By Steve Hynd
Did the U.S. and allies just put Karzai on the "dead pool" list?
The establishment of a new investigations unit with the backing of Scotland Yard's Serious Organised Crimes Agency and the FBI was announced in Kabul by senior officials flanked by the US and British ambassadors following a concerted diplomatic campaign to wring concessions out of the Afghan leader.
Mr Karzai, who was declared the winner of August's disputed election, is also set to publicly accept corruption has tainted his government in a speech after his inauguration on Thursday, according to diplomats in Kabul. He has also been forced to promise senior figures will face arrest before the end of the year and a new tribunal free from political interference will try suspects.
...Government graft ranks as a prime factor in the revival of the Taliban movement throughout Afghanistan. Mark Sedwill, the British ambassador to Kabul, warned that several criminal syndicates were now more powerful than Mr Karzai's regime.
... A US official said that the Afghan leader must make painful choices between foreign aid and his cronies. He said: "We want high profile arrests and we want those rounded up to stay in prison for a very long time."
I have to confess a bit of pity for Hamid Karzai at the moment. He's going to be watching every crime boss and warlord he's pandered to as a possible patron for assassins now, simply because the US and its allies have papers that tell them COIN can only work when there's a legitimate host government. The military are still stuck on stupid in that they've laser-sighted on a COIN strategy despite every indication that their political masters don't want to hang around Afghanistan long enough to see if the military can translate their pretty paper theories into even half-workable practise. So bureaucratic inertia keeps the steamroller going.
It's been a given in Western discussion that Afghan corruption is a very bad, no good thing in and of itself. But Afghanistan has always been a nation ripe for corruption and the Soviets had exactly the same problems with their puppets as the U.S. is currently having with theirs. For much of the current mess of corruption, it only really matters to anyone except the Afghans as long as the West has an occupying force there it must sweeten with non-military aid. And in any case, graft surrounding US contractors dwarfs the pilfering of Karzai and his cronies.
So with the allies heading towards agreeing to head for the exits, is the dishonesty of the Karzai cabal really that important? I don't know, which is why I ask.
Many thanks for the plug, Steve.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that i've felt bad for Karzai for some time; not because i like him but because he seems to prove the rule that it's as dangerous to be an ally of the US as it is to be an enemy.
You're right that we've probably signed his death warrant, and i'd be surprised if there was a plan in place for if Karzai is assassinated.
No, it's not that important. The issues that the paper theories don't seem to deal with are how Afghanistan would be likely to govern itself without western pressure. You've spoken previously on our misplaced belief that because it appears on the map Afghanistan must be a "state" in the way we conceive them.
If we start from a faulty premise we're bound to reach a faulty conclusion. That's what i think we're seeing here, overall. The first question that should be asked in trying to create a stable, Afghan state is what Afghans want and how they see it playing out. We sort of, kind of did that with the loya jirga; then we abandoned the right path.
Why couldn't a system based on the processes of the loya jirga been established? It looks as fair and honest as most western elections and systems. It's a horrible conceit of ours that the western way is the only right way, coupled with our expectation that it will work swimmingly for everyone because we say it should.
I know, i'm way off the point here. But all our troubles stem from fucking the whole thing up badly right from the start. I don't see how we can begin to address the problems without dealing with the fuck ups.