The Statehouse; Good Works; Bejeweled

Michael Ubaldi, March 21, 2005.

The last vestiges of authoritarian rule in Afghanistan loosen to fall away as parliamentary elections, postponed from June of last year, have been officially assigned a date of September 18th. Previously scheduled for this May, the new election date has been met with praise from those who look to benefit from additional time to campaign; and six more months lent to Afghan and Allied forces will only help them diminish the Taliban's foundering rural presence even further. A few Afghans — notably, opponents of Afghan President Hamed Karzai — are grumbling at the extension of Karzai's government. But as any nascent democracy can attest, preparation without precedent is most difficult; given Afghanistan's success with a countrywide election under circumstances less desirable than what can be expected this September, the establishment of a date is as powerful a statement of intention as any. And even with a parliament, it's not entirely clear ministers would give a show of no-confidence to their president's international performance:

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan [will] arrive Islamabad tomorrow on a two day official visit to Pakistan. He [will] hold talks with President Parvez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on bilateral and regional issues and ways and means to strengthen economic ties.
During his visit, Pakistan and Afghanistan [will] sign five agreements and protocols on political consultations, cooperation in tourism, culture, media, bus service between Peshawar and Jalalabad and between Quetta and Kandhar. The two countries enjoy close economic relations with trade around one billion dollars.

Pakistan has taken a number of measures to further increase bilateral relations. These include establishment of a border crossing at Ghulam Khan in Waziristan, nine additional customs stations in border areas and reduction in duty on import of Afghan fruits.

For the country whose intelligence apparatus helped the Taliban dominate Afghanistan nearly a decade ago, militarist Pakistan has aided its northwestern neighbor in nearly every capacity. Dictator Pervez Musharraf deserves some credit for consistent policy, though we ought to consider what has politely but firmly motivated Islamabad since 2001. With no greater power than its own to call on during the ten-year post-Cold War lull, America's complacency, negligence and lack of faith in universal values only encouraged the maturation of global terrorism. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is under no illusions of past mistakes, nor the lessons they've brought:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Afghanistan today that the United States has learned from experience that abandoning that country in 1989 was a mistake.
"We have a long-term commitment to this country. We learned the hard way what it meant to not have a long-term commitment when, after the Soviet Union left, I think it is well understood that we did not remain committed, and I [told] the president [Hamid Karzai] earlier that, in many ways, September 11th was a joint tragedy of the Afghan and the American people out of that period."

Rice praised Afghanistan as a one-time source of terrorism that has become a fighter against terrorism.

That liberated countries properly guided to pluralist democracy flip like coins, from devourers to defenders of the rights of men, is the principle on which the Bush doctrine is built.

The principle of safety through a common good finds illustration in Afghanistan on a daily basis. While American soldiers have no battlefield equal, they count Afghan virtue as their greatest asset:

Coalition forces and Afghan police discovered and defused an improvised explosive device March 17 east of Gardez. Afghan police forces and coalition explosive ordnance disposal troops worked together to defuse the bomb, which was built from a rocket, said Lt. Col. Jack Knox, IED Task Force (Afghanistan) commander.
"Ninety percent of IEDs discovered are reported by Afghans — police, civilians and military," Knox said. The number of IEDs turned in by locals is up by 30 percent since last summer.

If self-reliance is the most telling attribute of a free nation, Afghanistan is in splendid form.

Spared bloody conquest and brutal oppression, Afghans face challenges from the land itself. This past winter has been a bitter one, dealing death with the cold and, reportedly, the wild. Warming temperatures accompanied by heavy rainfall have brought deadly floods, but amidst the harm Afghans see heroism:

Afghanistan's central and western provinces were hit by floods caused by melting snow, forcing the U.S.-led coalition to use helicopters to rescue people, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said. Coalition forces saved about 250 people trapped by flood waters last week near Dihrawud in the central province of Uruzgan, Ariane Quentier, a spokeswoman for the Assistance Mission, told a briefing in Kabul yesterday, according to the UN Web site.

American troops have also been dropping survival gear. Elsewhere in the country, Italian troops continue to deliver medical supplies — qualifying the off-putting rumors that Silvio Berlusconi might cow to domestic hysteria based on a lie and have Italy retreat in the war — while UNICEF has unveiled their comprehensive project to ease Afghan students' return to classrooms. Working with private funds, Jim Hake's non-profit organization Spirit of America is working agronomical feats in Kandahar, supplying the rural needy and offering Afghan hospitals another source of live-saving material.

And in a place where the internet is still a luxury for civilians, as this Afghan blogger reports, the astounding:

A three-member Afghan delegation is [in Bangalore] seeking help to set up a high-tech telemedicine facility in 10 Afghan cities linked via Indian satellites. The satellite-based networks that will be established later this year with the help of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will offer connectivity to major hospitals in India to improve health care in the war-ravaged country.
"We plan to set up similar telemedicine networks in Kandahar, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharief, Herat, and other provinces in the northern parts of the country so as to provide the latest health care to our people living in the villages and remote areas," Jalali said.

Though reconstruction only accelerates, Afghanistan's doctors have much to do before their facilities can best serve local patients. But the Third World's entrance into the First is evidence that Afghan medicine will only improve.

Finally, delightful news about the ancient ensemble uBlog has been following for six months:

The National Geographic Society has a deal to organize a tour of Bactrian gold treasures from Afghanistan.
The tour would be the first to display the gold artifacts, jewellery, weapons and everyday objects, considered Afghanistan's most revered treasure, outside of the country. The tour will begin in the United States.

If the exhibit is shown at a museum near you, go and see it. I'm ready to reserve a weekday should the treasures come to Cleveland, happy to celebrate the great Afghan reclamation.