{"id":16382,"date":"2021-08-27T10:11:29","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T14:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=16382"},"modified":"2024-09-11T15:49:13","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T19:49:13","slug":"afghanistan-and-the-sham-of-democracy-promotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/27\/afghanistan-and-the-sham-of-democracy-promotion\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan and the Sham of Democracy Promotion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Libertarian Institute, August 27, 2021<\/p>\n

Afghanistan and the Sham of Democracy Promotion<\/a><\/h2>\n

by James Bovard<\/p>\n

Americans finally recognize the military lies that pervaded the success claims of the 20-year war in Afghanistan.\u00a0 But democracy promotion was an even bigger sham. Afghanistan was Exhibit A for the triumphal crusade to spread freedom and democracy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After the U.S. invasion in 2001, the U.S. government spent more than $600 million to support elections and democratic procedures in Afghanistan (part of the $143 billion<\/a> the U.S. spent there for relief and reconstruction). Washington bragging points were always more important than Afghan preferences. \u201cIn 2002 and 2003, when Afghan tribal councils gathered to write a new constitution, the U.S. government gave [bribes] to delegates who supported Washington\u2019s preferred stance on human rights and women\u2019s rights,\u201d the Washington Post<\/em> reported in 2019. President George W. Bush boasted in 2004: \u201cAfghanistan has now got a constitution which talks about freedom of religion and talks about women\u2019s rights<\/a>\u2026Democracy is flourishing.\u201d Though Bush\u2019s reelection campaign speeches were larded with such lines, women in many parts of Afghanistan continued to be oppressed even worse than characters in American country music songs. One international aid worker commented that during the Taliban era \u201cif a woman went to market and showed an inch of flesh she would have been flogged\u2014now she\u2019s raped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamid Karzai, the slick operator who the Bush administration installed to rule Afghanistan after 9\/11, won a rigged 2004<\/a> presidential election. Karzai approved a law that entitled a husband to starve his wife<\/a> if she refused his sexual demands.<\/p>\n

During his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama labeled the conflict in Afghanistan the \u201cright war.\u201d By the time Obama took office, the Taliban were vigorously reviving and Afghans were shunning the corrupt puppet regime the U.S. installed in 2002.<\/p>\n

President Obama justified his 2009 troop surge in Afghanistan to bolster its democracy. When Obama spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in August 2009, he boasted that \u201cour troops are helping to secure polling places<\/a> for this week\u2019s election so that Afghans can choose the future that they want.\u201d In reality, Obama effectively sent American soldiers to serve as bodyguards for Karzai\u2019s minions to steal the election. At first glance, Karzai won a narrow victory. But two weeks after the election, the New York Times<\/em> reported that Karzai\u2019s operatives set up as many as 800 fictitious polling sites \u201cwhere no one voted<\/a> but where hundreds of thousands of ballots were still recorded toward the president\u2019s re-election.\u201d In some Afghan provinces, pro-Karzai ballots outnumbered actual voters by tenfold. Peter Galbraith, a senior United Nations official in Afghanistan, was fired after he estimated that a third of Karzai\u2019s votes were bogus. Galbraith wrote, \u201cNo amount of spin can obscure the fact that we spent upwards of $200 million on an election that has been a total fiasco<\/a>\u201d which \u201chanded the Taliban its greatest strategic victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the shenanigans, the Obama administration praised Karzai as if he had won fair and square. The Obama administration told Congress that the decision to send far more U.S. troops to Afghanistan depended on the Afghan government\u2019s \u201cability to hold credible elections<\/a>,\u201d among other tests. After the 2009 Afghan election turned into a sham, Obama decided it was \u201cclose enough for government work\u201d to democracy. Thanks to Obama\u2019s surge, 1,400 American soldiers died in part to propagate the mirage of Afghan democracy.<\/p>\n

Afghan officials conspired for more than 15 years to both multiply and ignore election fraud. As early as 2009, U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that the result was that the Afghan government\u2019s legitimacy \u201cis, at best, in question right<\/a> now and, at worst, doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d An analysis by the U.S. Agency for International Development of the 2014 Afghan election noted that \u201cseveral prominent election officials associated with fraud during past elections were promoted or given ministerial<\/a> appointments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind closed door, D.C. poohbahs admitted their Afghan charade. At a confidential 2015 National Security Council meeting, President Obama admitted that the U.S. would never \u201ctransform Afghanistan into a semblance<\/a> of a democracy able to defend itself,\u201d the New York Times <\/em>reported. But that didn\u2019t deter Obama from publicly bragging the following year that U.S. troops and diplomats had helped Afghanistan \u201cestablish<\/a> a democratic government.\u201d<\/p>\n

To buttress the new democracy, the U.S. government spent a billion dollars to promote the \u201crule of law\u201d and justice reform in Afghanistan. But such programs were as wasteful as the rest of the U.S. dollar deluge on that nation. As the Christian Science Monitor<\/em> noted in mid-2010, the Obama administration\u2019s Agency for International Development \u201ccreated an atmosphere of frantic urgency about the \u2018burn rate\u2019\u2014a measure of how quickly money is spent. Emphasis gets put on spending fast to make room for the next batch from Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

One American contractor received $35 million to promote the rule of law in Afghanistan in part by distributing kites and comic books to kids. The New York Times<\/em> reported that the contractor \u201carranged an event to hand out kites and comic books to children. The kites were festooned with slogans about gender equality and rule of law that most of the attendees could not read. Police officers guarding the event stole many of the kites, beating some of the children, while fathers snatched kites from their girls to give to the boys.\u201d A 2015 report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report found that the Afghan \u201crule of law\u201d spending had been a dismal failure.<\/p>\n

Afghan democracy was a bigger fraud than almost anyone wanted in D.C. would admit<\/strong>. One of the best demolitions can be found in a February 2021 report<\/a>, \u201cElections: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan,\u201d produced by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). After more than 15 years of pro-democracy \u201cassistance,\u201d Afghanistan\u2019s 2019 presidential election was \u201cthe most corrupt<\/a> the country had ever held,\u201d according to expert consulted by SIGAR.<\/p>\n

U.S. tax dollars poured into the coffers of Afghanistan\u2019s Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) to safeguard voting. Alas\u2014that agency was a prime source of the most brazen vote stealing. ECC bosses were careful not to hire almost anyone with electoral experience since such folks might raise troubling questions. A former top ECC official told SIGAR that \u201cone criterion for chief electoral officer applicants in 2018 was how well the candidates were dressed<\/a>. He said this category was used as a pretext to reduce the scores of less pliable candidates.\u201d It is unknown whether this villainy character test was inspired by Washington\u2019s K Street lobbyists.<\/p>\n

Afghan elections were institutionalized racketeering because the rules were always in flux. SIGAR noted, \u201cOnly one of the country\u2019s election laws has ever been passed by parliament; the rest were presidential decrees<\/a> that were never referred to the parliament for consideration.\u201d The SIGAR report quoted election experts: \u201cThe likelihood of a credible election is inversely proportional to the degree to which the ruling regime directly controls the election management body.\u201d Afghan voting records were a total mess, making it easy for politicians to fabricate claims about the \u201cwill of the people.\u201d SIGAR concluded, \u201cAfghanistan\u2019s national voter registry and the voter registration process are exceptionally vulnerable to manipulation<\/a> and mismanagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is tricky to build a viable democracy when elected officials receive a license to steal.<\/strong> After noting the hefty bribes that politicians pay to election officials, SIGAR explained: \u201cOne reason candidates may be willing to pay such high prices<\/a> for seats in parliament is to protect ill-gotten fortunes\u2026By becoming members of parliament, they can gain access to new sources of illicit revenue and immunity from prosecution.\u201d That parliament was the last place on earth to seek support for honest elections.<\/p>\n

Afghan experiences also offer lessons for Americans confounded by disputes regarding the 2020 U.S. election, including the controversies surrounding computer voting. As one election expert told SIGAR, \u201cThere is no difference between stuffing 100 ballots and pressing a button on an electronic voting machine<\/a> 100 times.\u201d Afghan President Ashraf Ghani decreed that the 2019 election must rely on electronic voting. But SIGAR noted that electronic voting \u201cdid not reduce fraud overall; it just displaced it to other parts of the electoral cycle.\u201d Confidence in Afghan electronic voting was not assisted by the secrecy surrounding the software and equipment. After the 2019 presidential election, Afghanistan\u2019s Independent Election Commission declared that it could not \u201cshare information\u201d about how votes were being reconciled because \u201cthe contractor, Dermalog, controlled that<\/a> process.\u201d SIGAR quoted experts who warned that \u201cbecause governments often control electoral commissions and the procurement of election technology, they are well placed to use it to commit fraud.\u201d SIGAR ruefully noted, \u201cThe true purpose of adopting<\/a> election technologies may not be to actually reduce fraud, but to create the illusion of doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afghan debacles are a reminder that there is no \u201cguardian angel of democracy.\u201d Politicians permitting citizens to vote does not assure that election results will receive even a whiff of legitimacy. Once fraud or suspicions of fraud reach a certain level, any election winners will be suspected scoundrels. A U.S. Army colonel who deployed several times to Afghanistan told SIGAR that as early as 2006, the Afghan government had \u201cself-organized into a kleptocracy<\/a>.\u201d Officials who were stealing everything else never hesitated to steal votes.<\/p>\n

Biden, like Obama and George W. Bush, is seeking to make \u201cdemocracy promotion\u201d a redeeming theme for his presidency. But no Washington pundit, politician, or \u201cexpert\u201d who vouched for Afghan democracy should ever be trusted again. The U.S. government will continue meddling in foreign elections as long as American politicians think they can gain influence\u2014or perhaps contracts for their friends or family members. There is no reason to expect Biden\u2019s \u201cdemocracy promotion\u201d to be any cleaner than his Ukraine policy during the Obama administration.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The collapse of the Afghan government settled any doubts about whether intellectuals are some of Washington\u2019s biggest con artists.<\/strong> They profited mightily by pirouetting as experts with lavish government contracts that produced nothing except windfall profits for overpriced D.C. restaurants. Any think tank or research institute or Beltway Bandit that was honest about Afghanistan being a quagmire for democracy would have been banned from future contracting.<\/p>\n

Americans also need to take lessons from the endless lies that Washington told about Afghan democracy. Are U.S. government officials more honest when they talk about American democracy than when they praise sham democracies abroad? Unfortunately, no one is talking of the peril of the \u201cAfghanization\u201d of American democracy.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Libertarian Institute, August 27, 2021 Afghanistan and the Sham of Democracy Promotion by James Bovard Americans finally recognize the military lies that pervaded the success claims of the 20-year war in Afghanistan.\u00a0 But democracy promotion was an even bigger sham. Afghanistan was Exhibit A for the triumphal crusade to spread freedom and democracy. After the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[42,2124,2989,52,496,2988,202,137,2842,38,513,1259],"class_list":["post-16382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-afghanistan","tag-biden","tag-computer-voting","tag-democracy","tag-election","tag-foreign-policy-women","tag-fraud","tag-george-w-bush","tag-hamid-karzai","tag-obama","tag-rape","tag-sigar"],"yoast_head":"\nAfghanistan and the Sham of Democracy Promotion - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Democracy promotion in Afghanistan was one of the worst frauds of U.S. foreign policy. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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But is U.S. democracy also becoming \"Afghanized\"?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/27\/afghanistan-and-the-sham-of-democracy-promotion\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/27\/afghanistan-and-the-sham-of-democracy-promotion\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/27\/afghanistan-and-the-sham-of-democracy-promotion\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Afghanistan and the Sham of Democracy Promotion"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/","name":"James Bovard","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f","name":"Jim","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","caption":"Jim"},"description":"Bovard's homepage is at http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com He can be contacted at jim@jimbovard.com James Bovard is the author of ten books. The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16382"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16387,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16382\/revisions\/16387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}