Afghanistan: No Easy Solution

How to change a nation, bring about peace instead of war, transform hatred and greed to compassion and unselfishness? Whether Afghanistan or Iraq, Somalia or the collapsed Soviet Union, on-lookers shake their heads in baffled frustration. Despite trillions of dollars in aid and military expenditure, too much shed blood, and the best of intentions, how is it that introducing principles of democracy and freedom around the globe has produced so little lasting peace or prosperity?

A better question: can outsiders ever truly purchase freedom for another culture or people?

I wrote a blog column leading up to Afghanistan's August elections, questioning 'Do They Matter?' After all, regardless of who squeezed out the most votes, Afghanistan would remain a fundamentalist sharia regime with minimal freedom of worship, speech, or media, under the thumb of a warlord-infested government ranked among the planet's most corrupt. And with incumbent candidate Hamid Karzai dominating media access, writing his own election code, and personally appointing each member of the so-called 'Independent Election Commission', not even Karzai's increasingly reluctant Western allies had delusions any of 40+ opposition candidates had a chance. Spending over 200 million dollars of American taxpayer money to mount this election seemed more an exercise in futility than any faith in democracy.

Still, even my pessimism was taken aback at the blatant dishonesty and violence that ended up marking the elections. As much as one-third of all votes cast turned out to be ballot-stuffing by Karzai underlings, including election officials. Less than 10% of voters turned out in some regions, while in others ballots added up to ten times all registered voters. Meanwhile Karzai screamed Western plot at any suggestion of irregularities in the voting process. More than one American diplomat has resigned in protest. Violence has surged against a government increasingly seen as illegitimate, both by the Afghanis and foreign nations currently paying the bills.

All of which has been rather awkward for Karzai's chief ally, the United States government, which was counting on a reasonably clean stab at democracy to justify a continued outpouring of funds and troops into Afghanistan. Under extreme pressure Karzai has now agreed to a November 7 run-off, less than three weeks after the final vote tally. The short time frame hardly permits any serious campaign to be mounted or issues of fraud and security to be addressed. Nor does even run-off opponent Abdullah Abdullah expect any other outcome than a handy Karzai win. Which makes this second round little more than a face-saver for Karzai and his Western allies--along with another sizeable expenditure of funds by American taxpayers.

So where does that leave the future? An election run-off may rehabilitate Karzai's public image enough to justify continued Western support of his regime. But it doesn't address the issue of rank corruption, the wealthy growing wealthier off foreign aid contracts while widows and children continue to starve in Kabul streets, a growing insurgency fueled by the frustration of ordinary Afghanis, who have given up hope of promised freedoms and a better life and who see NATO and American forces as complicit with an illegitimate and dishonest regime.

A top-ranking American general in the zone has suggested a simple solution. Forget nation building. Forget any serious attempts at democracy or rule of law. The West needs to recognize Afghanistan is at least twenty years behind Pakistan. If the American people and military will just commit to the long-run, another twenty years or so involvement should bring Afghanistan up to where Pakistan is today.

And exactly where is that?

Currently Pakistan is a fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship that routinely uses sharia-based blasphemy and apostasy laws to imprison and execute Christians for their faith. It is also a terror-sponsoring state, whose ISI (military intelligence) worked with the U.S. to develop and arm the Taliban against the Soviets back in the 80s, while siphoning off billions in American military aid to finance their own operations, including Muslim extremist terror networks working to overthrow neighboring 'infidel' India.

Worse, they are a nuclear power, their weapons developed in defiance of the same international proliferation laws being raised against Iran; in fact, Pakistani nuclear scientists have been heavily involved in Iran's developing nuclear industry. Beyond all this, like Afghanistan, Pakistan is ranked as one of the planet's most corrupt governments.

So let's see if we have it straight. If we commit ourselves to the long run in Afghanistan, continue to pour out American taxpayer dollars and the blood of our sons and daughters, in twenty years or so we just might get--another Pakistan? Not even considered is where any accountability for human rights or religious and personal freedoms fit into this equation.

Left unaddressed is the underlying assumption that it is up to America or NATO to win in Afghanistan. That if the right decisions are made, enough troops and money poured in, a strong enough commitment is made, then peace and stability must inevitably follow like a correct answer popping up on a calculator screen.

Unfortunately, winning this war isn't up to America or NATO, but the Afghan people. Unless the Afghanis themselves are willing to make a stand, not just against the Taliban, but against the corruption, unjust law, Islamic extremist thinking, oppression and violence that permeates every level of Afghan society, no amount of good will, aid, or military intervention can produce a long-term peace and stability.

Afghanistan's current leadership has proved more than happy to leave security issues to foreign troops while they count looted aid dollars behind well-guarded walls of their ornate Kabuli mansions. The Afghan National Police, many of them rehabilitated warlord militias and currently rated the most corrupt institution in Afghanistan, are too busy squeezing largesse out of their countrymen to secure their streets. The new Afghan army is rated slightly less corrupt than the police, mainly because they have less day-to-day contact with the locals, but shows little willingness to risk their own necks and a tendency to go AWOL any time the fighting gets serious.

Meanwhile, redefined American military strategy in Afghanistan includes falling back to concentrate on providing security for 'major population centers'. Sounds good. Except America doesn't have enough manpower to patrol our own inner-city streets against gangs and criminal activity. Nor was our military ever designed to provide ground security for an unwilling foreign population. The very fact that eight years down the road from liberation it is somehow now assumed to be American responsibility to secure Afghan population centers shows how far askew the U.S. mission in Afghanistan has drifted.

And if by some miracle and enough military presence, it proves possible to reduce somewhat the daily murder and mayhem currently reigning in Afghanistan, what global difference will it make? Islamic extremist groups shift easily across the entire Muslim world. Al Qaida is only one of countless factions with similar ideology and goals. Do we invade Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, even Mindanao in the Philippines?

Because in the long run, the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is not just about extremists opposing the West. It is part of a much larger and long-term civil war within the Muslim world itself between fundamentalist Islam and the corrupt, extravagant aristocracies who have funneled oil revenue and other resources into their own pockets. Surely Cold War history should have taught us the futility of stepping in to prop up one corrupt regime out of fear the alternative might be worse (Iran, Iraq, Chile, Paraguay, Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, are a few places we've done so and are still paying the price). America has neither enough money, troops nor will to step in and compel the entire planet or even entire Islamic world 'be good' and 'play nice' with the other.

So what is the answer?

Nothing simple. Certainly nothing that can be accomplished by a few thousand more troops and trillions more dollars in aid, much though I wish it were otherwise. I wish that following the latest strategy suggestions, propping up Pakistan one more time, sticking it out with corrupt local allies offered a long-term hope of success.

Above all, because a lot of genuinely good intentions have been invested in Afghanistan. American and NATO troops have fought courageously and well. Plenty of individual Afghanis have worked hard to make a difference in their country. I have not met a single long-term humanitarian worker nor many Afghanis who want American and NATO forces to abandon Afghanistan. But nor have I met any who believes that the current course--especially in collaboration with present Afghan leadership--will bring about long-term success.

There is an answer. It is not easy nor quick, but it is simple. It is, in fact, the theme I address in my most recent Tyndale House Publishers release Veiled Freedom, set in Afghanistan. With the best of intentions, one cannot impose freedom from without. It must be the choice of a people.

You see, change that truly transforms society comes through changed hearts, not circumstances. And hearts change only when they are restored to personal relationship with their Creator and heavenly Father through the love of Jesus Christ and transforming power of the Holy Spirit. When God promised restoration to an idolatrous, wicked Israel, He described it this way: "I will give you a new heart . . . I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26).

And therein lies hope for Afghanistan.

Because despite all the dismal headlines, hearts are being changed across Afghanistan, quietly, daily, under the radar and despite lack of freedom and oppression, through individuals coming face to face with the love of Isa Masih, Jesus Christ as lived out by Isa-followers willing to risk their own lives to share that love. And when enough individual hearts change from hate to love, cruelty to kindness, greed to selflessness, their society will never be the same.

Change a heart, change a nation.

And that includes Afghanistan.

Afghanistan Goes To The Polls

Afghanistan goes to the polls tomorrow amidst growing violence and little enthusiasm. Many of you have undoubtedly been following the drama on the news. For both Western governments and Afghanis, the toss-up seems to be the continuing rule of Hamid Karzai, which has been characterized by corruption, incompetence, and escalating violence, and 40 or so other candidates, none of which can muster enough votes among them to compete with the incumbent.

Afghan culture dictates throwing in with the perceived winner, and many warlords and regional and ethnic leaders have already promised Karzai their followers' votes. So much for individual democracy! Karzai, the master of compromise, has brought back two notorious warlords as his vice presidential candidates, promising top government positions to local leaders who come over to his side.

Meanwhile many rural areas don't expect to vote at all. Ironically, in extremely conservative areas where women can't vote personally, women outregister men two to one (registered, of course, by their menfolk with no proof necessary of their existence) where in areas where women can actually leave their homes, men outregister women two to one. All to say no one is expecting any honesty in the vote. But American observers are already saying that if the vote is within even 10-20 percent of what is considered fair, it will be counted a success. Interesting, considering such an election in Iran was roundly denounced. Let's not even talk about what would happen if 10-20 % off was counted in the U.S.

Is there any point to this election? Rather than repeat myself, let me direct you to two earlier op-eds on this subject.

http://jeanettewindle.blogspot.com/2009/03/afghanistans-upcoming-elections-do-they.html

http://jeanettewindle.blogspot.com/2009/01/is-democracy-enough.html

Meanwhile, we should not throw up our hands in hopeless dismay. On the contrary, this is time to raise our hands in fervent prayer. How can we be praying as Afghanis go to the polls in just a few short hours on the other side of the globe?

*Pray for God's sovereignty and will in this election, regardless of the result.
*Pray for a move towards individual freedom and human rights, especially rights of worship, speech, and women's equality, none of which the Karzai government has honored under the current sharia legal system.
*Pray for followers of Isa Masih (Jesus Christ) who must worship underground but are growing in numbers and faith.
*Pray for the safety of American and other coalition soldiers in harm's way as they try to provide security for this election.

And if you have not yet read Veiled Freedom or know someone wanting to know just what is going on in Afghanistan--and what is the true Source of freedom--this is the perfect time. Here is a wonderful new review that came out today. http://www.blogger.com/

Good, Bad, or Ugly?

Good won a battle this past month in India.

For those who haven't been keeping close tabs on national elections in the planet's most populous democracy, that's understandable. I didn't see much on American cable news, though I would hazard that the BBC did a more thorough job. Suffice it say, over seven hundred million citizens qualified to cast a vote made India's recent elections the largest in human history. Much was at stake. Some would say India's very claim to be called a democracy.

Battling it out for supremacy were the subcontinent's two most powerful political parties. The 'UPA' or Congress party ran on a platform of a secular, democratic India with guaranteed freedom and protection for religious minorities. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s platform's has been simple, unwavering and distressingly popular. 'Hindutva', or a forced return to Hinduism and caste rule.

Orissa area village

A decade ago, the BJP dominated India's federal government. In 2004 the UPA knocked them out of national power. But their control of states like Orissa led to the violence this past year that left hundreds of Orissa Christians dead, upwards of 100,000 burned out of homes, and virtually every Christian institution from churches to schools and orphanages razed to the ground (see Orissa Burning). So concerned Christians inside and outside of Orissa have been watchfully monitoring Indian elections.

And praying.

But even those with great faith and hope were stunned by this last week's announcement of election results. In parliamentary elections, the UPA won 2-1 over BJP, giving the moderate secular party a sweeping majority. Meanwhile in Orissa itself, not a single BJP candidate won a seat at either state or national level! What is significant is that neither India's Christian community nor its sizeable Muslim minority combined has a voting bloc large enough to determine the outcome of the elections. BJP's sweeping defeat was only possible because India's 80% Hindu majority voted overwhelmingly against 'Hindutva' extremism and for a secular state.

Orissa area church service

So today Christians--and Muslims--are breathing a little easier in India. Which doesn't mean all concerns for continued violence are gone. Just in the last two weeks, Hindu extremists have attacked Christians within Orissa's remaining refugee camp. Two days ago in Nepal, a Hindu monarchy declared a democratic republic just last May, a church bombing killed two and injured dozens more. Still, the decision of India's voters at the ballot box has been a huge step forward for true democracy and freedom for all its 1.2 billion citizens.

Orissa pastor's wife, husband arrested by Hindu extremist authorities

About the same time, another incident received a whole lot more North American media attention. Whether good, bad, or ugly won, you'll have to decide. It was a book burning. Not just any books. A collection of Bibles. No, the bonfire was no action of Hindu or Muslim extremists. It was carried out by orders of U. S. government personnel. You may have followed the case. An American church, unaware it was against military regulations, raised funds for Bibles in Dari and Pashto, Afghanistan's most common languages. The Bibles were shipped to a church member serving on Baghram Air Force Base north of Kabul, command center for U. S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan.

When the soldier showed the Bibles to a chaplain, he was informed of regulations against U.S. military personnel handing out Bibles or any other action that could be construed as proselytizing of Muslims. The soldier turned them over to the chaplain, the chaplain to his own commanding officer. Which would likely have been the end of it except someone in the vicinity was filming the whole thing on the camera phone. It got out to the Islamic news service, Al-Jazeera. At which point the U. S. military quickly assured the world the confiscated Bibles had been safely converted to ash.

So why burn the Bibles instead of simply returning them to their donors? Two reasons were given:

1) Regulations require all discarded trash on U. S. military bases to be burned (I.E: brand-new Bibles are trash).

2) If the Bibles were returned to the donors, they might be given away to some other Dari or Pashto readers (Now I am wondering, back when the CIA was arming Afghan mujahedeen to bring down the Soviet empire, wasn't part of their justification that the Soviets were denying basic human rights like praying, worshipping, reading as you choose to its citizens? Why was it okay to encourage those under communist rule to defy a totalitarian regime, but Americans are now actually helping Islamic regimes deny those freedoms to their own people?).

What is more interesting was the official basis for confiscating and burning said volumes at all, something called a 'force protection measure'. Put briefly, if Muslims even suspected Western coalition soldiers of giving away a Christian holy book, they might be provoked to kill more American soldiers. So let's not only burn the Bibles, but make sure the Islamic world knows, so we're not accused of recycling them. Ironically, in Western news coverage, I saw far more outrage at a U.S. church daring to send Christian literature to Afghanistan than over U.S. military forces aiding and abetting a totalitarian regime in controlling what its citizens can or can't read.

Left unspoken, perhaps because it's a no-brainer, is that no one in all of this has expressed any worries that millions of outraged Christians around the world might resort to rioting, looting, and murder to avenge the burning of their Sacred Scriptures. Imagine instead a Muslim mosque, say, in Egypt, sending a few Korans over to one of its military personnel enrolled in any one of the many Allied Officers exchange programs run on U. S. military bases. I've met plenty of these Muslim-bloc officers, and they have no problem discussing their own faith freely, so this is hardly a far-fetched image. In fact, Saudi Arabia has paid for the building of mosques and dispersal of millions of Korans all over the world.

Now imagine those Korans being seized and burned so as not to offend American Christians. Imagine those responsible announcing this to the entire planet so that no one will get the erroneous idea that a single Koran has survived.

Imagine the world-wide chaos that would ensue!

If that's a hard stretch for the imagination, it's because it just wouldn't happen. Meanwhile, has burning Bibles and then carefully announcing that burning across the entire Muslim world really made our own troops safer? I don't think so--and here's why! In so doing, the American military has sent the entire world--and especially the Muslim bloc--two disastrous messages:

1) Western leadership will bend over backwards to show respect for Islam's holy book, but has none at all for the Book considered sacred by a majority of its own citizens.

2) The greatest military power on earth, that won with such ease in Afghanistan and Iraq, is so petrified of Muslim aggression, it will burn its people's own 'holy book' to appease it. Which in local culture is not interpreted as a conciliatory gesture, but weakness and lack of moral fortitude.

Now personally, while I regret the Bible burning, my outrage is moderate. Why? God's Word cannot be destroyed by burning paper and ink. Totalitarian regimes of all stripes have been burning Bibles clear back to King Jehoiakim torching the prophet Jeremiah's scrolls (Jeremiah chapter 36). The Bible is still here. More Dari and Pashto copies will be printed, regardless of U.S. or Islamic government objections.

Which is precisely why you don't see Christians rioting around the world. I believe with all my heart that such capitulation places our military in more danger in the long term, because Muslim extremists have been encouraged once again that Americans have no moral strength. But I can see why military personnel might feel it was the easiest way out at the time.

Orissa Bible conference, February, 2009

Which in itself is the point. There was an 'easier' way to handle the Orissa situation as well. The BJP, after all, offered Orissa Christians a peaceful solution to their crisis. All they had to do was renounce their faith, reconvert to Hinduism, and promise never to speak of or worship Jesus Christ again, and they would be free to return to their villages and lives.

They chose instead to endure the loss of homes, churches, jobs, lives. They did so without resorting to retaliatory violence. They did so without knowing their steadfast faith and resolve in the face of persecution would send a watching nation to the ballot box to demand an end to extremism.

One has to wonder, judging by recent decisions, if current Western leadership had to trade places with the Orissa Christians, what kind of choice would they make?

Change a Heart, Change a Nation

Change.

A favorite slogan during any election campaign, change is a word we dread as much as desire. We long for change to make things better. We fear change will make things worse. And too often, even when we get the change we've fought for, whether geographical, political, economic, or social, we find ourselves disappointed. Why? Because though our circumstances may be changed, we ourselves are still the same and so are those around us.

Which is why we find ourselves so disappointed when billions are poured into places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Somalia, only to see the continuation of violence and hate and cruelty. You see, change that truly transforms society comes through changed hearts, not circumstances. And hearts change when they are restored to personal relationship with their Creator and heavenly Father through the transforming love of Jesus Christ.

When God promised restoration to an idolatrous, wicked Israel, He described it this way: "I will give you a new heart . . . I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26). When enough individual hearts change from hate to love, cruelty to kindness, greed to selflessness, their society will never be the same.

These thoughts come to mind as I have been putting together the most recent issue of our ministry magazine. One article comes from the Congo. If you've followed events of recent years there, the violence and chaos make Afghanistan and Somalia seem like Paradise. Africa’s second largest country after Sudan, roughly one-quarter the size of the United States, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC, is one of the most naturally wealthy regions on Earth with rubber, diamonds, gold, oil and numerous other mineral reserves.

As memorialized in the Joseph Conrad classic 'Heart of Darkness', human greed and brutality has kept its people among the planet's poorest from the days of slave raids and a colonial era characterized by forced labor and horrific working conditions to the vicious dictators and rebel fighting of its independence era. All-out civil war in recent years has resulted in more than five million dead. News headlines are a constant succession of atrocities, 'boy soldiers' now a dictionary entry. Most foreign ministry and aid organizations have been forced out of the country. Christian hospitals, printing presses, church buildings and schools were largely destroyed.
But though buildings will burn, a changed heart is unstoppable. In the midst of horror and darkness, Congolese Christians are still holding high the light of Christ's love and hope. Which brings me to that article I was editing. A friend, the subject of the article, spent many years in DRC with our ministry organization before having to leave for health reasons. A few months ago she received a letter from Congolese churches she'd worked with, asking for 15,000 sets of teaching material covering the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ--in Bengala and Swahili!

It seemed a tall order. How to get it published, much less into a country where travel was still almost at a stand-still. But God began to open doors. A Kenyan Christian publishing house took on the project. $10,000 were donated for printing costs. An African ministry that uses 4-wheel-drive vehicles to carry aid and the Good News to more inaccessible regions of Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, and DRC agreed to transport the materials for no cost.

It gives me goose-bumps to think that right now those 15,000 series on the life of Christ are flowing into the Congo. Children and adults are learning of a God who loved them so much He left the splendor of heaven to walk the dusty streets of a war-torn world. To set an example of how to love each other and forgive enemies. To give His own life on a cross to take our sins on Himself and pay the price for our redemption and restoration to our Creator.

If those children and adults will but listen, it just might do more to change the Congo than all the guns and U.N. peacekeepers and aid packages. And so I pause to pray for the impact of those small, simply-printed green volumes--and a people crying out for a hope of change.

Change a heart, change a nation.

Afghanistan's Upcoming Elections--Do They Matter?

Can you believe it's been five years already? This August, bumped up from its original schedule of April, 2009, the world will get to watch Afghanistan go through the motions of another presidential election. An estimated 140 million dollars is expected to come out of the pockets of American taxpayers to cover the cost. With Afghanistan falling increasingly into anarchy and violence, the current administration wracked with corruption and ineptitude, will a new go-around make any difference? Well, let's take a little history lesson.

Anyone who followed the news in 2004 remembers Afghanistan's triumphant first run at democratic elections. TV footage of Western favorite Hamid Karzai campaigning with his foreign bodyguards behind him. Voters waving purple thumbs. Women in burqas casting ballots. An easy win with the interim president sweeping more than 50% of the vote against a field of twenty-two opponents.

Here's what you may not know--and I don't mean that purple ink turning out not to be indelible after all! Exactly who thought up Afghanistan's presidential election code seems to be a mystery. Certainly Karzai's foreign backers signed on to it, though it bears no resemblance to their own election rituals. But who drafted and signed it into law is undisputed. Then interim president Hamid Karzai. Among minor red flags, such as that only Muslims can run for any office in Afghanistan, several more controversial provisions stand out.

1) Campaigning is only permitted for thirty days before an election. This, of course, guarantees a huge advantage to any incumbent already known to the people, especially in a country where mass communication is still at a premium. Picture Obama getting elected with a thirty-day window for a campaign.

2) Any would-be candidate serving in government, military, or law enforcement office must resign position at least two months ahead of said campaigning. In other words, are you willing to risk your livelihood on the outside chance you can beat said incumbent?

3) No government resources or connections may be used by candidates in pursuing their campaign.

Not that these sound so bad, if applied equally to all. Now granted, I had not in 2004 done enough research into Afghanistan to be aware of the provisions of their electoral campaign. But since it's on their government website and widely available on the internet, surely Western media as well as occupants of the White House and Capitol Hill were aware of Karzai's check list. His opponents certainly protested at the stacked deck. So why was it never pointed out that the only candidate not required to obey the rules Karzai imposed on his opponents was--Karzai himself?

Not only was Afghanistan's top government official allowed to stay in office through the campaign, we all watched him using the full apparatus of his own government as well as the willing and eager support of his foreign allies in that hugely-televised campaign. Maybe because back in 2004, Karzai's winning was a given to the Western coalition as well as the Afghan people themselves, the election little more than a formality. Bottom line, we didn't want to question the fairy-tale ending.

Five years later, no one is expecting a fairy tale anymore. With approval rating for the 'Mayor of Kabul' (so called because, one, his control only minimally extends beyond the capital and, two, because Karzai rarely leaves home to visit any of the country he rules) at an all-time low, neither Afghanis nor his former Western allies are showing much enthusiasm for another five years of Karzai. The difficulty is finding any alternatives.

At the moment, proposed candidates include any number of former warlords, now cabinet ministers and parliament members. And even some relatively decent possibilities. One contender, the Minister of Finance, has already stepped down from office in order to begin his campaign. But even the most wishful Western experts concede it is unlikely any of them will muster up support in such a short time frame to overcome the advantage of the incumbent. Especially since once again that election code doesn't seem to apply to the man who wrote it. Far from a 'thirty day window', Karzai has already announced his own rebid and is campaigning actively with no intentions of stepping down from office in the process.

The big question is how much difference it makes who occupies Kabul's Gul Khana Palace. As I've mentioned in another blog, elections don't equate with freedom. The United States recently finished one of its more hotly contested election campaigns (no thirty days, but closer to two years!). Were there disappointed people on election night when the final vote came in? Of course, there always is, no matter which side wins. But Americans don't go to bed on election eve scared to death the other party is taking over the next day.

Why? Because while we enjoy the democracy of choosing our leaders, we do so within a framework of law that does not change according to who scares up the majority vote. Win Democrat or Republican, the next day we can still worship God as we choose. We can still voice our opinions. We can still read, dress, eat, drink, move, work as we choose. We are still innocent until proven guilty, protected against unlawful search and seizure.

In a hideous reversal of that, whether Karzai wins out again or some new contender, Afghanis will wake up the next day under sharia law. Just this month, the Supreme Court of Afghanistan ended the last hope of reversing that 23-year-old journalist's twenty-year sentence for printing an article off the internet. Since in Afghanistan, the accused don't get to defend themselves, he didn't even find out the case had gone to the Supreme Court until he was informed they'd confirmed his sentence. Karzai has shrugged off any suggestion of a pardon. Ditto for the two journalists condemned to death for wanting to give Afghanis the Koran in their own language. The TV producer mullahs decided was blaspheming Islam with those uncovered female faces. And so on. And those offenders were all Muslim. Things like freedom of worship are so far under the table, we can't discuss them here.

Still, if Karzai makes no pretence of human rights, not a single alternative candidate has even suggested moderating Islamic law for little issues like freedom of worship, speech, association, or anything else. One might even ask in all the talk of 'American values', which is really more valuable to the average American. The 'democracy' of choosing which leader to administrate unjust and oppressive law. Or a governing framework that offers protection and freedom to every one of its citizens, winner or loser in the last election.

When we trumpet 'democracy' around the world as a prerequisite for global peace and freedom, but whimper apologetically that the framework of law and justice that makes our democracy work is just a personal opinion issue we'd hate to impose on anyone else, we might as well pick up our ballot boxes and go home.

All to say that this time around, let's not get quite so excited at those purple thumbs the media love to show us. As long as Afghanistan's upcoming elections are being held within a governing framework of sharia law and Islamic totalitarianism, we might as well be pouring those one hundred and forty million dollars straight into a hole in the ground.

Is Democracy Enough?

In recent months, both due to election campaigning and deteriorating political situations, the American public has heard much about upholding the 'fledgling democracies' that are our 'allies' on the other side of the planet. I.E. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq. A new term has entered the political dictionary: 'Islamic democracy'. Defined, it is a government which permits elected representation within the constraints of Islamic sharia law.

So is using the words 'Islam' and 'democracy' in the same phrase an oxymoron? Or can democracy exist within the framework of shariah law?

Yes, of course, if democracy is defined simply as holding elections for a chosen slate of local politicians. A resounding 'no' if one's definition of democracy includes any semblance of human rights and freedom. Afghanistan's 2004 post-Taliban Constitution, paid for with U.S. dollars and the blood of American soldiers, is a prime example. Consider its first three articles:

Article One: Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.

Article Two: The religion of the state of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam. Followers of other religions are free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of law.

Article Three: In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.

That 'provisions ' clause is the kicker. Every 'right' mentioned in Afghanistan's new constitution (and Iraq's) is conditioned by and limited to 'the provisions of [sharia] law'. Here are a few things Islamic democracy does NOT include:

Freedom of religion: By sharia law, it is apostasy for anyone born into the Muslim faith (or whose ancestors were conquered and converted at the point of the sword, like most of the Islamic world) to choose any other faith or form of worship. The penalty for apostasy is death. The most public recent example was the 2006 trial of Afghan Christian convert Abdul Rahman. Rahman became a Christian while living abroad as a refugee. Upon returning to the new, liberated 'democratic' Afghanistan, he was arrested for apostasy and condemned to death. After a huge international outcry, he was released to exile in Italy, not in any nod to religious freedom, but because it was determined he was mentally unstable and so ineligible for the death penalty. Afghan president Hamid Karzai refused to intervene while the Afghan parliament enthusiastically endorsed the death sentence. While U.S. and other Western governments made formal protests, no sanctions nor even withholding of military aid were even suggested. Since then other converts have been jailed and murdered.

Freedom of speech: By sharia law, it is blasphemy to say or do (or think!) anything that could be construed critical of Islam, the religious scholars interpreting Islam, past Islamic history, or Islamic laws governing every aspect of personal life. This includes both Muslims and non-Muslims. Once again, the penalty is death. In 2008, 23-year-old Afghan journalism student, Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, was sentenced to death for downloading an article published in Iran (ironically, considered a liberal, 'free' society by Afghan or Pakistani standards), which criticized the treatment of women in Islam, and photocopying parts of it for friends. Once again, Karzai refused to intervene while the Afghan parliament overwhelmingly ratified the death sentence. Just recently, that sentence was commuted to 20 years. Again, not in a nod to freedom of speech, but because Afghan president Karzai has to publicly sign off on an execution, politically inexpedient with Western funds paying even his daily bodyguard, while he can simply ignore any lesser sentence. Meanwhile, a 23-year-old is now locked up for the next two decades in Afghanistan's most notorious prison, Policharki, for the crime of believing the new Afghan democracy--and their Western allies--were serious about freedom of speech.

Freedom of person: Men and women are 'equal' under the 2004 Afghan constitution; that is, subject to sharia law, under which a woman is worth half the value of a man, is the legal property of her male relatives, and can move, speak, or study only with their permission. Just as under the Taliban, most women in Afghan jails today are there for the crime of 'zina', or unlawful contact with the opposite sex, which can be anything from being raped (adultery under shariah law), running away from an abusive marriage or home, refusing to be forced into marriage, or just being caught in the company of a male non-relative, even if not by their own choice.

I could go on and on. You see, it is not and never has been democratically elected leaders that guarantees our freedom.

Americans may scream and fume when the other party wins an election. But we do not live in abject fear over what will happen the day after inauguration. Why? Because regardless of who has taken control, our basic rights and freedoms are above the will of a majority vote. Freedom to worship as we choose. Freedom to form our own opinions and speak them freely. Freedom from unlawful search and imprisonment. Freedom of minorities to enjoy the same privileges as a majority. Even freedom to begin planning the next political campaign to throw out the current victors. Guaranteed by a constitution and legal system based on Judeo-Christian values of human freedom, choice and equality before God, those basic rights cannot be taken away by any democratic vote. Just as under an Islamic shariah constitution, those same rights cannot be granted by any democratic vote--as Iran, the original Islamic democracy, sadly discovered when they elected their former president on a reform platform (more on that in another posting).

Five years ago, shortly after what was thought to be the end of conflict in Iraq, as attention turned to creating a new constitution for Iraq and Afghanistan, I wrote an opinion piece entitled 'Is Democracy Enough', warning of the compromise of freedoms if the U. S. signed off on shariah-based democracy. I came across that column the other day. I wish I had not proved so prophetic. I offer that column again here today as a renewed warning. (READ). Because if we as a nation continue to export 'democracy' as a value defined by holding elections rather than any serious framework of human rights and justice, the time may come when that same definition becomes accepted in our country. May Americans never have to live under the definition of democracy their dollars and blood is currently supporting among our 'allies' in the Islamic world. Let us not remain quiet!