Even the poor people in Afghanistan can get photo ID’s

Via Allen B. West

Talk about voter suppression! Voters in Afghanistan have had to dodge drive-by shootings and suicide bombings, but there’s not a word about the “indignity” of carrying a photo I.D. to the polling place.

As the Associated Press reports, The run-up to the election was troubling: the Islamic radicals of the Taliban, reviled by many but still popular in some areas, view the entire enterprise as the work of outsiders and infidels, and they vowed to disrupt it by targeting polling centers and election workers.

To drive home the threat, insurgents in recent weeks stepped up shootings and bombings in the heart of Kabul to show they are capable of striking even in highly secured areas. A restaurant popular with foreigners and one of the capital’s main hotels were hit, killing many. Suicide bombers struck relentlessly.

On Friday, veteran Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus was killed and AP reporter Kathy Gannon was wounded when a local policeman opened fire as they sat in their car on the outskirts of Khost, in eastern Afghanistan. The two were at a security forces base, waiting to move in a convoy of election workers delivering ballots — apparent victims of an “insider attack” in which the very people tasked with protection turn out to be insurgents.

Talk about voter suppression! Voters in Afghanistan have had to dodge drive-by shootings and suicide bombings, but there’s not a word about the “indignity” of carrying a photo I.D. to the polling place.

As the Associated Press reports, The run-up to the election was troubling: the Islamic radicals of the Taliban, reviled by many but still popular in some areas, view the entire enterprise as the work of outsiders and infidels, and they vowed to disrupt it by targeting polling centers and election workers.

To drive home the threat, insurgents in recent weeks stepped up shootings and bombings in the heart of Kabul to show they are capable of striking even in highly secured areas. A restaurant popular with foreigners and one of the capital’s main hotels were hit, killing many. Suicide bombers struck relentlessly.

On Friday, veteran Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus was killed and AP reporter Kathy Gannon was wounded when a local policeman opened fire as they sat in their car on the outskirts of Khost, in eastern Afghanistan. The two were at a security forces base, waiting to move in a convoy of election workers delivering ballots — apparent victims of an “insider attack” in which the very people tasked with protection turn out to be insurgents.