the_taliban_shuffle_-_kim_barker

convinced Ismail Khan to abandon Herat.
“He will move to Kabul,” Khalilzad told the room. “It’s good for
Afghanistan. It’s good for him.”
Ismail Khan did move. Zal didn’t seem to care how Afghans might
interpret this, if they would think that the United States was trying to
manipulate the Afghan government, six days before the election. Such a
Viceroy! He even threw a press conference the next day to talk up the
elections, urging journalists not to be lazy and talking about the
ramped-up training of the Afghan army. The man was everywhere.
The next weekend, the sun rose on Election Day with a hangover,
smeared and hazy. A harsh wind whipped dust across the capital like
re-powered sandpaper. Standing at the polling stations, it was tough
to see, not to mention painful. But Afghans started lining up at 5 AM,
eager to be the rst to vote. Despite threats of violence, the Taliban
failed to disrupt much of anything. And by the end of the election, two
things were clear: Lots of Afghans voted because they were excited, and
the main people who messed up the election were the foreigners. The
UN had devised such a complicated method to ink voters’ ngers to
prevent double voting, that the ink was mixed up and most of it could
be washed o with soap and water, meaning that democracy-minded
Afghans could vote as often as they wanted. But at that point, such
fraud hardly mattered. It was obvious that Karzai had won
overwhelmingly, and that Afghans overwhelmingly believed in him. So
did everyone else, for that matter. At least for a little while.