"Participating In Election Is Treason With Islam And Afghanistan."

Although the "west" has all but given up on Afghan democracy - the agreed-upon euphemism for this betrayal appears to be "working to lower expectations" - it would seem that a few million Afghans have voted in today's elections anyway, braving Taliban threats of dismemberment and death.

"But Afghanistan is not Switzerland," we keep hearing, over and over. Thomas Ruttig conducts an archeological investigation of this pathetic excuse for cynicism and abandonment and notes in passing a friend's observation: "Afghanistan is also not Switzerland because it doesn't ban minarets." One might add that Afghans are further unlike the Swiss in the way so many of them are prepared to actually fight for democracy.

Here's Ruttig: "Just look at the result of this neglect: independent election institutions only in the name; no usable voters‘ register; 17 million voter cards in circulation with only 12.6 million voters – i.e. almost five million ghost voters used for ballot stuffing -; changed regulations for the ECC and the IEC that decrease transparency (the IEC is even not obliged anymore to store all election documents 'permanently‘) – a blatant invitation for new fraud; abysmally bad outreach and voter education. Even a partial implementation of some of these recommendations would not have created a second Switzerland but improved the 2010 election’s quality considerably."

Yet Afghans voted in droves today, regardless.

As Lauryn Oates observes: "This is the frontline of the battle for enlightenment, and these Afghan voters are the bulwarks of civilization. I hope, dearly, that the significance of their actions is not lost on those of us privileged enough to have never had to fight for the most basic political right: to vote."

Here's the sort of threat these Afghans have defied:

"You know during the last nine years our dear country Afghanistan was seized or occupied by Jews, and our Muslims and mujahedeen started jihad against them, and the Jews' army started a Jirga and election process to put pressure on our attempts at jihad. . . participating in election is treason with Islam and Afghanistan. - Regards, Haji Said Ahmad, General responsible for assassinations, Kandahar province, Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan."

Before sunrise on Saturday, Satururahman, 40, went to his mosque to pray, before casting his ballot. The Taliban had left leaflets at the mosque, threatening people to stay away from the polls."These letters will not scare us," he said.

Meanwhile, Eric Walberg writes in the "left-wing" journal, Dissident Voice (yes, that Eric Walberg): "The Taliban are not the ogre they are made out to be by the Western media." Okay then, let's turn to Al Jazeera, which covered the last Afghan elections by serving as the stunt manager, broadcaster and stenographer for a group of Talban gangsters who kidnapped a group of Afghan civilians (Al Jazeera left their fate unreported) for the crime of having voted. Note the Talib commander's warning: "You should know that you are standing in line with the Jews, and your fingers prove this. You are the ones who are strengthening the Jews."

If any of this surprises you, then you really need to do something about your paradigm.