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Afghanistan
Afghan commission picked by UN for some reason
2002-01-27
  • The next step in Afghanistan's shaky transition to democracy is in the hands of a 21-member commission of experts so obscure that even Hamid Karzai knows only four of its members. The independent panel, named to bewilderment even among Karzai's cabinet members, was picked by the United Nations to prepare a Loya Jirga, or grand council, that will in turn be charged with choosing the next government in June. "The two or three I know are very good people -- but I only know two or three of them," one baffled minister said. "This is not the way we do things in Afghanistan." The confusion applied to members as well. "I don't know how I was appointed," said Mahboba Hoqoqmal, a political scientist and women's rights lawyer who found herself named commission vice-chairperson.
    That should certainly work well. The new government obviously needs to be built on the expertise of political scientists and women's rights lawyers and NGOs, and not on those nasty old politicians and (God help us!) warlords who actually control the countryside. Once the ideology's written up, their guns and ammunition will be rendered impotent.
    The UN has picked the members... whoch of course means that Afghanistan is fucking doomed. Never in the history of human endevours has there been an organisation with such a talent for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory as the UN.
    Posted by Perry de Havilland 1/27/2002 9:15:28 PM
    Depends on your definition of "victory," of course.
    Posted by Fred 1/27/2002 9:36:25 PM
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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