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The Shah of Afghanistan |
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The New York Times has a in-depth look at the corruption in the Afghan government, and it’s a stark reminder of how closely we’re repeating history on many fronts.
As Dexter Filkins explains, almost anything in Afghanistan is for sale:
When it comes to governing this violent, fractious land, everything, it seems, has its price.
Want to be a provincial police chief? It will cost you $100,000.
Want to drive a convoy of trucks loaded with fuel across the country? Be prepared to pay $6,000 per truck, so the police will not tip off the Taliban.
Need to settle a lawsuit over the ownership of your house? About $25,000, depending on the judge.
“It is very shameful, but probably I will pay the bribe,” Mohammed Naim, a young English teacher, said as he stood in front of the Secondary Courthouse in Kabul. His brother had been arrested a week before, and the police were demanding $4,000 for his release. “Everything is possible in this country now. Everything.”
Guess where all that money is coming from? Bribes and drug trafficking.
The brazenness of the corruption is astounding. You can rent a mansion owned by Kabul’s police chief, Mohammed Ayob Salangi, for $11,000 a month. President Karzai’s salary is only $600 a month, making it clear that the mansion is maintained through ill-gotten wealth.
Of course, this kind of corruption can’t be making the general public happy, and in that, we should remember our history. America has a long track record of propping up unpopular dictators at our long term expense. Our support of the Shah of Iran is why Iran is now enriching uranium. Our support of Saddam Hussein turned him into the dictator we just had to take out in 2003. Our support of dictators like Manuel Noriega and Mobutu Sese Seko sealed the fates of hundreds of thousands, and have caused so much damage to our relations with Latin America and Africa respectively that we have yet to recover.
Put simply, propping up the bad guys never works. And it won’t work in Afghanistan.
The Taliban is characterized by American politicians as a terrorist group. And they are a terrorist group, and there is no doubt they’ve sheltered Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. But they are not only a terrorist group, and the reason they enjoy so much support of the population of Afghanistan is not because of their beliefs (though I’m not sure that hurts), but because of their relative lack of corruption and their ability to bring stability.
Another history lesson:
The Taliban has been one of the more successful regimes to unify and rule Afghanistan in the modern era. The British largely failed, as did the Russians. But the Taliban were able to control 95% of the country and largely eradicate the booming opium trade.
The Taliban brought a measure of peace and stability for a lot of people not seen in Afghanistan for a generation. There is no question they were cruel, and brought with them Islamic reforms that trampled on human rights. But when it comes to a choice between stability and human rights, a war-torn nation usually chooses stability.
America overthrew the Taliban and propped up the corrupt Karzai government. Seven years later, the opium trade is fueling the narco-state, bombs are once again killing large numbers of civilians, and the Taliban has a foothold in more than a majority of the country.
It’s pretty clear our strategy is not working.
Continuing to prop up corrupt governments, continuing to put more foreign boots on the ground, continuing bombing where civilians will die. All of these things are not going to bring stability to Afghanistan, they are not going to win hearts and minds, and most importantly, they are not going to bring about America’s long term or short term military and geo-political objectives.
Why don’t you mention Vietnam? What else did the US do there other then support the wrong guys? If there is one parallel between Afghanistan now and Vietnam in the ‘60ties its exactly this point. Which lessons have been learned there?
Andree de Miranda, Zeist, Netherlands
I believe the editor must have done you a diservice and wrongly edited your statement, “The brazenness of the corruption is astounding. You can rent a mansion owned by Kabul%u2019s police chief, Mohammed Ayob Salangi, for $11,000 a month. President Karzai%u2019s salary is only $600 a month, making it clear that the mansion is maintained through ill-gotten wealth.” The first two statements do NOT bring you to the conclusion that you draw. Could the police chief have inherited the house, or have family money? Who is renting the property, the UN? There are lots of properties that rent for that amount in Kabul, but mostly it is the UN, and U.S.-based for profits that overpay. Is that graft, or stupidity?
I am not saying that there is not corruption, as there is a lot. I am merely saying that you did a poor job of showing us that corruption.
Supporting the wrong guyss never works. The US should discontinue or revisit their policy of I sraeli millitary aid. What will happen when the US becomes more concerned with domestic problems once it becomes unsustainable to be the world police or sole super power. Israel will become vulnerable. I think the US should treat the Palestinians and the Israelis like any other warring states by establishing the facts on the ground and stopping aggression from both sides.
As for the corruption in Afghanistan; I think the whole world knew that Mr Karazai is the President of Kabul because it is a joke to say that he is Afghanistan’s head of state when the state he supposedly heads cannot have a unified rule of law and countrywide peace. We did it with Musharaff who was an unelected millitary dictator who came to power through a coup. We should stop supporting regimes for convenience because in the end history repeats itself.
You are correct in saying that corruption is a major problem in Afghanistan. The police is corrupt at different levels depending on what part of the country you happen to be located. I have seen this first hand working at many levels. The part that you don’t mention is that for the Afghan this is a way of life. Based on what I have seen I would event say it is cultural in the whole region not just Afghanistan. So don’t be so quick for the US to take all the blame for a cultural way of life which started long before we got here.
Although there is corruption in Afghanistan, a correction needs to be made: the opium trade was not only not eradicated under the Taliban, it flourished. It was one of the main sources of income. That was one of their greatest hypocrisies.
The comparison to Iran is also faulty. In Iran, we helped stage a coup to overthrow a democratically elected government and replace it with a dictator who had been ousted. The Taliban was a repressive regime that has been replaced by a relatively, though somewhat corrupt, democratic government. There are also other factors in Afghanistan, such as the power of tribal warlords, that do not exist in Iran and therefore change the political dynamic completely.
As a country we often do not pay attention to history and end up lamenting our repeating of it, but this article does not get all of its facts right, and many of its assertions are much too simplistic.
Not true. The opium trade was nearly eradicated under Taliban rule. That’s a fact.
But, right now, the Taliban does get a large amount of support from the opium trade. That is indeed a hypocrisy, brought about by the conditions in Afghanistan. But when the Taliban was running the country, there wasn’t much room for opium.
One can safely say that the Taliban controlled the growth of poppy. Up until 2001, they allowed it to grow. In 2001, they did not allow it, resulting in a 95% drop in production. There is speculation among members of the UN monitoring the problem that the eradication was planned in order to spike the price as 2000 had produced a bumper crop. Then we invaded. Nonetheless, it appears that Taliban still control the cultivation of poppy.