and a new year later, especially during May and June in 2003 when we were transitioning to “garrison” or “stabilization” ops outside of Baghdad, I was asked on more than one occasion by one of my “kids” about “these people.” I suppose that besides the expectation that “Dad” just knows, they knew a little about my “history” and were framing their questions and frustrations in terms of islamofacism in general and expected me to answer accordingly, and of course I obliged. As a self confirmed solipsist, I do try to be careful but probably came up short.
I’ve ALWAYS known that I’m not particularly good with what we NOW call the “nuanced response” game. There ARE distinct “cultural” differences at play between Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and perversions of the muslim “religion” have a definitive impact (from a soldier’s view) on the day to day contact one has with each of them.
I DO recall, however, pointedly describing the strong sense of “individualism” of the average Afghan I came in contact with, finding it somewhat odd that in physical appearance and in some key “cultural” contexts they were closer to Ghengis Khan’s Mongols (read Chinese) rather than Persian antecedents. I was equally amazed at the sheer primitiveness that their “isolated” tribalism inflicted on their society as a whole.
Published in mid June of that year, I clipped an AP wire story (I think) from the Stars and Stripes and posted it over my rack at “Home” base. The short version of it was that a 14-16 yoa girl from one village was seen walking unescorted too close to a young boy from a neighboring one (and hence clan). The village/tribal elders met and ultimately decided that “just” punishment was to put the girl in a tent and allow the neighboring men of her family to enter and continually rape her, while the rest stood outside the tent listening and cheering. This was in Pakistan, by the way, but in THAT area.
I do recall asking myself WTF are we doing here every time I returned from the south, and reading that article every time I rucked up for a return trip (which was about every fifth week or so) after that.
Time and battle have again made me circumspect in my outlook as to my role in this war. It is gratifying in the extreme to see the pictures posted throughout this medium, knowing that perhaps, I played an infinitesimal part in the results there recently. I pulled out one of my discs to compare the images.
In 2002, the faces of those people who mobbed us on arrival reflected awe and intense hope, if not a little uncertainty. Those I see today mirror determination. Both are marked with jubilation and expectation, and the latter are not necessarily divorced from the reasons and concerns of the former.
And my point here, (badly as I am trying to make it) is …and here TOO, it may yet come to pass. These Arabs just might get hold of their ass monkey brethren by the collective throat, and just maybe, they might just pull off a similar feat.
Like Bill Cosby, I’m just old and tired; I think I’ll go find a few of my “kids” and thank them for allowing an old relic like me to continue to ‘hang strap’ in their presence.
Choose…Domesticate or Eradicate
(as in we’re here to domesticate them if we can, or Eradicate them if we must) Do so wisely, but swiftly or the choice will be made for you.
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