Afghans confuse democracy with fornication.

Afghans confuse democracy with fornication
By Sharif Khoram (AFP) – 2 hours ago

KABUL — Fornication, bare flesh and a descent into Western decadence -- these are Afghan definitions of democracy that expose how little the foreign concept has permeated the national psyche as elections near.

Afghanistan will vote August 20 in its second "democratic" presidential election but centuries of tribalism, decades of war and the draconian legacy of the Taliban ensure that confusion still reigns over what voting will bring.

"Western democracy is freedom and fornication. This is democracy for Western, American and European people and it is developing the same way here," said Wasim, a 28-year-old waiter in a Kabul kebab restaurant.

Mansoor Aslami, 21, a cosmetics shop owner, defines democracy as a boy and girl walking together on the street without being questioned, and is less than keen on some of the trends he sees among his patrons.

"I see signs of democracy among customers with bare arms and necks, but so long as democracy is according to Islam, it is good," he told AFP.

Eight years after the overthrow of the Taliban, much of conservative Afghan society has little understanding of democracy and sees it synonymous with a moral decline from traditional Islamic values, analysts say.

Afghanistan flirted with democracy in the 1960s and 1970s by holding limited parliamentary elections but the experiment was squashed with the 1979 Soviet invasion that set off decades of civil war and foreign intervention.
The 1996-2001 Taliban government banned music and dancing, ordered men not to shave, decreed that women wear the all-encompassing burka and banned girls from attending school. Punishments for violations were brutal.

After the Taliban were toppled by the 2001 US-led invasion -- sparked by Kabul's refusal to hand over the presumed Al-Qaeda masterminds of the September 11 attacks -- woman flung off their veils and celebrations erupted on the streets.

But the abrupt change jarred much of the deeply conservative, rural country. A Taliban insurgency trying to regain power and antipathy for Western troops has cowed many people into reverting to strict Islamic dress.

The country of 26-30 million adopted democratic principles in its post-Taliban constitution but with 70 percent of the population illiterate, the majority know nothing about representative governance.

For many "democracy" ushered in by the 2004 ballot, which swept Hamid Karzai to power, and preparations for presidential and provincial council elections this month have not been accompanied by awareness campaigns.

Access to the Internet and other media is scant. About 20 television channels and 90 radio stations established since 2001 mostly blare out music, offering little political debate or social programming.

But Mohammad Haleem, 25, is a convert. He says he will stand in line to vote for president and council members in his home province of Paktya.

"It allows us to select our fate," he said. "I will give my vote to the person who can serve Islam and the country."
Western films widely available after the fall of the Taliban gave Afghans an impression of democratic nations being morally loose.

"I don't know the meaning of democracy," said Noor Ali, an 81-year-old man with a long white beard sitting in front of a Kabul stall that sells petrol.

"I am old. I only know when I ask women 'why are you out almost naked in the street?' I am told 'uncle, this is democracy'," he said.

"Is this democracy? Dancing, having bare skin, dishonour? If it is, it shouldn't be," said Ali.
Critics warn that widespread corruption, insecurity and so many illegal private armies also threaten efforts to establish democracy.

Karzai's appointment of officials with dubious reputations and government failures to prosecute human rights' abusers and criminals have disillusioned many about the new system.

"I have bad memories of the past seven years," said Allah Mohammad, 60, working in Kabul dress shop and planning not to vote on August 20.

Many feel ideals that took centuries to evolve in modern Western societies were thrust upon the nation. They may eschew the polls or cast their ballot without understanding the issues, said Afghan analyst Wahid Mujda.

"When we ask people what democracy is, they will say democracy means lack of modesty and no religion, and that because of this issue there is a day-by-day increase in insecurity.

"Democracy is something that people have to get used to gradually," he said.

Drudge exposes Obama agenda to eliminate your private health care plan

Redistribution of health care is what this is all about. No surprise.

Finger pointing in the wake of a bad month

Six Phases of a Project

1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. A Search for the Guilty
5. The Punishment of the Innocent
6. Praise and Honor for the Non-Participants

Afghan mission falls short of expectations: Lawmakers

The international military mission in Afghanistan has delivered "much less than it promised" due to the lack of a realistic strategy, an influential committee of lawmakers said Sunday.

In a report, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said without a clear strategy stabilising Afghanistan had become "considerably more difficult than might otherwise have been the case."

Lawmakers criticised US policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan and warned the "considerable cultural insensitivity" of some coalition troops had caused serious damage to Afghans' perceptions that will be "difficult to undo".

"We conclude that the international effort in Afghanistan since 2001 has delivered much less than it promised and that its impact has been significantly diluted by the absence of a unified vision and strategy grounded in the realities of Afghanistan's history, culture and politics," the report said.

"Although Afghanistan's current situation is not solely the legacy of the West's failures since 2001, avoidable mistakes, including knee-jerk responses, policy fragmentation and overlap, now make the task of stabilising the country considerably more difficult than might otherwise have been the case."

As for Britain's roughly 9,000 troops in Afghanistan -- who in July suffered their worst month since the 2001 invasion with 22 deaths -- the members of parliament (MPs) said their role has seen "significant mission creep".

They were initially sent to counter international terrorism and are now working on areas like fighting the drugs trade and counter-insurgency, it said, adding the military had not been given "clear direction".

"We conclude that the UK's mission in Afghanistan has taken on a significantly different and considerably expanded character since the first British troops were deployed there in 2001," the report said.

"The UK deployment to Helmand (province) was undermined by unrealistic planning at senior levels, poor coordination between Whitehall (government) departments and crucially, a failure to provide the military with clear direction."

Britain's role as lead international partner on counter-narcotics was "a poisoned chalice", the report said, adding there was "little evidence" to suggest that cuts in poppy cultivation were down to deliberate strategy.

It called for British troops to focus on security alone.

The "Global Security: Afghanistan and Pakistan" report also looked at problems caused by the use of air power, particularly by the United States.

Drone attacks by US forces in Pakistan have "damaged the US's reputation" while some of the blame for problems in the international mission in Afghanistan must be put on the Bush administration's early focus on military goals, it said.

The report also warned that the reputation of NATO -- in command of international troops in Afghanistan since 2003 -- could be "seriously damaged" without fairer burden-sharing between member states to ease the strain.

Britain has long called for other NATO countries to contribute more to the military effort.

The conditions of prisoners and detainees being held by the Afghan authorities were "a matter of considerable concern", it added, while also saying there had been "no tangible progress" on tackling corruption.

Responding to the report, the Foreign Office said it would study its conclusions and submit an official response in the coming months.

Knock and Talk; Another governmental assault on the Fourth Amendment

An eccentric has the same rights as any other American citizen. A person domiciled in an American house does not have to prove his citizenship to a governmental official without a proper court warrant. The Constitution was created to protect citizens from the government. You do not have to prove that you have nothing to hide.

__________________

Immigration Raids Circumventing the Fourth Amendment
Posted on August 1, 2009, 5:41pm | Radley Balko Reason

Edward Schumacher-Matos writes in today's Washington Post that Immigration and Customs Enforcement teams conducting immigration rates are routinely violating the Fourth Amendment. After discussing a wrong-door immigration raid on a former Marine and his wife in Arizona, Schumacher-Matos explains:

It would be easy to dismiss the episode as isolated, but 100 seven-member teams of ICE agents across the country are regularly making similar house calls, usually in the pre-dawn hours, in SWAT-like raids with shotguns and automatic rifles, sometimes crawling through open windows. In place of search warrants issued by a judge, ICE agents carry administrative warrants issued by one of their own officials that require that they "knock and talk" to gain entry into a home, a policy often abused...

The raids are supposed to be aimed at fugitive illegal immigrants who have committed criminal acts, but it appears they're being used to rope up non-criminal undocumented workers (illegal immigration is a violation of civil law, not criminal law).

The "knock and talk" warrants require the police to get permission before entering. But that didn't happen in the wrong-door example Schumacher-Matos used to lead off his column. And it doesn't appear to be happening elsewhere, either.

The Cardozo study examined 700 arrests between 2006 and 2008 on Long Island and in New Jersey and found that agents said they had not received informed consent to enter the homes in 86 percent of the Long Island cases and 24 percent of the New Jersey ones. Conflicting information in the New Jersey arrest records suggests that the reported consent there was often fabricated or misreported, the Cardozo study says.

Two-thirds of the arrests were happenstance -- they were mostly of Latinos whose only crime was a civil one of working here illegally. "The high percentage of collateral arrests is consistent with allegations that ICE agents are using home raids for purported targets as a pretext to enter homes" and arrest as many people as they can to meet quotas that in 2006 were increased eightfold to 1,000 a year per team, the report said.

Violations were so flagrant on Long Island that local police withdrew their support and accused ICE of being reckless and dangerous, and of undermining a relationship of trust with the Latino community that had been helping to reduce crime. Mounting evidence elsewhere suggests that the raids are out of control nationally.

It looks as if we can add "illegal immigration" to the growing list of issues so critical, they deserve exceptions to the Fourth Amendment.

"Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men." - Bishop Wescott

On 3 August 1991, the Oceanos set out from East London, South Africa, headed to Durban. It headed into 40-knot winds and 9 m (30 ft) swells.

While off the Wild Coast of the Transkei, a muffled explosion was heard and the Oceanos lost her power following a leak in the engine room's sea chest, a scoop-like device which brings in system cooling water. The ship's engineer reported to Captain Yiannis Avranas that water was entering the hull and flooding the generator room. The generators were shut down because the rising water would have shorted them. The supply of power to auxiliary equipment which ran the engines had been severed, so the ship was left floating adrift.

The water steadily rose, flowing through the 10 cm (3.9 in) hole in the bulkhead and into the waste disposal tank. Without valves to close on the holding tank, the water coursed through the main drainage pipes and rose like a tide within the ship, spilling out of every shower, toilet, and waste disposal unit connected to the system.

Realizing the fate of the ship, the crew fled in panic, neglecting to close the lower deck portholes, which is standard policy during emergency procedures. No alarm was raised. Passengers remained ignorant of the events taking place until they themselves witnessed the first signs of flooding in the lower decks. At this stage, eyewitness accounts reveal that many of the crew, including Captain Avranas, were already packed and ready to depart, seemingly unconcerned with the safety of the passengers...Wikipedia

...All 571 people onboard were saved, following one of the world’s most dramatic and successful rescue operations of its kind. Entertainers Julian Butler and Moss Hills recorded their efforts to assist the passengers with a home video recorder. Butler, Hills and Hills' wife Tracy were among the last five to be rescued from the ship just before it sank...

...Captain Yiannis Avranas was accused by the passengers of leaving hundreds behind with no one other than the ship's onboard entertainers to help them evacuate. Avranas claimed that he left the ship first in order to arrange for a rescue effort, and then supervised the rescue effort from a helicopter. Avranas stated, "When I give the order abandon ship, it doesn't matter what time I leave. Abandon is for everybody. If some people want to stay, they can stay."

The year after the sinking, Avranas and several members of his senior crew were found guilty of negligence by the Greek Maritime Board.

The Great Global Warming Swindle - Part 5 of 8

Turn Back the national Socialists

ht: Tiger at the Observer.

The national Socialist (aka Democratic)Party has been very busy nationalizing the auto industry, the banking industry and the health care industry. With any luck, Americans like the young man and his fellow patriots in this video will turn back the madness.

The Great Global Warming Swindle - Part 4 of 8