One Man's Freedom

... is another man's occupation. Middle East expert, Juan Cole, shares his views on the state of affairs in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Bush in these remarks continued to try to exploit the presence of Afghanistan and Iraq at the Olympics for his presidential campaign. The problem is, he has a different definition of "freedom" than do the people of whom he is speaking.

The Bush campaign is defining freedom as the absence of indigenous tyranny. Thus, they claim to have liberated 50 million persons (25 each in Afghanistan and Iraq) since September 11, insofar as they overthrew the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.

But to date, no one in either country has been freely and openly elected by the popular electorate. The US has more or less appointed the governments of both countries (in consultation with other international actors). Even one Iraqi cabinet minister admitted last spring that the then Interim Governing Council was no more representative than had been the Baath government.

The Western press often confuses a government that reflects the composition of the country with a "representative" one. Thus, the Interim Governing Council had and the new national advisory council has representatives from all over Iraq, and some journalists have said the council is the most representative body Iraq has had since 1958. But this allegation ignores the undemocratic way in which it was chosen.

As for Afghanistan, the Bush administration simply turned it back over to the pre-Taliban warlords who had fought the Soviets in alliance with the US and then had fallen to squabbling when the US walked away, reducing much of the country to rubble. Herat province is ruled by Ismail Khan, Mazar by Abdul Rashid Dostam, etc., etc. Even really bad guys like Abu Sayyaf have their fiefdoms in the Pushtun areas (although he broke with the Taliban, it would be hard to distinguish his ideas and style of ruling from theirs). This is not to mention the revival of the poppy trade, which fuels heroin smuggling to the tune of $2 billion a year, nearly half Afghanistan's gross national product.

The parliamentary elections scheduled for summer, 2004, in Afghanistan have been postponed until at least spring, 2005. Presidential elections are to be held this fall, but American-installed Hamid Karzai has enormous advantages of incumbency. These advantages recently spurred his 23 rivals to call for his resignation, threatening a boycott of the elections if he declines. There is widespread voter registration fraud.