Afghan goes Islamic

by Jerome Armstrong, Sun Sep 25, 2005 at 01:35:37 PM EDT

Younus Qanooni, who was a lieutenant to the slain Mujahadeen leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, assassinated on 9 September 2001, is said to be the victor in the Afghanistan vote. Qanuni, an oppositional leader to the U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai, predicted that his "Understanding Front" will win half the seats in the 249-seat national assembly. Qanuni is determined that"Afghans will never agree on any secular or liberal system. Islam is the modern system and Afghanistan's future is tied with Islam". Qanooni says that Afghanistan remains the world's biggest opium producer, and he's gonna stop it. Is this what the LGF keyboarders are fighting for? Is electing an Islamic fundamentalist government really something that Republicans agree on that is "positive news for the world." I guess if the US media just keeps on repeating the Bush mantra that freedom is on the march, they won't even know watching faux news.

Tags: Foreign Elections (all tags)

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6 Comments

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Qanooni
is hardly an Islamic extremist.  His party is formed mostly of remnants of the Northern Alliance which fought tenaciously against the Taliban.  It's naive to think that Afghans are going to elect a secular-liberal government, but Qanooni is not even close to a theocratic type.
by lorax 2005-09-25 02:02PM | 0 recs
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the Northern Alliance?
Don't you mean the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan? Some of these were the same people that made the stability of the Taliban seem desirable in the first place.
by catastrophile 2005-09-25 02:51PM | 0 recs
Kombiz_twitter
Re: the Northern Alliance?
Some remenants of the Northern alliance are bad actors in Afghanistan, and some are good actors. Without knowing a lot about Qanooni I would presume he'd be positive because he was with Masoud. The stability issue after the Soviets were routed can't be blamed on single actors. Part of the problem lies at the hands of the Northern Alliance who's factions fought for control of the local government after the Soviet war, but a lot of the problem came from Pakistan who wanted to exert influence over Afghanistan.

The issue with the Bush administration here is that they've been so diverted to Iraq, that the best one can hope for in Afghanistan is a more stable version of the post soviet rule. No hopes of empowering Afghanistan to be a model for education, or industriliazation. It's as though the only foreign policy model they really know is cold war based, just call it Cold War Plus!

by Kombiz Lavasany 2005-09-25 03:21PM | 0 recs
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I thought the Taliban
was originally backed by Pakistan. Or have I got that wrong?
by catastrophile 2005-09-25 03:55PM | 0 recs
Kombiz_twitter
Re: I thought the Taliban
They were, some of the people the Pakistani's backed were the people who became the Taliban. Though Pakistan was also widely supporting some of the extremist mujahadeen who were involved in the battle for Kabul after the Russians left.
by Kombiz Lavasany 2005-09-25 04:07PM | 0 recs
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Massoud
Ahmed Shah Massoud was known as the Lion of Panjshir. Fighters under his command successfully repelled numerous Soviet armored assaults against the Panjshir Valley.

He was Afghanistan's Eisenhower.

It is no coincidence that he was assassinated two days before 9/11.

by Quaoar 2005-09-25 10:58PM | 0 recs

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