Watching the Warmakers is based in Brighton, England.
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which confront those struggling for peace and justice.

News archives for the week ending 28th August 2009

Accusations of voter fraud multiply

One week after Afghanistan's presidential election, with the winner still undeclared, increasing accusations of fraud and voter coercion threaten to undermine the validity of the results, deepen dangerous regional divisions and hamper the Obama administration's goals in this volatile country.

With U.S. popular support for the war in Afghanistan wavering, an election viewed as illegitimate by many Afghans would be a major setback for President Obama, who has increased U.S. military and economic efforts in a conflict central to his foreign policy. Officials worry that a Kabul government tainted by allegations of election-stealing or destabilized by a potentially violent backlash could derail U.S. efforts to beat back a resurgent Taliban and build Afghan security forces.

Washington Post, 28/8/09

'The Taliban at least provide a system of justice'

"I have yet to meet an Afghan civilian who has anything positive to say about the central government," a senior U.S. official told me.

"They don't like the Taliban very much, but the Taliban at least provide a system of justice, plus some goods and services, and they'll go with that."

Time Magazine, 27/8/09

Afghan elections seen as setback for women

For women, Afghanistan's recent elections appear to have been more of a setback than a step forward. Early reports strongly suggest that voter turnout fell more sharply for women than for men in Thursday's polls.

Election observers blame Taliban attacks, a dearth of female election workers and hundreds of closed women's voting sites. Some worry the result could be a new government that pays even less attention to women's concerns in a country where cultural conservatism already restricts female participation in public life.

At least 650 polling stations for women did not open, according to the Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan, the country's top independent vote monitoring group.

In the southern province of Uruzgan, only 6 of 36 women's polling stations opened, the group said. That was partly because authorities couldn't find enough female staffers.

In some areas, "there were women who came to polling stations, and found no women workers there and went away. They didn't cast their votes," said Nader Nadery, the head of the group.

European Union observers noted that poor security hardened cultural attitudes in a nation where most women won't leave home without wearing an all-encompassing burqa.

Associated Press, 25/8/09

Maliki will have to work to keep power

Abandoned by his fellow Shiites, Iraq's prime minister must turn to new allies and work twice as hard to form a broad-based alliance if he is to keep his job after January's parliamentary elections.

Just over a week ago, all Nouri al-Maliki had to do was to hold steady until voting day. With violence down to record lows, his political rivals in disarray and his image as a nonsectarian leader taking root, he was virtually assured of another four years at the helm. But then the Aug. 19 suicide truck bombings devastated the foreign and finance ministries, killing about 100 people and dealing a major blow to confidence in the country's security forces.

Iraq's media called it "Bloody Wednesday." The bombings, which followed several other high-profile attacks after the June 30 withdrawal of U.S. forces from urban areas, eroded the prime minister's biggest asset — improved security.

Whether al-Maliki can recover in time and secure his job after the January vote is a question that has ramifications that go beyond Iraqi politics.

The United States sees in al-Maliki a reliable if somewhat too nationalist and independent-minded ally who has friendly ties with the Iranians but keeps them at a safe distance. Those poised to possibly take his place have stronger links to Tehran and could take a less friendly stance toward the Americans, who still maintain some 130,000 troops in the country.

AFP, 25/8/09

Asia leading global economic recovery

In past global slowdowns, the United States invariably led the way out, followed by Europe and the rest of the world. But for the first time, the catalyst is coming from China and the rest of Asia, where resurgent economies are helping the still-shaky West recover from the deepest recession since World War II.

Economists have long predicted that an increasingly powerful China would come to rival and eventually surpass the United States in economic influence. While the American economy is still more than three times the size of China’s, the nascent global recovery suggests that this long-anticipated change could arrive sooner than had been expected.

Such a shift would have significant ramifications for the United States and the rest of the West, even after the global economic recovery takes hold.

“The economic center of gravity has been shifting for some time, but this recession marks a turning point,” said Neal Soss, chief economist for Credit Suisse in New York. “It’s Asia that’s lifting the world, rather than the U.S., and that’s never happened before.”

New York Times, 23/8/09

Military denies vetting embedded journalists

Military commanders in Afghanistan are not rejecting requests from reporters who want to accompany U.S. troops in Afghanistan because their prior coverage of the military has been negative, the Pentagon said Monday.

The denial came after the newspaper Stars and Stripes reported that The Rendon Group, a Washington-based public relations firm with a controversial past, is screening work by journalists seeking "embed" assignments and giving them positive, neutral or negative ratings as part of a background profile.

Under a broad contract with U.S. military authorities in Afghanistan, Rendon gathers and assesses news coverage of operations there to provide them with a detailed picture of the "media landscape," the company said.

A small part of the work involves preparing profiles of reporters preparing to travel with U.S. troops. These reviews are done only upon request and are intended to give commanders a better idea of what topics the reporters embedded with the unit are most likely to ask about, according to Rendon.

Associated Press, 25/8/09

Shiite parties form alliance without Maliki

Iraq’s top Shiite political leaders gathered in a sweltering hotel ballroom here on Monday and announced a new alliance, a new name and a new platform. Absent was the country’s most prominent Shiite political leader, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

The creation of the alliance — which includes a former prime minister and a sitting vice president — represented the opening of an election campaign that is likely to be as contentious as it is decisive in shaping the kind of country that will emerge.

Mr. Maliki’s refusal to join the alliance, after weeks of negotiations behind the scenes, intensified a bitter political struggle over the leadership of the country’s largest sect ahead of parliamentary elections in January.

The creation of a Shiite alliance without him made it clear that Mr. Maliki, prime minister since 2006, had not yet secured the support of his most important bloc of voters, raising questions about whether he can be assured of winning a second term.

New York Times, 24/8/09

Vote fraud allegations increase in Afghanistan

There are no hanging chads, but Afghanistan's electoral process is starting to resemble the Florida recount effort in 2000 even before preliminary results are announced Tuesday.

Afghanistan's second presidential election since the Taliban regime was ousted in 2001 has created political uncertainty as officials attempt to count the votes amid fraud allegations from all sides. Election officials say it will take weeks to sort through the ballots and investigate the allegations before knowing who the next president is.

About 225 complaints have been filed with Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission, including 35 serious enough to sway the results if confirmed, the commission announced Sunday. The serious allegations concern intimidation and stuffing of ballot boxes. Many more complaints, from voters and campaigns, are likely to be filed as ballot boxes come in from around the country.

Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, said allegations of vote rigging and fraud are to be expected, but it's too soon to question the legitimacy of the vote.

"We have disputed elections in the United States. There may be some questions here. That wouldn't surprise me at all. I expect it," Holbrooke told AP Television News in the western city of Herat

USA Today, 24/8/09

"I don't get any support from the government"

In a region the Taliban have lorded over for six years, and where they remain a menacing presence, American officers say their troops alone are not enough to reassure Afghans. Something is missing that has left even the recently appointed district governor feeling dismayed.

“I don’t get any support from the government,” said the governor, Massoud Ahmad Rassouli Balouch.

Governor Massoud has no body of advisers to help run the area, no doctors to provide health care, no teachers, no professionals to do much of anything. About all he says he does have are police officers who steal and a small group of Afghan soldiers who say they are here for “vacation.”

It all raises serious questions about what the American mission is in southern Afghanistan — to secure the area, or to administer it — and about how long Afghans will tolerate foreign troops if they do not begin to see real benefits from their own government soon. American commanders say there is a narrow window to win over local people from the guerrillas.

New York Times, 22/8/09

Mullen: Afghanistan Is Deteriorating

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said Sunday that the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated but the commanding general on the ground has not yet asked for more troops.

Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union," Adm. Mullen said the situation in the country has been getting worse as the Taliban gains strength.

"I've said that over the last couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated," he said. "Their tactics just in my recent visits out there and talking with our troops certainly indicate that."

Wall Street Journal, 23/8/09

69% want British troops out

More than two thirds of people in Britain believe UK troops should pull out of Afghanistan, according to an opinion poll. The BPIX poll for the Mail on Sunday found 69% did not believe that British forces should be fighting in Afghanistan, as against 31% who thought the mission was worthwhile.

Almost three out of four - 72% - thought Gordon Brown was handling the war "badly", with 32% saying that he was doing "very badly". That compared with just 26% who said he was doing "fairly well" and 1.5% who said that he was doing "very well".

Press Association, 23/8/09

Election adds to instability in Afghanistan

Obama administration officials hoped the Afghan election would demonstrate that eight years after the American invasion, the country was stable enough to justify an expanded commitment of money and troops from an increasingly skeptical American public.

Instead, the election did more to underscore the challenges Afghanistan faces, particularly if the election goes to a runoff, as seems increasingly likely, between President Hamid Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

Western officials here expressed relief that many Afghans defied Taliban threats of reprisals and came out to vote. But they were clearly concerned on Friday that a second round of voting could extend the paralysis of a government that already barely functions and deepen ethnic tensions, in the worst case, to the point of a north-south civil war.

In addition, a runoff would leave up in the air many of the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy initiatives — like fighting corruption and improving distribution of aid — for at least another two months, American officials said.

New York Times, 21/8/09

More mercenaries than troops in Afghanistan

Even as U.S. troops surge to new highs in Afghanistan they are outnumbered by military contractors working alongside them, according to a Defense Department census due to be distributed to Congress -- illustrating how hard it is for the U.S. to wean itself from the large numbers of war-zone contractors that proved controversial in Iraq.

The number of military contractors in Afghanistan rose to almost 74,000 by June 30, far outnumbering the roughly 58,000 U.S. soldiers on the ground at that point. As the military force in Afghanistan grows further, to a planned 68,000 by the end of the year, the Defense Department expects the ranks of contractors to increase more.

Wall Street Journal, 22/8/09

Widespread fraud and intimidation in Afghan election...

Election observers in Afghanistan have said there was widespread voting fraud and intimidation during the presidential election on Thursday. Stuffed ballot boxes, illiterate voters being told who to vote for and biased officials were cited by Afghanistan's Free and Fair Election Foundation.

The Foundation's provisional report also details accounts of multiple voting, underage voting and election officials being ejected from polling stations be representatives of candidates.

Election officials have estimated turnout at between 40 and 50% which, if confirmed, would be well down on the 70% who voted in the first presidential election, in 2004.

BBC News, 22/8/09

...as Afghans choose between 'political gangsters'

President Hamid Karzai is not particularly popular, but as the incumbent he is in a strong position, through networks of patronage, to get the support of local and regional king-makers such as warlords, chiefs of police, shuras (local councils), religious, tribal and ethnic leaders.

What foreign reporting of elections in both Afghanistan and Iraq miss out is the extent to which ordinary Afghans and Iraqis regard their governments as rackets run by political gangsters for their own ends.

A common reason, which I've heard expressed in both Baghdad and Kabul, for supporting the incumbent leadership is that it will have already stolen so much that its members have no need to steal more, while a new government will be equally rapacious but far hungrier.

The only way of judging the extent of such extreme cynicism in Afghanistan is the extent of the turnout, currently estimated to be 40 to 50 per cent.

Independent, 22/8/09