Watan Azadi: Our Free Homeland

Update: Afghan Lord–yes, an Afghan blogger, has photos. Keep scrolling. You can even see a slide show here.

Today, Afghanistan held its second successful election, marking the completion of the democratic selection of its government by its people.

KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghans chose a legislature for the first time in decades Sunday, embracing their newly recovered democratic rights and braving threats of Taliban attacks to cast votes in schools, tents and mosques.

Violence across the country in the hours just before voting began and during the day killed 15 people, including a French commando in the U.S.-led coalition that is helping Afghans build a democracy after a quarter-century of conflict, but there were no signs of a spectacular attack threatened by Taliban militants to disrupt the vote.

Remember than in a tribal society like Afghanistan, the Taliban are not so much an organization of individuals but of tribes that offer recruits, food, shelter, and other assistance. Nothing is so fatal to a military alliance in Afghanistan as the appearance that it’s on the losing side. The Taliban’s failure to disrupt this election, or to attract a significant boycott or protest vote, will likely cost them essential support from regional commanders.

Yes, much needs to be done about warlordism, corruption, drug production, and poverty, but the road is now open to a future without them. Afghanistan’s economy is booming. Most of the five million refugees are home again, and honorable work now successfully competes with combat for able-bodied young men who make up tribal militias, bandit gangs, and dope growers. Commerce brings highways, commercial flights, electricity, and wireless networks that will make Afghanistan’s regions economically interdependent. Several of the most powerful warlords–Sherzai in Kandahar, Atta Mohammad in Taloqan, and Ismail Khan in Herat, have been defanged.

When I first started following events in Afghanistan almost obsessively after the 1979 invasion, I could not have dreamed of the sequence after 9/11 that would eventually lead to this day. Maybe to get myself out of the clouds, I should call up my friend Mohammad Alif and ask him to quibble about all the things that still aren’t perfect yet.