Early estimates have it that between 30 and 35% of registered voters voted in Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections yesterday. This compares with about 75% of registered voters in last October’s presidential elections. Already, people have realized that very little will change by voting, and a lot are probably worrying that things could get worse if they vote for the wrong people. The political parties law, set up by Hamid Karzai under the guidance of former US ambassador Zalmay …

Afghanistan’s Parliamentary Elections

Published in Foreign Policy In Focus on September 16, 2005

by Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls

The United States has supposedly created new “democracies” in Afghanistan and Iraq, but these endeavors give democracy a bad name. Sure, the two countries have some ingredients of representative democracy, such as elected officials and a constitution. But both countries are still beset by grinding poverty, insurgencies, and entrenched militia forces that make the exercise of democracy either impractical or dangerous. Both countries …

Published on Commondreams.org on September 11, 2005

As I was driving to work last week I scanned my radio dial, listening to the mostly commercial radio stations on Los Angeles’ FM spectrum. Within a few seconds of listening to each station (English and Spanish language alike), it was clear that everyone was fundraising for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Everyone. Having seen the victims up close and personal on their TV screens and in their newspapers, in frenzied tones, desperate …

Acrimonious debate, ethnic divisions, and, particularly, the boycott of the voting process on 1 January by more than 40 percent of the delegates had sparked fears that agreement would not be reached. On 3 January, the UN’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, held closed-door negotiations with rival delegates in order to get the assembly back on track. A compromise agreement was reached, and the constitution was approved.
-Radio Free Europe, …

I’m sure some Americans will say that the $100,000 pledged by Afghanistan to help the US deal with Hurricane Katrina was a symbolic gesture of goodwill, or some other such platitude. I agree that it’s symbolic, but not of “the strength of the ties between our two peoples.”^[1] Don’t get me wrong. I have never experienced as much hospitality as I did during my visit to Afghanistan. Despite the tenuous livelihoods of most people there, I …

The federal government is slowly providing aid to the victims of the four day old tragedy in New Orleans, as if it was something in another country. Click2Houston.com carried a powerful piece on the desperation of New Orleans residents, combined with a scathing indictment of the feds by the city’s mayor:

Ray Nagin went on WWL Radio Thursday night to say the feds “don’t have a clue what’s going on.” He added, “Excuse my French — everybody in America …