Answering the Cynics
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Let the cynics who sneer at President Bush’s doctrine that freedom is a universal human value answer the latest photographs from Afghanistan, where for the first time the people have voted in a democratic presidential election. There were the extraordinary frames of ballot boxes being carried up into the mountains by mules. There were the images of long lines of individuals waiting to cast their ballots, and there were even – like in the most advanced democracies – passionate protests from factions charging the vote was unfair.
Those protests, like the vote itself, are signs that Afghans are invested in the idea of freedom. That they have a crack at it is thanks to the American ouster of the Taliban tyranny in 2001. Mr.Bush proclaimed this occasion as an “appropriate day to thank the men and women of our armed forces for liberating Afghanistan.” The country had, since 1978, been under a succession of tyrannies that included not only the Taliban but also the Soviet Union and its puppet, the People’s Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Eleven times in the 20th century, it saw leaders deposed and installed through undemocratic means, including two assassinations and four executions.
That is the drama of Saturday’s election – that and the fact that people turned out in droves despite fears of election-day attacks by Taliban holdouts. While fears of widespread election-day violence did not materialize, it is likely that much will be made of the allegations of voter fraud leveled by 15 of the opponents of President Karzai, the front-runner. No one recommends ignoring those allegations, which will be investigated. But the allegations are being largely discounted by United Nations and Afghan officials and need not sully the achievement of the election. America has been electing its leaders for 200 years, and still election results are contested, as in the 2000 election’s Florida debacle.
Also worthy of reflection is the decisiveness of the victory Saturday by Prime Minister Howard and his center-right Liberal Party in Australia. He defeated an appeasement-oriented campaign by the Labor Party, led by Mark Latham. Mr. Howard’s fourth term will make him the second longest serving prime minister in Australia’s history. This victory endorses Mr. Howard’s military support of the American-led coalition’s efforts to install democracy in Iraq. Although no Australian troops have been killed in Iraq, Australia has faced causalities – 88 dead civilians, killed by a terrorist bomb in a Bali nightclub. The decision of Australians to return Mr. Howard to office is a strong statement that Australian voters cannot be intimidated by terrorist acts.
Both elections – in Afghanistan and Australia – serve as vindications of America’s aggressive foreign policy against fascist governments that support terrorism. The beginning of the Afghan people’s life in a democratic society is tangible proof of the good America has done in that region, and the Australian people’s confirmation of their support in Iraq shows that America will not be alone when it continues that work in Iraq. This is a strong contrast to Spain’s election of the anti-American socialist, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, three days after terrorist bombs killed almost 200 Spaniards on March 11, 2004, which ended Spain’s support for the war on terror and the coalition that is building a democracy in Iraq. The locus of leadership moves east.