Robert Fisk: America Performs Its Familiar Role of Propping Up a Dictator
[Robert Fisk is an award-winning Middle East correspondent for the Independent. A journalist with decades of experience in foreign reporting, Fisk has interviewed Osama bin Laden multiple times and has been repeatedly recognized and awarded for his work.]
Could there be a more accurate description of the Obama-Brown message of congratulations to the fraudulently elected Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan? First the Palestinians held fair elections in 2006, voted for Hamas and were brutally punished for it – they still are – and then the Iranians held fraudulent elections in June which put back the weird Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whom everyone outside Iran (and a lot inside) regard as a dictator. But now we have the venal, corrupt, sectarian Karzai in power after a poll far more ambitiously rigged than the Iranian version, and – yup, we love him dearly and accept his totally fraudulent election...
... Back in 1967, the Americans oversaw a “democratic” election in Vietnam which gave the presidency to the corrupt ex-General Nguyen Van Thieuman. In a fraudulent election which the Americans declared to be “generally fair” – he got 38 per cent of the vote – Thieu’s opponents wouldn’t run against him because the election was a farce.
In 1967, Washington needed the elections to give legitimacy to this revolting dictator – and thus provide credibility to its own military occupation of Vietnam in the war against Communism. As in Vietnam – where Saigon was a lonely kingdom of brutal power totally isolated from the rest of the country – Karzai is going to rule over an equally tiny island of corruption, protected by US mercenaries while the Americans perform their familiar role of propping up a dictator.
As ex-Lieutenant Bury sagely points out, the Afghan war is “campaigning on a par with the 19th-century British colonial army trying to manage the unwinnable… What was or is the strategy behind these long, bloody conflicts?” Well, in 1967, it was the possible communisation of Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Now it is Pashtunistan, Baluchistan, Waziristan. For us, the vast ignorant “plebes”, it’s supposed to stop the Taliban/al-Qa’ida beasts from attacking our looming towers all over again, albeit that the 2001 murderers in question largely hailed from that friendly, moderate, brutal, oligarchical monarchical dictatorship called Saudi Arabia where – thank the good gods – they don’t hold elections...
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Could there be a more accurate description of the Obama-Brown message of congratulations to the fraudulently elected Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan? First the Palestinians held fair elections in 2006, voted for Hamas and were brutally punished for it – they still are – and then the Iranians held fraudulent elections in June which put back the weird Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whom everyone outside Iran (and a lot inside) regard as a dictator. But now we have the venal, corrupt, sectarian Karzai in power after a poll far more ambitiously rigged than the Iranian version, and – yup, we love him dearly and accept his totally fraudulent election...
... Back in 1967, the Americans oversaw a “democratic” election in Vietnam which gave the presidency to the corrupt ex-General Nguyen Van Thieuman. In a fraudulent election which the Americans declared to be “generally fair” – he got 38 per cent of the vote – Thieu’s opponents wouldn’t run against him because the election was a farce.
In 1967, Washington needed the elections to give legitimacy to this revolting dictator – and thus provide credibility to its own military occupation of Vietnam in the war against Communism. As in Vietnam – where Saigon was a lonely kingdom of brutal power totally isolated from the rest of the country – Karzai is going to rule over an equally tiny island of corruption, protected by US mercenaries while the Americans perform their familiar role of propping up a dictator.
As ex-Lieutenant Bury sagely points out, the Afghan war is “campaigning on a par with the 19th-century British colonial army trying to manage the unwinnable… What was or is the strategy behind these long, bloody conflicts?” Well, in 1967, it was the possible communisation of Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Now it is Pashtunistan, Baluchistan, Waziristan. For us, the vast ignorant “plebes”, it’s supposed to stop the Taliban/al-Qa’ida beasts from attacking our looming towers all over again, albeit that the 2001 murderers in question largely hailed from that friendly, moderate, brutal, oligarchical monarchical dictatorship called Saudi Arabia where – thank the good gods – they don’t hold elections...