Ralph Peters:
FOR 50 years, the American left complained that we supported dictators instead of backing human rights and democracy. On Sunday, the lefties got yet another dose of what they used to demand: Free elections in Afghanistan, long the victim of tyranny.
The left's reaction? Ignore the success of the balloting and explain away its importance by bending the truth until it's as twisted as an arrow designed by a liberal-arts faculty.
Why? Because Afghan democracy was enabled by the U.S. military — and by that devil incarnate, George W. Bush.
Leftists care nothing for real human beings. They only care about causes in the abstract — and who does a thing is far more important than what actually gets done.
It's disheartening to see our lefties reject every worthy value they once professed, switching their support to psychotic terrorists and dictators (well, they always did like Stalin and Mao . . . ). But the rest of us can take heart from the Afghans' courage, from their determination to assert their political liberty.
Even major U.S. news outlets, disappointed by the lack of Election Day bloodshed, relegated the voting to the inner pages or to a brief mention well along in the broadcast. Heroism in the cause of democracy doesn't merit headlines.
Instead, we heard whining that just over 50 percent of eligible Afghans voted, that there were too many candidates, that warlords were allowed to run, that the Taliban's back in business and, generally, that Afghanistan still isn't a replica of Vermont four years after its liberation.
...
We all should be exhilarated by the valor and spunk displayed by Afghan voters. Left or right, we should be heartened by the yearning of human beings to control their own destiny, to cast off ancient traditions of oppressive governance. And we should be boundlessly proud of our troops, who gave the Afghan population this opportunity.
Instead, we get shrugged shoulders and cheap criticism. The non-coverage of Sunday's elections said far more about us than it did about Afghans.
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