Dispatch From Afghanistan

[seemslikeadream]

The Problems of Introducing Alien Concepts Like Democracy


There are so many agencies operating here, and so much cloak and dagger posturing, that it is quite easy for such a character to act with impunity. Nobody will ask a Westerner in fatigues who is carrying a machine gun what he is up to on the streets of Kabul. Even ISAF didn't check up on Idema for weeks. The Afghan authorities rarely, if ever, question the actions of the international forces here, so a man who talks the talk can bluff his way almost anywhere. Idema traveled, heavily armed, all over the city, snatching "suspects" and bringing them back to his rented house for questioning. It was only when a member of ISAF grew suspicious that the Afghan police swooped down and arrested him. He and the other two Americans arrested with him now face up to 20 years in an Afghan jail.

I visited one of the people Idema had detained, Mohammed Hanif, a 19-year-old mechanic who was doing masonry work at a house Idema raided. He says he was kept hooded, soaked with water, and not fed for a week. He was then inexplicably released by Idema and threatened with arrest if he told anyone. He looked shaken, sitting in his shop by the banks of the waterless Kabul River. He told me that "Jack," as he knew Idema, should be treated the way he had treated his prisoners. The experience had made Mohammed afraid of Americans. The story, too murky to explain away to the Afghan people, has been taken as a huge violation of trust at the worst possible moment.


Women in burqas hold up their voter registration cards

Trying to figure out the truth of a story through the web of agendas in Afghanistan is nearly impossible. I visited a voter registration site, one of hundreds that have been set up around the country in a massive effort to register the country's 10.5 million eligible voters. It is historic and unprecedented, trying to shift a tribal system to a democratic one, and I felt like I was witnessing an extraordinary display of civic virtue. The walls of the center were festooned with cartoon posters showing men and women balanced on a scale, women lining up to vote, various ethnic groups smiling broadly as they dropped their ballots into locked boxes. A line of women in burqas waited to have Polaroids snapped for their voter ID cards, and I left the room while they lifted the blue, pleated cloth to have their photographs taken, many for the first time. Some refused to be photographed, so they were issued blank ID cards with thumbprints. It was deeply moving, despite the burqas, to see all these women preparing to vote for the first time in their lives.


Later, I heard some details that complicated matters. The presidential elections have already been delayed by four months. The parliamentary elections, commonly expected to cause factional bloodshed across the country, have been delayed even further. The central government, which claims to have registered 7 million voters, is widely believed to be inflating those figures. Last month, three female voter registration workers were killed by a bomb near Jalalabad. Many women, especially in rural districts, are not allowed to leave their compounds, and a debate has arisen about whether their husbands will be permitted to cast their votes for them. There is no mechanism to prevent people from registering multiple times at different sites, and warlords/aspiring politicians (who need to collect 10,000 registration cards to be included on the ballot) are reported to be purchasing registration cards for 10 afghanis each, about 20 cents.
more
http://slate.msn.com/id/2104119/entry/2104186/

[seemslikeadream]

1. For a second please hold me

http://www.bushflash.com/year.html WATCH THIS VIDEO only takes 3 minutes

Enveloped in a sentiment,
A sound that rushes over me.
Engage an impulse to pretend
I have a faith as pure.
Not forgetting what it means to dream.
Indulging everything.
Entertaining thoughts that I've the strength
Of those I yearn to be.
Cheers and tribute greet the saviours.
Reckless thoughts survive.
Anachronistic and impulsive.

And what will happen?
Will I dream?
I am too scared to close my eyes.
For a second please hold me.
None can change in me these things that I believe.
But I don't know what happens now.
I am too scared to close my eyes.

Legion
Vnv Nation

[emad]

2. Couldn't get link to work...

Problems?

[seemslikeadream]

3. It just worked for me

try it again
Darkangel



In your dream you see me clear
I have no restraint, no fear
Powerless I watched from faces I'd assumed.
My purpose set. My will defined.
Caress the air.
Embrace the skies.
Escape the sorrow and restraint of mortal cities.

Give me time I will be clear.
Given time you'll understand
What posesses me to right what you have suffered.
I'm in this mood because of scorn.
I'm in a mood for total war.
To the darkened skies once more and ever onward.

So many years I stood among
the thoughts and tears of those I served.
Among my own I was alone through my own doing.
All the years I walked unknown behind the faces I assumed.
Powerless to clear your mind of what you'd suffered.

They fall again.
They fall again.

Give me time I will be clear.
Given time you'll understand
What posesses me to right what you have suffered.
I'm in this mood because of scorn.
I'm in a mood for total war.
To the darkened skies once more and ever onward.
There is no faith in which to hide.
Even truth is filled with lies.
Doubting angels fall to walk among the living.
I'm in this mood because of scorn.
I'm in a mood for total war.
To the darkened skies once more and ever onward.

I'd only come here seeking peace.
I'd only come here seeking me.

It seems I came to leave.

© VNV Nation
http://www.vnvnation.com/index.htm

[shadu]

7. very cool music

[Jo March]

4. Those children...

I can't get the pictures of those dead children wrapped in their white shrouds out of my mind.

George Bush should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch that.

I feel so helpless in the face of such evil.

[seemslikeadream]

5. arnheim, you hold the truth

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."

therefore you are not helpless

:hi:

[Jo March]

8. Yes but raising my fist to the sky

isn't doing much to stop the bloodshed.

Bush is not a Christian. Christians everywhere shouldn't be fooled by this nutcase.

[shadu]

6. As grim as that is, they could have made it much more so

May God Damn your eternal soul to hell, Mr. Bush!