The recent elections in Afghanistan were declared fraudulent by the US, Europe and the UN a short while ago, yet last week we saw Mr Obama, Mr Browne and the rest of the free world congratulate and accept Mr Karzai as duly elected leader of Afghanistan. How was this allowed to happen? Quite simply because the opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah pulled out of the new election claiming that not enough guarantees had been put in place to ensure the same fraud would not happen again the second time around. Astonishingly, this allowed Mr Karzai to claim victory in the election unopposed despite evidence of fraud on a massive scale. This shining example of the west’s passionate belief in the rules of democracy comes at a time when rising Taliban attacks are resulting in an increased number of allied casualties and must surely stick in the throat of any soldier who actually believes he or she is putting their lives and others at risk to further the cause of freedom and democracy in Afghanistan.
It also exposes a much deeper and much more troubling fact which is that the civilised west is only interested in democracy as long as it delivers the right result for the west and not the country it is supposed to serve. This has been evident for some time now and is a policy that has been used covertly for many years in places like Latin America where democracy was replaced by murderous dictators and tin pot generals with the tacit encouragement and support of the Reagan administration, and overtly in Palestine with the refusal of the west to accept Hammas as duly elected leaders of the Palestinian people, despite them being democratically elected as such.
This corruption of the democratic process is indicative of how the west, and in particular America, will turn a blind eye to corruption, murder, and even genocide, to further the interests of the civilised west as opposed to furthering the cause of democracy. It also exposes the hypocrisy and double standards that lie at the heart of that great neo-con project of imposing democracy on errant states by the civilised west.
And who will pay the price for this corruption? Well you can bet your bottom dollar it wont be Mr Obama, or Mr Browne, or Mr Berlusconi. Being such courageous people they prefer instead to leave that to service men and women, and the innocent men women and children who through no fault of their own, find themselves paying the ultimate price for western corruption of democracy.
If the worlds self appointed policemen are themselves willing to be part of such corruption then how are we supposed to take anything they do seriously. The answer is that we cant. Nor indeed should we.
Ronan Gallagher 