Bush promised to bring American style democracy to Afghanistan, he has succeeded!
Voting Fraud Is Found in Afghanistan’s Election
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 2 – Election officials and observers said today that with 80 percent of the ballots counted in Afghanistan’s national and provincial elections, they had found significant incidents of fraud.
Whole districts have come under suspicion for ballot box stuffing and proxy voting, said Peter Erben, the chief international electoral officer in charge of Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections. He said that ballot boxes from 4 percent of the country’s 26,000 polling stations – about 1,000 stations – had been set aside to be investigated for fraud and other irregularities.
The European Union observer mission said the reports of fraud and possible intimidation of voters were “worrying,” In a statement, the mission said, “While these phenomena do not appear to be nationwide, they are a cause for concern.”
But despite the signs of fraud, don’t expect the results to change:
KABUL, Afghanistan – Ballot boxes from hundreds of polling stations in Afghanistan’s landmark parliamentary elections have been quarantined due to suspected vote fraud, but the overall credibility of the results was not in doubt, the chief electoral officer said Sunday.
Again, just like the US, right?
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In the meantime, things continue to go along well in our forgotten war in Afghanstan:
Taliban has new guns, new drive
KHOST, AFGHANISTAN; AND CHAMAN, PAKISTAN — An internal debate within the Taliban — whether to launch increasingly aggressive attacks against the US-led coalition or to allow the insurgency to bleed the Afghan government over time — has been settled this year, according to a rebel commander and Afghan security officials.
In the most violent year of their insurgency to date, the Taliban have gone on the offensive, launching more pitched battles in an effort to persuade the international community and Afghans that this remains very much a nation at war, says Mullah Gul Mohammad, a front-line commander for Jaish-e Muslimeen, a recently reconciled Taliban splinter group.
“For the past many days we [the Taliban and the Jaish] have been fighting together against our common enemies,” says Mullah Mohammad, who says he traveled from Afghanistan to Chaman, Pakistan, for an interview. The insurgents are flush with new weapons — including surface-to-air missiles — and cash, he says, and are pausing only to see if the US military decides to draw down forces following the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections. “If they stay, we would launch our attacks anew.”
