Brian M Downing
Hamid Karzai is well on his way to winning over fifty percent of the vote, guaranteeing him a second term as president of Afghanistan. Though captious rivals are crying foul, several prominent Americans gave the elections a hearty thumbs-up at a recent gathering in a posh Kabul bunker.
Katherine Harris began the evening by certifying the election. “Everything was on the up-and-up,” she announced as she stood next to President Harzai. “It was as fair and honest as any election we’ve had in Florida!” she exclaimed pridefully. When asked why Patrick Buchanan had done so well in several districts of Paktia and Wardak, she replied, “Irish candidates always do well there.”
As if on cue, Richard J. Daley, the late mayor of Chicago and everyone’s favorite Mick, came forward. Hizzoner seconded Ms Harris’s assessment and announced plans for a new highway connecting Kabul with some place or another. No one really knew where, and amid the light-heartedness, no one really cared. “The key thing is that DynCorp and Blackwater will be replaced by upright Irish and Polish contractors impartially selected by my associates,” Da Mayor noted. As for the insurgency, Daley said that large numbers of troops weren’t needed: “It’s nothing my police force couldn’t handle in short order.”
Next came Abe Fortas, the venerable grey eminence of politics who helped young Lyndon Johnson elide the pettifogging niceties of Texas electoral law and go on to guide American foreign policy so dexterously. He arrived in a truck packed with plastic containers stuffed with papers, and quipped, “Well, it looks like we didn’t need Jim Wells County after all!” When the gathering recovered from the levity, President Karzai announced that Fortas would head the Afghan Supreme Court.
Vito Corleone, a bit frail from a recent accident at a Kabul orange stand, spoke on the ongoing unpleasantness in the South and the East. His response to a question about a tentative deal with two prominent Pashtun families and a Turkmen warlord, moved many at the proceedings. “How did it ever come to this? I swear – on the souls of my grandchildren – that I will not be the one to break the peace.” All present fought back tears as they stood and applauded.
The surprise of the evening came when Jimmy Hoffa strode up to the mike. “Sorry I dropped out of sight like that,” he told the stunned crowd. “I just got fed up with the pressures of the Teamsters and I retired to Helmand to live the life of a gentleman farmer. You have no idea how rewarding that can be. Look, I know a crooked election when I see one and this one was as above-board as any I’ve been involved in.” Mr Hoffa confirmed that he had helped restore truck traffic carrying NATO supplies through the Khyber Pass: “The Taliban are willing to deal. That’s what the big shots in the suits don’t realize. One hand washes the other, whether it’s Detroit or Kandahar.” Hoffa hinted at plans to work again with Meyer Lansky to build several casinos along the Pakistani frontier.
Shorter but no less buoyant appearances were made by Boss Tweed, Arnold Rothstein, Marion Barry, Joseph P. Kennedy, John Mitchell, Tom Pendergast, James Gettys, James Traficant, Billy Sol Estes, Big Bill Thompson, Madame Nhu, Hyman Roth, and Cotton Ed Smith from the great state of South Carolina. Bernie Madoff was unable to attend but was unmistakably there in spirit. Indeed, the Madoff spirit pervades the government in Kabul.
Then it was President Karzai’s turn at the podium. He graciously thanked those who had come. “I am humbled by the presence of so many who have done so much to bring democracy to their people. I really couldn’t have done any of this without the precedents that you established.” The dignitaries spoke as one in averring that what Karzai had done was well beyond anything they even thought possible.
Outside the bunker, though audible inside, were the sounds of festivities. Powerful firecrackers boomed throughout Kabul, and countless bottle rockets arced gracefully across the night sky – augurs of coming change. Afghans were celebrating the birth of their democracy the same way Americans celebrate the birth of theirs.
~ ©2009 Brian M Downing