Afghanistan News September 19, 2005

September 19, 2005

Early estimates show voter turnout in Afghanistan polls at just over 50 pct
09.19.2005, 05:46 AM
KABUL (AFX) - Early estimates show a turnout of just over 50 pct in Afghanistan's landmark parliamentary elections, well below that of last year's presidential vote, chief electoral officer Peter Erben said.

With closing reports in from around 35 pct of polling stations after yesterday's vote, 'the turnout appears to be just over 50 percent', or six million people, Erben told a news conference.

The figure is significantly lower than the turnout of about 76 pct for the October 2004 presidential election won by Hamid Karzai.

Afghan Elections Hailed As Success
By DANIEL COONEY, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Trooping into schools, mosques and tents, millions of Afghans defied a Taliban boycott call and militant attacks to vote for a new parliament Sunday, taking the last formal step in starting a democracy aimed at ending decades of rule by the gun.

Officials hailed the polls as a major success, although initial estimates suggested voter turnout was lower than hoped for because of security fears and frustrations over the inclusion of several warlords on the ballot. Results were not expected for more than a week.

Many people looked to a big vote to marginalize renegade loyalists of the ousted Taliban regime by demonstrating public support for an elected government built up under the protection of 20,000 soldiers in the American-led coalition and 11,000 NATO peacekeepers.

Washington and other governments have poured in billions of dollars trying to foster a civic system that encourages Afghanistan's fractious ethnic groups to work together peacefully and ensure the nation is never again a staging post for al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

"After 30 years of wars, interventions, occupations and misery, today Afghanistan is moving forward, making an economy, making political institutions," President Hamid Karzai said as he cast his ballot nearly a year after his own victory in an election that defied Taliban threats.

He praised Afghans for going out to vote for the parliament and 34 provincial councils "in spite of the terrorism, in spite of the threats."

President Bush called the vote successful and a major step forward, commending "the tremendous progress that the Afghan people have made in recent years." NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said it was another milestone on the country's road to recovery and peace.

Fifteen people, including a French commando in the U.S.-led coalition, were killed in a spate of violence during the day. But there was no spectacular attack as threatened by Taliban militants, whose stepped-up insurgency the past six months caused more than 1,200 deaths.

Heavy security kept most violence away from polling stations. Election officials reported three people wounded and no one killed in attacks near polls and said only 16 of the 6,270 voting stations did not open because of security threats.

Vote counting begins Tuesday, and with donkeys and camels being used to collect ballots in some remote areas, preliminary election results are not expected until early October.

Even then, it likely will take time to figure out who has the power in the new Wolesi Jirga, a parliament with 249 seats, 68 of which are set aside for women. Most of the 2,775 candidates ran as independents, and Karzai was careful not to publicly favor anyone, fearing renewed tensions if any political blocs become too powerful.

Rights activists viewed the election as a big step for women in this traditionally male-dominated society. The 5,800 candidates for parliament and the provincial assemblies included 582 women, and a quarter of legislative seats are reservedd for women.

Enthusiasm was generally high as Afghans clutching voter identification cards filed into schools with lessons still scrawled on blackboards or stepped over piles of shoes to cast ballots in mosques. Tents served as polling stations in remote areas.

"Today is a magnificent day for Afghanistan," said Ali Safar, 62, standing in line to vote in Kabul. "We want dignity, we want stability and peace."

The United States started Afghans on the road toward democracy when it led a military campaign in late 2001 to topple the Taliban for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden and close al-Qaida camps. A tribal council adopted a constitution early in 2004, followed by Afghanistan's first presidential election last fall and then Sunday's parliament ballot.

At least 190 U.S. military personnel have been killed in or near Afghanistan during that period, and Washington hopes the strengthening Afghan democracy will calm the insurgency and let American troops start to withdraw.

U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann called the elections a "great success," putting an optimistic cast on reports that voter turnout appeared lower than for October's presidential election.

"In America, only half of the people vote," Neumann said. "If people are getting a little more used to elections, then maybe Afghanistan is turning into a normal country."

Election organizers said voter turnout figures would not be known until Monday.

Karzai said large numbers of women voted in several areas wracked by violence, including in the southern city of Kandahar, a former stronghold of the repressive Taliban regime.

"Their participation in the election is a very, very positive step," he said.

But entrenched attitudes were still evident. At a Kuchi nomad voting center east of Kabul, an Associated Press Television News cameraman saw women in all all-encompassing burqas handing their ballots to men to fill out as electoral officials watched without intervening.

In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the election showed "the clear determination of the Afghan people to pursue the peaceful and democratic development of their nation."

Some 12.4 million Afghans were registered to vote, up from 10 million for the presidential election.

Chief electoral officer Peter Erben called turnout "extremely healthy," but some officials and independent election monitors were disappointed.

The Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, a monitoring body partly financed by the U.S. government, estimated 30 percent to 35 percent of registered voters cast ballots, based on observations from 7,500 monitors across the country. Turnout last fall was about 75 percent.

"People were scared of suicide bombings, rocket attacks, shootings and all the other violence we've seen in recent months," said foundation spokesman Farid Farhangfar.

Saman Zia-Zarifi, deputy Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, which had 14 observers in the field, said the inclusion of several notorious candidates, such as warlords responsible for much of the bloodshed during the 1990s civil war, disenchanted some Afghans.

Abdul Makin, a state prosecutor doubling as a polling organizer in Kabul, agreed.

"Warlords destroyed our country and now the ballot is full of them," he said. "I didn't vote because I wasn't sure any of the candidates are honest. Last year, there were long queues of people waiting to vote. Today we're seen none of that."
___
Associated Press writers Amir Shah and Steve Gutterman in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.

Trucks, camels haul the ballots after Afghan vote
Sun Sep 18,11:56 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Election workers using trucks, helicopters and camels collected ballot boxes from across Afghanistan after the nation voted on a legislature for the first time in more than 30 years.

Unofficial surveys in the war-battered country indicated a lower turnout than in last year's presidential election, but millions of voters defied threats from the Taliban to cast their ballots.

The elections for the lower house of the national assembly and 32 provincial councils were Afghanistan's first since 1969, and viewed as a crucial step in its progress towards democracy after decades of bloodshed.

The Taliban militia, overthrown in late 2001 for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks on the United States, failed to disrupt the vote as they had promised.

Nine people died in militant attacks on Saturday and Sunday, including a French commando, but only three voters were injured in violence specifically linked to the election.

The vote-counting was due to start on Tuesday with results not expected for more than two weeks, said chief electoral officer Peter Erben.

Staff began to collect the 120,000 boxes from 6,300 voting centres immediately after the polls closed on Sunday afternoon and work continued overnight to take them to 32 counting centres, he said.

Election workers were "bringing in the boxes and reconciling that the right contents are there," he said. "We anticipate some will take over three days to transport, which will happen on mules, donkeys and camels."

He said he believed a high proportion of the 12.5 million Afghan men and women eligible to vote had done so, but said he would not be able to give a figure until Monday at the earliest.

Turnout for the October 2004 presidential election won by US-backed Hamid Karzai was 76 percent.

But initial estimates by the main group of independent observers, Free and Fair Elections in Afghanistan, found that just 50 percent of registered voters took part in the parliamentary polls. It deployed more than 7,000 observers.

The same figure was given separately by the Afghan media group Kilid, which had correspondents in 24 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.

But turnout among women, long downtrodden in the conservative Islamic country, was said to be particularly high. Karzai hailed it as a "very, very positive step."

The European Union called the election a "milestone on the road to peace and stability" while NATO, which runs the peacekeeping International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, praised those who turned out to vote.

The run-up to the polls saw fears that local warlords and drug lords could have influenced voters on Sunday or could be planning to tamper with the ballots.

Erben said fraud would be virtually impossible because the ballot boxes were closed with strong metal seals and that monitors would remain with them at all times while they were transported.

"We have even made one seat available in each actual convoy for independent observers," he said.

The elections were for 249 seats in the lower house of the national assembly, including 68 for women, and 420 seats on provincial councils.

Bomb strikes truck transporting ballot boxes in Afghanistan
19/09/2005, 19:02:56 ABC Radio Australia
A truck transporting ballot boxes from Afghanistan's legislative polls has been hit by a roadside bomb.

Police say the bomb ripped through the front of the vehicle, damaging the cabin and breaking its windows, but no one has been injured, and the ballot boxes are intact.

The incident took place in Khogiany district, around 95 kilometres east of the capital, Kabul, a couple of hours after polling stations closed across Afghanistan on Sunday.

The elections at the weekend were the country's first since 1969 for the lower house of the national assembly and for 32 provincial councils.

Vote-counting is due to start on Tuesday with results not expected for more than two weeks.

Voters scorn threats of violence

Unofficial surveys indicate a lower turnout than in last year's presidential election, but millions of voters defied threats from suspected Taliban militants to cast their ballots on Sunday.

Our correspondent in Kabul, Geoff Thompson, says up to 14 people died, in rocket, mortar and mine attacks, while militants and Afghan policemen were killed when a polling station was targeted.

However, election officials say the level of disruption was far less than anticipated.

President Hamid Karzai says the Afghan people have made history.

World leaders praise Afghan elections
www.chinaview.cn 2005-09-19 13:38:39
BEIJING, Sept. 19 -- World leaders have heaped praise on Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in more than 30 years.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement the election showed "the clear determination of the Afghan people to pursue the peaceful and democratic development of their nation."

The European Union's external relations commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, described the landmark elections as a milestone on the road to peace and stability, which Afghanistan has been traveling along since the end of 2001.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Afghanistan has sent a loud and clear message to the world that with the determination, enthusiasm and confidence of its people, it will continue along the path to democracy, despite continuing challenges.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, praised Afghanis for their determination to build a better future for their country by turning out to vote overnight in such high numbers.

Blair congratulated the people of Afghanistan on turning out in such numbers to vote in their parliamentary and Provisional Council elections today despite the threat of violence from Taliban fighters.

He also praised the "courage shown by all those who have been standing as candidates and especially the many women."

US President George W. Bush also congratulated Afghans for turning out to vote, despite the threats of violence, in what he called an important step in democratic governance.

As the polls closed, officials said a high proportion of the nearly 12.5 million eligible voters had cast their ballots, signalling another step on a difficult path to democracy, launched after the Taliban regime fell in 2001.

Bush congratulates Afghans on election
Sun Sep 18, 6:58 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush congratulated Afghans for turning out to vote in general elections despite threats of violence in what he called an important step in democratic governance.

"I congratulate the Afghan people and Afghan government for today's successful parliamentary elections, which are a major step forward in Afghanistan's development as a democratic state governed by the rule of law," Bush said in a statement through his spokesman.

"Braving deadly attacks and threats of violence, Afghans voted in large numbers for representatives to their new National Assembly and Provincial Councils," the statement said.

"We commend the tremendous progress that the Afghan people have made in recent years, and we pledge the full support of the United States as Afghanistan acts to meet the new challenges ahead."

Officials have said a high proportion of the nearly 12.5 million eligible voters had cast their ballots, signaling another step on a difficult path to democracy launched after the Taliban regime fell in 2001.

However, eight people were killed in fighting between security forces and suspected Taliban rebels, including a civilian in a US air strike, in the run-up to Afghanistan's landmark elections Sunday, officials said.

Britain's Blair salutes the courage of Afghan candidates
Sun Sep 18, 5:39 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) - British Prime Minister     Tony Blair, who currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, praised Afghanis for their determination to build a better future for their country by turning out to vote in high numbers.

"I congratulate the people of     Afghanistan on turning out in such numbers to vote in their parliamentary and Provisional Council elections today" despite the threat of violence from Taliban fighters, Blair said in a statement.

"Once again the Afghan people have shown how determined they are to build a better future for their country."

Blair also praised the "courage shown by all those who have been standing as candidates and especially the many women."

Earlier the     European Union's executive arm hailed the largely peaceful voting.

"The first parliamentary elections in over 30 years make this a historic day and a further milestone on the road to peace and stability which Afghanistan has been travelling along since the end of 2001," external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement.

A team of EU observers in Afghanistan was scheduled to report on the poll's conduct on Monday.

As the polls closed, officials said a high proportion of the nearly 12.5 million eligible voters had cast their ballots, signaling another step on a difficult path to democracy launched after the Taliban regime fell in 2001.

Election results by October 22: JEMB
KABUL, September 18 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Joint UN-Afghan electoral body announced Sunday night that final results of the key legislative elections would be out by the 22nd of October.

Speaking at a news conference here, JEMB operations chief Peter Erben said: "There are more than 120,000 ballot boxes, some of which will take a longer time being shifted to counting centres."

The votes will be counted at 32 centres in the presence of international monitors and domestic observers, the JEMB official said, adding at least one representative of each candidate would be allowed to accompany officials transporting the ballot boxes to counting centres.

Erben told journalists the vote count would get underway on Tuesday, with the poll panel trying to wrap up the process in 16 days. The final results will be declared by the 22nd of the next month.

Referring to violence during polls, he said 19 such incidents were reported from different parts of the country. In an act of violence that came about in Pech Dara district of the eastern Kunar, three voters were injured.

Bismillah Bismil, JEMB chairman, speaking on the occasion, held the parliamentary elections as a success. "Despite security fears, the polls were successful," he reiterated.

He recalled that they were unable to set up polling stations in all district of the country during last year's presidential elections, but the goal was realised this time around.

Reported by Zubair Babakarkhail & translated by Mudassir

Rockets fired at Pakistan army camp near Afghanistan border
Monday September 19, 4:22 PM
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) - Two rockets have been fired at a Pakistan army camp near the Afghanistan border in the same area where troops last week raided a suspected Al-Qaeda compound, an official said.

The rockets, fired from over the border Sunday, caused no casualties because they landed in a plant nursery near the camp in North Waziristan province, the administration official said on Monday.

"Two rockets landed and exploded in a nursery close to the army camp Sunday night but caused no casualties," the official, in the border town of Miranshah, told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Troops returned fire towards the border, he said.

It was not immediately clear who fired the missiles. Similar attacks have been blamed on militants suspected of links with Taliban and Al-Qaeda remnants who sneaked into the area in late 2001 after the US-led invasion on Afghanistan.

Pakistan strengthened its deployment of troops in the border region by thousands of soldiers before elections in Afghanistan on Sunday, to prevent militants crossing over to disrupt the vote.

Just kilometres away from the rocket attack, troops continued to surround a compound that they raided last week, busting what the military called the biggest Al-Qaeda base in North Waziristan and recovering huge caches of weapons.

The compound, which includes a residence and a madrassa, was said to be owned by Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior Al-Qaeda insurgent. His father, Jalaluddin Haqqani, was a minister in the Taliban government before it fell in the US-led campaign.

Sirajuddin Haqqani fled before the raid, apparently after being tipped off.

Strange bedfellows in Afghanistan
Boston Globe (USA) By Fotina Christia | September 18, 2005
BEFORE ITS RISE to fame as a battleground in the war on terror, Afghanistan was known as a bubbling geyser of the Cold War. During the 1980s Afghan communists, installed and backed by the Soviet Army, struggled for years to overcome resistance from US-backed mujahideen. Now -- over a decade after the Soviet withdrawal and bloody ethnic strife that followed -- the communists are making a comeback. Running for office in today's Afghan parliamentary elections, they have assumed the mantle of modernism against fundamentalism. And in the highly unstable and ethnically fragmented political landscape, the United States seems to have found a friend in their former foe. Arguably, there is some logic to this apparent madness; but our new-found love for the communists could prove perilous unless handled with care.

Afghans are expected to cast an ethnic vote in the election, a voting pattern that risks further entrenching warlordism and undermining the central authority of the state. In a candidate pool comprised of powerful warlords, heroic mujahideen, and repentant Taliban, the former communists have surfaced as our unlikely ally against factionalism: Their candidates and supporters span all ethnic groups. And in addition to a multiethnic platform, their skills, party organization and stance on women's rights appear to make them our candidates of choice.

Indeed, the former communists -- along with some newly returned Afghan diaspora -- are the only locals with experience in running a country: They are the only literate bureaucrats around. And in a country plagued by illiteracy and ravished by decades of civil war, the scarcity of trained local officials has made them a desirable commodity. Similarly, former comrades are the only Afghans who are tried and tested in party organization. The Afghan communist party, regardless of its factionalism and shortcomings, was a true party of sorts: It had cadres, a semi-formalized membership structure, as well as women's wings and youth organizations. Peter Dimitroff, the country director of the National Democratic Institute, a leading, mostly US-funded NGO, ''appreciates the irony in his organization's support for former communist groups. ''We support all registered parties, but we support some in a deeper fashion. We like groups that get together on the basis of ideas not ethnicity or geographical background. That is why we are supporting groups like the communists with US money, which is kind of funny . . . They are good guys and well organized. They are the closest to a professional political party you can get."

In the traditionalist and highly conservative Afghan political context, the former communists are openly ''women-friendly," fielding a sizeable number of female candidates. Given the party's gender equity policy, it is hardly surprising that some of the leading women on the political scene have a communist affiliation. And the female quota -- which stipulates that 25 percent of the parliamentary seats will have to be filled by women even though they make up only 10 percent of the candidates' pool -- will undoubtedly boost not only female but also communist representation in parliament.

Laudable though the former communists' agenda may be, the risks associated with backing a former foe -- particularly one with such a negative precedent in Afghanistan -- can easily outweigh the benefits. First, our support for the former communists risks alienating the local population. UN Political Affairs Officer Eckhart Schiewe says that US rhetoric on the war on terror closely echoes Soviet justifications for the invasion of Afghanistan. ''Once again a major world power has chosen to depict the conflict in Afghanistan as the forces of good against the forces of evil, much like the Soviet Union did," according to Schiewe. ''The communists are back in business."

Afghans appear highly apprehensive, if not outright negative, about a potential communist return. According to former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, ''some Western governments working in our country have given place to those who entered on the tanks of the [Soviet] invaders of our country . . . indirectly telling us that it was bad to stand against the Soviets, the Taliban, and terrorism."

Rather than using remnants of an ''evil" empire (the former communists) to take down the new evil-doers (the fundamentalists), and risk alienating the local population, the United States should concentrate on good practices. A young Afghan, who blamed Russia ''for everything that has gone wrong in Afghanistan in the last 30 years," attributed the resilience of the Afghan communists to the Soviets' human capital strategy. ''The Soviets offered a significant number of scholarships to Afghans and trained scores of people in the Soviet Union. These people then came back to Afghanistan as the staunchest supporters of Soviet ideology," he said. ''The Americans, if they want to succeed in winning the hearts and minds of Afghans, need to establish educational exchange programs. They should stop worrying about weapons of mass destruction and instead concentrate on building human capital. Trained people make the best ideological weapons. And this is what Americans need: ideological weapons of mass construction."

Judging by the Afghan communists' return and resilience, the United States can possibly outsmart its current enemy by learning from its former one. But to do it right, it would have to train its own people rather than rely on what the Soviets left behind.

Fotini Christia is a fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University.

3 members of Iran’s state TV arrested in Afghanistan
Iran Focus (Iran)
London, Sep. 18 - Three employees of Iran’s state television and radio broadcasting corporation, IRIB, were detained in Afghanistan by American troops, according to a notice posted on the organisation’s website on Sunday.

The trio who were picked up in the Afghan capital of Kabul were detained for six hours. They underwent fingerprinting and some of their equipment was confiscated, according to the report.

The report said that the three were in Kabul to film scenes of the election process.

IRIB reporters have in the past been arrested in Iran’s western neighbour Iraq on charges of being Tehran’s spies while working under the pretext of news production. Mostafa Darban, then the bureau chief of Iran's official news agency, was held for more than two weeks by Baghdad police in August 2004.

Clinton blasts Bush over Iraq, says Afghanistan a bigger threat
September 19, 2005 BY CATHERINE LARKIN Chicago Sun-Times
Former President Bill Clinton said the U.S. strategy in Iraq threatens to draw resources from the ''even more important'' priority of securing Afghanistan.

Clinton, interviewed on ABC's ''This Week'' program, said the United States won't know whether the Iraqis can muster enough trained security forces to fight the insurgency until the process of approving a constitution by national referendum and forming a permanent government is done by the end of the year.

The question is whether the U.S. force of 140,000 troops is enough to meet the strategic goal of securing Iraq while helping the country develop its own police and army forces, he said.

''I wanted the strategy to work,'' Clinton said. ''Whether it will or not, I don't know. But the only thing I would sacrifice it to is if I thought we were going to lose in Afghanistan.''

Clinton said keeping Afghanistan out of the hands of the Taliban and undermining al-Qaida should be the biggest priorities because ''that's still by far a bigger threat to our security.'' Bloomberg News

Will U.S. abandon Afghanistan?
The Washington Times 09/17/2005 By Joanna Nathan and Mark Schneider
"I will not vote, these elections are not worth anything, the candidates are the same people who destroyed Afghanistan," thunders the taxi driver as we jolt down Kabul's streets. Campaign posters for the upcoming National Assembly and Provincial Council elections on Sept. 18 blanket every non-moving object.

Suddenly, a thought struck him: "If I do vote, I will vote for a woman! They do not have blood on their hands." Hopefully, such revolutionary ideas will occur to many other voters in Afghanistan. Hopefully, they will feel confident enough in the secrecy of the ballot to exercise true choice and secure enough amidst an ongoing insurgency in the south and east to make it to the polling booth in the first place.

Election preparations have been at full steam for six months now, with more than 12 million voters enrolled and 5,800 candidates, 582 of them women. Ballot papers are a vision in color, featuring a picture and symbol for each candidate to aid illiterate voters. Weighing more than 1,000 tons, they are now making their way by helicopter, plane, truck, donkey and camel out to 6,000 polling centers across the country.

But despite such impressive technical preparations for these $159 million polls, there are wider concerns about both the framework of the elections and the viability of the institutions they will ultimately create.

The concern most immediately apparent to Afghans, such as our taxi driver, is the lack of a robust vetting system to bar candidates implicated in years of atrocities and drug trafficking. Indeed, the failure of the Karzai administration and his international backers to tackle head-on the perpetrators of past atrocities has led to a culture of impunity, with many of the same people back in power today and now seeking the mantle of a democratic mandate.

The U.N. Office of Drug Control reported at the end of August that Afghanistan produced 87 percent of the world's opium for the second year in a row. It also urged the removal of corrupt governors and officials involved in the drug trade, barring parliamentary candidates with drug ties, and "zero tolerance" toward warlords' involvement in drug trafficking. The latter recommendation has yet to be acted upon by the administration and Coalition forces who argue they are fighting against a still virulent insurgency. Yet, the drug trade is financing Taliban insurgent operations.

The fact that, in what became a highly politicized vetting process, only 32 candidates were barred for retaining links to armed groups has added to local disillusionment.
An inappropriate voting system, the rarely used single non-transferable voting and a political framework hostile to political parties mean these elections are being fought on ethnicity and individuals rather than ideas. In turn, the democratic bodies to emerge are likely to be fractured and weak with no workable caucuses or groupings on which to build a robust political culture.

However, above all these concerns are fears the international community may see these elections widely touted as the end of the transitional process agreed to in Bonn in December 2001 as a time to downgrade commitments to Afghanistan.

It is absolutely imperative that these elections are viewed as the beginnings of democratization, not the end. Afghanistan is still at a perilously fragile stage. This vote will provide the trappings of a democratic state, but there is still little in the way of institutions or resources to exert true control.

The ongoing insurgency in the south and east has been bloodier this summer than at any time since the fall of the Taliban, including the killing of six candidates and even more election workers. Ordinary Afghans continue to suffer some of the lowest social indicators in the world: life expectancy is 45; a woman dies in childbirth every 30 minutes; and illiteracy is running at 70 percent. The Bonn process was about tight deadlines for political transition. The momentum created in this sphere now needs to be used to push forward in other areas.

Previous lessons about the consequences of abandoning Afghanistan should be fresh in everyone's mind. Now, more than three-and-a-half years after the fall of the Taliban, the growing sense of discontent on the streets of Afghanistan is palpable. If Afghanistan is allowed to slip back into being a failed state because the international community turns away after elections, that sense of discontent will be the country's major export.

Joanna Nathan is senior analyst in Kabul for the International Crisis Group, an NGO. Mark Schneider is the ICG's senior vice president and directs its Washington office.