sorry for the similarities in 3 and 4. One is meant to apply to now, and the other to the future.

I agree there is little chance of that government being "democratic" in the way we think, any time soon.

I look at it as a work in progress. If they are moving towards democracy, even if very slowly, it is at least the right direction.

Afghanistan has already held one election and has another scheduled. By the simplest definition it is a democracy. Now, is it completely on par with Canada or the United States as far as how fair or complete the democratic process was, how uncorrupt the elected officials are, etc. etc.? No, they're not even close. Still they meet the barest definition and hopefully will improve over time. The news report you saw was essentially accurate. It may very well have lacked depth or nuance, which is far too common in news today, but that's more superficiality than spin.

Well, to say it is a democracy is a simple definition, indeed. and to say it is working toward is not true at all.

1. Afghan is ruled, as it has been for centuries, by warlords. Sometimes, they do it by sitting in government in Kabul. More often they do it by just ignoring the government.

2. The government is that group hand picked by the occupying army.

3. The system is so corrupt that votes are openly bought and sold.

4. The only group capable of forming an alternative government is not interested in running, and for the most part is not allowed to.

5. They are not "working towards" a democracy. There is not the slightest chance that the current government or the occupying army wants a democracy. If there were one, the most likely winner would be the Taliban, something neither the other war lords or the occupying army want to see.

Democracy means rule by a government chosen by the majority of all the people, a government for which all the people are free to run. That does not exist here, and it is not why the war is being fought and it is not going to exist. To suggest that the issue here is democracy, then, is absurd. To say so is, at best, playing word games.

An honest statement would have been to say that the Taliban are trying to disrupt the elections. But the word elections does not have that appeal to imagery and emotion that democracy does.

Quite seriously, governments very seldom tell the truth about why they go to war. To make it palatable, they say they are doing it to spread democracy or to help little girls go to school or to fight terra-rism. We like to believe that's true, particularly those of us who grew up in the aftermath of World War 2, perhaps the last war in which it was possible to detect good and evil.

We want to believe in some good reason why we are killing and being killed. Reporters want to believe it, too. And so they report it that way.

But, really, governments don't go to war for altruism. They do it because it suits some purpose they have - and some purpose of those people who have influence in the country.

For example, the US did not got to war with Iraq because  Saddam was a bad man. In fact,the US supported Saddam for years,and encouraged his war with Iran. They invaded Iraq to get full control of the oil.

Nobody goes to war simply to spread democracy. On the contrary, all sorts of governments, including democraticones, happily overthrow democracies that don't suit them. Among democracies overthrown in recent decades have been Guatemala, South Vietnam (replaced with American guidance by a series of military dictatorships), Iran (ovethrown by Britain, US and France, and a dictatorship substituted), many cases in Latin America - of which chile was only the biggest - Haiti... and the list goes on.

A democracy in Afghanistan would almost certainly mean a Taliban government in the near future. The US did not invade Afghanistan to put the Taliban in power - and they would be damn fools if they did.

I've never been clear on exactly why they invaded Afghanistan. The link with Al Quaeda doesn't make sense - partly because it is hugely exaggerated. I suspect there is some truth to the use of Afghanistan to supply natural gas to the Asia market, but only some. It may be that Pakistan is really the bigger concern.

But one thing is sure. Nobody is in Pakistan simply to bring democracy. If they were so keen on that,they could start closer to home and far more cheaply by getting rid of all the dictatorships they install in latin america.

But, oh, we dearly want to believe we are there for good reasons.

Afghanistan is literally holding elections right now. Is it up to U.S. and Canadian standards? I doubt that very much. Is it better than what they have had? Absolutely.

The afghanistan election has produced a government made up of war lords. What Afghanistan has always had is a government made up of warlords.

Their power extends only to their own local bases of power. It has always extended only to their own bases of power.

How is that better?

The warlords before the current bunch who held power were the Taliban. That's because they have a far broader base than most of the others. if Afghanistan were to become a real democracy, the Taliban would certainly by a major force in it, and would q uite possibly be he government.

Do you seriously believe the US is dumb enough to fight a war to establish a system which would bring the Taliban back to power? if so, couldn't they have saved a whole lot of trouble, money and lives just by leaving the Taliban in trouble in the first place?

Let's get real about why wars are fought. The US, like any major power would, wants a government in Afghanistan favorable to it. Far from being eager to establish democratic governments, the US has quite a record of toppling the ones that don't show enough enthusiasm for American wishes. And they have often established dicatorships in their place. That has been true in Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam, Haiti...

Nations fight wars to serve their own interests, not to play fairy godmother for national cinderellas.

This is supposed to be about news as propaganda - and i saw another good, soft core example today.

ATTACKS MAR AFGHANISTAN ELECTIONS.

I have no doubt that is true. But note the use of the judgemental MAR rather than, say, the more coldly descriptive DISRUPT.

I have never seen the word MAR used to describe an attack by our side. I have never seen it used to describe the overthrow of an elected government by our side. Taliban attacks mar things. ours don't. Ours cause damage. They indicate success. They kill militants. But you can drop thousands of bombs over cities - as in Cambodia - and they don't MAR anything.

It's a small point. But it's a good example of how our unconcious choice of words affects our understanding of what has happened.

Propaganda in the media is nothing new. I remember CBC-TV's coverage of the first Persian Gulf War (this when my then-husband was deployed in Europe on stand-by). It was appalling...they presented a video diary of a CF-18 pilot, sort of "speaking" his thoughts to his wife (who lived in my community) and, on alternating days, they presented her video diary sort of "speaking" to him. I mean, come on! Talk about appeal to emotion! Also, what are the odds that their intimate thoughts (which was the image being created by the use of a "diary") were actually being filmed? Good grief.

The next step in that story was on the day before the deadline for Saddam/Iraq to pull out of Kuwait, the CBC film crew was in the base church filming this man's wife "at prayer". I left part-way through the worship service because it felt intrusive and manipulative.

So, while I love the concept of the CBC and a lot of the programming, I have no doubt that they are used as an instrument of propaganda. Why else would they do stock market reports on the radio? It's not as if they give enough information to be actually useful to those buying stocks but rather a way of propagating normalcy around a economic device that keeps those with power and money viewed as normal. I mean, even though the majority of people in Canada are workers, they don't have regular column on labour issues, for example.

Graeme, If the CBC is axed . . . ( which may do us all some good) do you have an idea what would replace it?  I mean, do you think it would do well for the local and independent left-wing newspapers as the airwaves would be completely consumed with utter idiocy ( excluding Amy Goodman, who is yet, capable of her own mediocrity from time to time)?

You seem to have your finger on that pulse, just trying to get you opinions.

jln, I have so often heard that the news media are dominated by liberals - I think it must indicate a conservative paranoia.

For openers, I'm not dead sure what the words liberal or conservtive mean when most people use them. Nor do i think the people who use them know what they mean.

But to suggest the news media are anything that could be called liberal is absurd. That includes CBC.

The US was complicit in the murder of 200,000 native peoples in Guatemala. Clinton admitted it and apologized for it publicly. It must have been at least 30 years ago that the Baltimore Sun published a copy of a US army torture manual which it got through freedom of information. About the same time, it was revealed tht the US army ran torture schools for latin american military officers in the service of US sponsored dictatorships. The US has for years been sheltering a terrorist who blew up a civilian airliner. But it was a Cuban airliner - so it's okay by the US to be a terrorist - depending on which side you're on. Almost all the news media have ignored the extent of death, injury, refugees and poverty created in Iraq. The reason the lockerbie "bomber" has been released is to head off an enquiry that would show he almost certainly didn't do it, and the US corruption of the Scottish justice system to prove he did would be extremely embarassing.

If the news media were "liberal", t hese stories would be all over In fact, t hey have been almost entirely ignored.

What? Conrad Black is a liberal? The National Post is liberal? Get real.