A refreshing, but rare attitude. It comes from this AP report on the Afghan vote, with thanks to Uncle Jeff. And unfortunately, since Islam has had a political dimension virtually since its inception, this will continue to be a rare attitude unless there is widespread reform.
Afghanistan's historic presidential election opened Saturday, with people across this ethnically diverse land casting the first ballots in an improbable experiment with democracy, and under a Taliban threat of ruinous violence.After 25 years of near-constant war, voters descended on bombed-out schools, blue-domed mosques and bullet-pocked hospitals to choose their leader for the first time as more than 100,000 soldiers, police, U.S. troops and other security forces were deployed to thwart attacks.
Interim leader Hamid Karzai is widely expected to win against 15 rivals, among them warlords, royalists and even an Islamic poet. But the size of the field could deny Karzai the outright majority needed to avert a run-off....
Election officials arrested three Pakistanis and said they planned to detonate the truck in the center of the city on polling day.
"This would have caused hundreds of deaths ... and the electoral process would have been derailed in the area," said Col. Ishaq Paiman, the Defense Ministry deputy spokesman.
A flurry of rockets landed in several cities around the country on Thursday and Friday, including one that hit a parking lot near the U.S. Embassy and another that injured a young girl and an old man in the eastern city of Jalalabad. Still, none threatened to derail the vote and most Afghans brushed them off.
"In 25 years, a lot of rockets have landed. If another one lands because of the election, it's no problem," said Noor Uddin, a 49-year-old Kabul businessman, on Friday.
In Kandahar, police struggled to keep back a crowd of hundreds of men trying to vote at a polling site on the grounds of the governor's residence. Election workers reprimanded several Karzai campaign officials for coming to lobby voters at site, a violation of electoral law.
Voters who came out early across the country said they hoped the election would put an end to this hard-luck nation's long suffering.
"We are very happy," said Abdur Rahim, a 75-year-old voting in the northern city of Sheberghan, a stronghold of Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of Karzai's challengers. "We want the election to end our wars."
Aziz Ullah, a 19-year-old Kabul shopkeeper, said the election offered a stark contrast in a nation that has endured many forms of imposed rule in the past 30 years _ among them monarchy, Soviet occupation, warlord fiefdoms and the repressive Taliban theocracy ousted by the U.S.-led invasion following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"I came here to vote so we can have democracy and stability and peace in Afghanistan," he said. "There used to only be a transfer of power by force or killing. Today, the Afghan people are choosing their future leaders themselves."
Women voted at separate booths from the men, in keeping with this nation's conservative Islamic leaning.
"I walked from my house with my husband to vote for Karzai, who is a very good person," said Mahtab, a 45-year-old Kabul housewife. Like many Afghans she uses only one name.
A day ahead of the vote, Islamic clerics urged worshippers to embrace democracy. At the Blue Mosque, the capital's largest house of prayer, Mullah Obeid-ul Rahman told some 400 faithful that Islam and democracy should go hand and hand.
Rahman did not say which presidential hopeful he would pick, but made clear that the only female candidate, former U.N. worker Massooda Jalal, was not his choice.
"In Islam, it is forbidden for a woman to become president," he told the crowd.
At least one listener disagreed.
"I am voting for Massooda Jalal," said Fazel Rahman, 35. "I have come here to pray. I don't care what the mullah says about politics."
Does seem as if it takes an entire generation to sufer under islamaic anarchy - koran as the constitution, sharia as law etc - before the clarity and guts to separate religion from politics becomes obvious. Afghanistan and iran are cases in the point. Going by that logic, Saudi, Yemen etc should be ready too, eh?
That's a wonderful attitude to have. Rahman is very brave to have voiced it in public. However, I wonder if he will maintain this stance if put under the pressure of having a gun to his head or that of his family. The Stalinists found other ways to pressure those that didn't actively support the system. The Islamists have other ways as well.
We hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Gen Dostum is one of the bloodiest war lords in Afghanistan, and also one of the most powerful.
He was responsible for the Afghan Massacre, 7,000 Afghani's brutally murdered.
An event, when I saw it on World Link TV, left me conflicted. In as much as I was repulsed by the horror of it all, and the sheer brutality. HOwever
the victims were Taliban and foreign fighters mostly Pakistani.
I couldn't help thinking, well that's 7,000 less ignorant, bloodthirsty Jihadis.
I read some vivid and horrific descriptions of what the Muhajadeen did to Russian Soldiers.. absolutely horrific, crucifixion, skinning alive, slow dismemberment and then hanging body parts on hooks in meat markets.
Hard to find any empathy or sympathy for these people, especially when their culture and religion oppress others.
The Afghan girl who entered the Olympics had to run in a sweatsuit and Hijab, and when interviewing an Afghani about it, he said that he would kill her, even if she was his own daughter.
The islamic jihadists are desperate to thwart this election process, they can see what a devastating blow it would be to islam overall.
The only reason Afghanistan is an islamic nation is because arabs invaded and conquered it, and brutal regimes such as the Taliban have made damn sure the Afghan people stay oppressed and islamic....OR ELSE.
But now because of this new era of freedom, an actual election process, a true democratic government installed, and women allowed to vote and given infinitely more freedom than ever before (they even have a female candidate up for election) the people of Afghanistan are going to realise they are no longer under obligation to be muslims, they can have whatever faith they choose, or be atheists if they wish. Of course there are going to be the usual islamo-cruds trying their damndest to stop this, but the rest of the people will begin to see these pathetic nutcases as the religious oppressors and obssessives that they are, and will see begin to see islam as a threat to the newfound freedom the have been granted, and these islamic extremists will be seen far and wide, even by most muslims as the enemy, the tyrants.
The Taliban know this , Al Qaeda know this, all the other religiously insane groups of jihadi-terrorists know this, they realise the snowball effect that has been set in motion against islam, that it's population can only shrink, or that they will even be seen by muslims as the bad-guys which is why they are so desperate to prevent it ( in vain though as Karzai will with US aid will thwart them).
The same thing is true in Iraq, the terrorists there (Tawid and Jihad, Zarqawi's group and all the others), they know that the same result will happen there as in Afghanistan if the election process is allowed to go through, another massive blow to islam. They know that the US will no longer be seen as the "Great Satan" by iraqi muslims, and the views of many arabs outside of Iraq will also change as a result. The proof for this , like in Afghanistan, lies within the fact that they are so determined to cause chaos, to assassinate Interim government officials, to kill Police recruits/Security recruits and applicants, to destroy and halt any progress being made (e.g- the Water purification plant that was destroyed last week).
It is by all of this evidence that we should denounce all the claims of the ignorant, brainless claims of the left that this war should not have taken place, and that nothing is being acheived by it, I now think more than ever that the US government know what they are doing, even if they have made a few mistakes along the way. And anyone aware of things from the view I see it from, cannot deny that this is without a doubt and very effectively a War On Terror .