Afghans' new president

Beaming and claiming a great success in Afghanistan because of their elections, Bush and Karzai are asking you once again to pretend not to notice the truth.

In the U.S.-run Afghan election, all parties or individuals opposed to the American occupation of Afghanistan were excluded. So only ethnic minorities like Tajiks, Hazara and Uzbeks bought candidates -- and figures favouring collaboration with the occupation were represented.

Warlords, who control 80% of the nation, were bribed with tens of millions to give at least tacit support to Karzai. Afghanistan's majority, the Pushtun, were represented only by a few minor candidates without any political base. The most important Pushtun leader, Gulbadin Hekmatyar, declared a "terrorist" in 2002 for opposing the U.S. invasion, was, of course, excluded.

Afghans, it is true, turned out in large numbers to vote. Elections are still a novelty in Afghanistan, even fake ones. Only in developed democracies are citizens too lazy or indifferent to vote.

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Afghanistan's new "democratic" president is the world's most expensive mayor. Karzai rules only downtown Kabul, protected by 200 U.S. bodyguards, 17,000 U.S. troops and a token NATO force that includes Canadians. It costs Washington $1.6 billion US monthly to keep Karzai in power. Without the foreign troops' bayonets, Karzai's little puppet regime would quickly be swept away.

The real power behind figurehead Karzai is the Northern Alliance, the rump of the old Afghan Communist Party, made up of Tajiks and Uzbeks.

Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers almost totally ended poppy/heroin production. Today, America's Northern Alliance communist allies have restored the multibillion-dollar drug trade and are now said to control 95% of the world heroin supply. As in Indochina, the U.S. again finds itself in bed with major drug dealers while espousing a platitudinous "war on drugs."

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And everything works out just fine. The CIA does need its drug money.