In my last post, February 6, 2011, I commented on and referred to articles that document how tens of billions of dollars in US and UK development funds have been squandered or just vanished in a maze of official and unofficial corruption in Afghanistan. The corruption doesn’t stop with the misuse of “development” funds. Indeed, Afghanistan is rated by Transparency International in their “Corruption Perceptions Index 2010” as the second most corrupt country in a list of 178 countries. Afghanistan is tied with Myanmar for second, just ahead of Somalia, viewed as the most corrupt, and just below Iraq the fourth most corrupt country.
When corruption is widespread and explicitly or implicitly sanctioned by powerful governing groups in a society, it follows that there is little true “democracy.” Corruption requires secrecy among networks of beneficiaries who nefariously steal or divert the people’s taxes, foreign aid, and some of the profits from foreign investment into their own pockets or the pockets of their cronies instead of into programs that are publicly beneficial. Corruption may also involve bureaucrats and police who compel people to pay bribes for services that in law or by convention are considered rights. It may involve kickbacks from foreign or domestic companies to government officials that want government contracts. It may involve the income and profits that come from the production and distribution of illegal drugs, which is particularly true of Afghanistan. Corruption in it various manifestations is inherently anti-democratic, self-serving, favors inequality, works against sustainable development, and requires secrecy and authoritarian and/or plutocratic government to thrive.
Consider some examples of the evidence.
---------------
A year ago, Daniel Schulman examined a UN study on drugs and bribery in Afghanistan in an article for the Mother Jones magazine. His article refers to the massive costs of bribes, kickbacks, and the opium trade. [See full citation after quotes.]
“Earlier this month [Jan 2011], Afghan President Hamid Karzai [1] fought back against allegations of pervasive graft [2] within his government, telling [3] Al Jazeera that ‘the Western media has blown corruption totally out of all proportion in Afghanistan.’
“Perhaps Karzai should have a conversation with Antonio Maria Costa, the United Nations' drug and crime czar. His office released a report [4]on Tuesday concluding that in the past year Afghans paid out $2.5 billion in bribes and kickbacks—the equivalent of 23 percent of the country's gross domestic product. The income generated by corruption is exceeded only by the booming opium trade [5], which brings in an estimated $2.8 billion annually. ‘In other words, this is shocking, drugs and bribes are the two largest income generators in Afghanistan,’ writes Costa, who heads the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in the preface of the study.
The report, based on interviews with 7,600 Afghans, is yet another indicator that any US policy on Afghanistan that is predicated on cooperation with the government is threatened by endemic graft. As it stands, writes Costa, ‘It is almost impossible to obtain a public service in Afghanistan without greasing a palm: bribing authorities is a way of life.’
“The average payoff, according to UNODC, was $159—a modest sum in Western terms, but a massive expenditure in a country with a per-capita income of $425. This, Costa says, amounts to a ‘crippling tax on people who are already among the world's poorest.’ And he notes that the massive influx of aid funding coupled with soaring drug revenues ‘have created a new cast [sic] of rich and powerful individuals who operate outside the traditional power/tribal structures and bid the cost of favours and loyalty to levels not compatible with the under-developed nature of the country.’
“According to the study, 59 percent of Afghans identified corruption as their biggest concern—more worrisome even than the deteriorating security situation and widespread unemployment.
[….]
“….Presently, says Costa, members of the Afghan government are not doing their part to fight graft. That's not entirely surprising, since Afghan officials—on both the local and national level—appear to be the ones profiting most handsomely from bribes and kickbacks.”
Source: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/corruption-afghanistan-its-even-worse-you-think#
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Since last summer, there have been spates of articles focused on an particularly egregious example of corruption, namely, the people who stole from billions from Da Kabul Bank, the state bank, and caused it to collapse.
CORRUPTION AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY AND THE GOVERNMENT MEAN THAT OUR SOLDIERS ARE DYING FOR A LOST CAUSE
On his blog Informed Comment (Sept, 3, 2010), the title of Juan Cole’s article reflects the thrust of his analysis - “Collapse of Kabul Banks Points to Fatal Corruption of Karzai Government.” I quote from the article.
“I [Juan Cole] write in anger. Not blind rage, mind you. A cool, searing, steady anger. I think it is a righteous anger. It is not consequential, but it is my reality. I am angry about the 1,172 US troops dead in the Afghanistan War, and all the other brave NATO and Afghan soldiers who gave their lives for a new Afghanistan. Because they haven’t gotten a new Afghanistan. They have paid the ultimate sacrifice for a ponzi scheme masquerading as a reformist government. And, as usual, you and I may well get stuck with the bill for the economic damage done by the fraud.
“The house of cards that is the Hamid Karzai government in Kabul may be falling before our eyes, as vast, globe-spanning webs of corruption, formerly hidden in shadows, have suddenly had a spotlight thrown on them. The crisis raises the severest questions about whether the Obama administration can plausibly hope to stand up a stable government in Afghanistan before US troops depart.
“As with the second phase of the Great Depression in the United States, the crisis begins with a run on Da Kabul Bank. Depositors took out $85 million on Wednesday, after a damning story appeared in the Washington Post. They took out another $70 million on Thursday. The bank, which owes $300 million, may now have as little as $120 million left in the kitty, though it had once been worth over a billion. But the problem is not just a run on one bank. Can Afghanistan’s whole financial system and economy emerge unscathed?
“Pajhwok News Service reports,
‘The immediate concern was that news of the bank’s financial irregularities, already spreading through the capital, would prompt a run on the bank itself and that the panic would spread to other financial institutions. Bank deposits in Afghanistan are not guaranteed by the central government, officials here said. “This could be catastrophic for the country,” a senior Afghan banking official said. “The next few days are critical. I am worried.” ‘
[….]
“The story begins with Sherkhan Farnood, a financier who founded Da Kabul Bank after the fall of the Taliban. Over the years he appears to have used the institution for patronage for politicians and their families. Farnood gave millions to the presidential campaign of Hamid Karzai last summer, a campaign that Karzai was accused of only winning through substantial ballot fraud. (Hint: a vote wouldn’t cost much to buy in Afghanistan, and ‘millions’ would buy a lot). The other top executive at the bank, Khalilu’llah Frozi, was a campaign adviser to Karzai. Hamid Karzai’s brother Mahmoud has a 9% share in the bank.
[….]
“Farnood often gave out loans without proper collateral or other formalities. He loaned $100 million to Haseen Fahim, the brother of Marshal Mohammad Fahim (an old-time Northern Alliance warlord whom Karzai brought back into government as his vice-presidential running mate in summer of 2009). Haseen Fahim has substantial investments in Afghanistan’s small natural gas sector.
Farnood also apparently loaned himself $140 million to invest in real estate in Dubai, including in villas on the world islands off Jumeirah.
[….]
With the world economic downturn and real estate crash of 2008-2009, the Dubai world project largely fell apart, with investors going bankrupt in droves.
[….]
“So Farnood’s $140 million investment was suddenly not worth anything at all, and his bank began spiraling down. The details of his other bad investments have not yet emerged. The bank went from having over $1 billion in capital to now having only $120 million and owing $300 million.
“President Hamid Karzai is notorious for running interference for his corrupt cronies, and that Farnood and Frozi were out of control appears to have been known for some time but nothing was allowed to be done about it. The two have now been forced out, but the question is whether it is in time to save not only the bank (doubtful) but also the entire Afghan financial system, rebuilt after the fall of the Taliban.
“The Karzai government is corrupt and rotten to the core. Not a single US soldier should die to prop it up. The lie that we are fighting “al-Qaeda” in Afghanistan needs to be exposed. The US and NATO are fighting four or five groups of Pashtun insurgents, some of them until fairly recently US allies. The goal of the fighting is to keep the Karzai government from falling to the guerrillas and to train up an army and police force that could go on defending Kabul. The Afghanistan National Army from all accounts has poor morale. No wonder. What Afghan soldier
[….]
http://www.juancole.com/2010/09/collapse-of-kabul-bank-points-to-terminal-corruption-of-karzai-government.html
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STEAL WHAT YOU CAN BECAUSE THE COUNTRY DOES NOT HAVE A FUTURE
Julius Cavendish provides an updated report (Feb 2, 2011) on the bank failure in an article for The Independent titled “Afghan elite 'plundered $900m' from leading bank.”
“A coterie of well-connected Afghan businessmen and politicians may have plundered as much as $900m from the country's biggest commercial bank, three times the amount of earlier estimates, and the equivalent of about 7 per cent of Afghanistan's total gross domestic product.
“Kabul Bank's funds were treated like personal accounts, it is claimed by several well-known members of Afghan society. Mahmoud Karzai, a brother of the Afghan President and prominent shareholder in Kabul Bank, told The New York Times that the bank's former chairman lent himself about $98m (£62m) to buy one of Afghanistan's airlines, and then used deposits to subsidise the carrier in an attempt to drive rivals out of business. Yet so difficult has the hunt for the missing millions become that the very same man, Sherkhan Farnood, had been brought in to help trace the missing cash.
“Officials say the value of questionable outstanding loans written by the bank is far greater than originally thought – and auditors pouring over the lender's books think up to $800m is potentially unrecoverable.
“The crisis is so severe – with fears that a run on the embattled Kabul Bank could lead to its collapse – that Afghanistan's central bank chief, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, was forced yesterday to deny reports that the embattled lender was close to failure.
[….]
“The case is acutely embarrassing both for President Hamid Karzai, whose tenure has seen Afghanistan turn into a mafia state, and the Obama administration, which has adopted a policy of ignoring institutionalised corruption after several bitter diplomatic spats with Mr Karzai got it nowhere.
“In an account of goings-on at Kabul Bank that is devastating in its detail, the New Yorker magazine records how ‘Kabul Bank's largesse included members of parliament and almost anyone whose silence would allow bank executives to embark on a spree of buying, lending and looting.
"In addition, some former and current Afghan officials say, Kabul Bank became an unofficial arm of the Karzai government, bribing parliamentarians in order to secure votes for its legislative agenda,’ it reports.
"Dozens of Afghan leaders and businessmen... collectively, accepted tens of millions of dollars in gifts and bribes – some sources say as much as a hundred million dollars – from executives at Kabul Bank."
[….]
“American investigators say many of Mr Karzai's closest advisers, some with regulatory responsibilities over the Afghan financial system, are implicated in the scandal.
[….]
“It's a meticulous account of the workings of kleptocracy, but from a Western perspective perhaps the most terrifying part of the tale is the motive. The businessmen, politicians and officials – the cream of Afghan society – are milking Afghanistan for all they can. Why? Because they don't believe their country has a future.”
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghan-elite-plundered-900m-from-leading-bank-2200176.html#
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Another source: Dexter Filkins, “The Afghan Bank Heist,” The New Yorker, Feb 14, 2011 – http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all
Showing posts with label Afghan government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghan government. Show all posts
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Corruption and Waste in developmental funds going to Afghanistan
The widespread problem of official and unofficial corruption in Afghanistan is not a new topic. But it is an ongoing problem that has not been fixed or even reduced according to investigative reports over the past year or so. In my old New World Dictionary, “corruption” is defined in a number of ways. For example, it is defined as “evil or wicked behavior; depravity…bribery or similar dishonest dealings….”
Specifically, in the context of the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan, corruption may be a way to divert money from its intended purpose for personal gain or influence. Or, in violation of a contract, it may involve cost cutting measures that produce shoddy or unfinished projects. It may entail the exploitation of workers, often brought in from other countries. Often it involves bribes or payoffs to government officials or police.
American corporations that receive big contracts from the US government are often at the center of corrupt dealings, subcontracting much of the work to Afghan or other national enterprises, suspected of putting profits over the expected work. The same is true when the Afghan government receives assistance from the US or the UK. Keep some and pass the rest on.
In many cases, the problem of corruption results in poor planning or inadequate vetting of contractors or sub-contractors by the funding source. Political favoritism is a factor. Too often little or none of the contracted work being done is up to even minimal standards. And through the process, local leaders or communities are not given the opportunity to participate.
The results of corruption are to enrich a few, undermine development projects, alienate Afghans from the government and its representatives, and keep too many Afghan citizens and their children, many of them dirt poor, from gaining opportunities that were intended for them – like jobs, a working infrastructure, effective schools, access to health care, housing, and a government that represents their interests and provides them with security in their lives and communities.
To illustrate some of these points, I draw on five articles and organize them chronologically, with the first article reported at an earlier date than the next ones, and so on. The thrust of the articles is that corruption and waste continue to be massive problems in Afghanistan.
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ARTICLE #1: “The report reveals that in 2006-07, more than half of the department’s large projects, in which millions of pounds were invested, were deemed likely to fail.”
Deborah Haynes, Defense Correspondent for RAWA (Revolutionary Afghan Women’s Association) provides an of corruption in an article titled “Public millions fail to provide wells, schools and clinics in Afghanistan. [You can see the URL at the end of the article.]
Haynes’ article, reported May 22, 2009, focuses on British funded projects carried out in Afghanistan in 2004-2007 and an assessment of these projects by the Department for International Development.
“Millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money have been wasted on failed reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, according to an internal assessment by the Department for International Development.
“An evaluation by independent consultants criticized the department’s approach to planning, risk management and staffing, and said poor co-ordination with the rest of Whitehall meant that the department was slow to shift strategy as the military effort moved to counter-insurgency.
“The report reveals that in 2006-07, more than half of the department’s large projects, in which millions of pounds were invested, were deemed likely to fail, excluding money put into a fund run by the World Bank. Only a quarter of state building projects were rated successful in 2006, with 4.5 per cent of them rated value for money.
“Among the failed projects singled out in the Country Programme Evaluation is the Afghanistan Stabilisation Fund, designed to ‘establish basic security and good governance in the district and provinces of Afghanistan’. This was begun in 2004 with a £20 million payment to the Afghan Government but ended three years later with “little evidence of tangible benefit’.
“The department’s own review in 2005 warned of ‘potentially catastrophic consequences’ if weaknesses in the programme were not corrected. Beset by poor planning, a lack of transparency and failed delivery, it was abandoned in March 2007. Only 639 people received training. Commentators criticised the “disastrous” project.
“In another programme in Helmand, the department paid for 300 wells to be dug in an area prone to drought, without carrying out a geological survey. Some of the wells have since run dry as the water table retreated. The report finds that the department’s risk assessment ignored the absence of the rule of law and corruption in the region.
“A survey of Afghan opinion in Helmand found local residents complaining about poor construction, a lack of monitoring and unhappiness with the role of interpreters, while the department rated its own projects there a success. It took until late 2007 for the department to recruit a conflict adviser even though British troops started operating in Helmand in 2006.
Staffing levels in Kabul were described as ‘wholly unrealistic’. Until 2006 the development department attempted to run its programmes with only six non-Afghan staff in Kabul.
[….]
“Only one person is overseeing a massive, $404 million Afghan reconstruction contract -- and is thousands of miles away in Maryland, auditors say. The contract's supervising officer in Maryland hired someone else to work in Afghanistan, but that person didn't have much experience and wasn't able to visit many of the actual work sites, the audit said.”
[….]
“Some projects were a success, including a £20 million initiative to give small loans to the poor and an £18 million programme to build and repair roads, schools and clinics. By 2007 the department’s portfolio in Afghanistan contained 58 projects with a value of about £520 million, including £317 million for the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, administered by the World Bank.
[….]
http://www.rawa/org/temp/runews/2009/05/22/public-millions-fail-to-provide-wells-schools-and-clinics-in-afghanistan.html
Read more: http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2009/05/22/public-millions-fail-to-provide-wells-schools-and-clinics-in-afghanistan.html#ixzz1D6OaqfnN
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ARTICLE #2: American taxpayers lose when billions of dollars in development funds from US to Afghanistan wasted
Sara A. Carter, “Commission tracks billions of contracting dollars wasted in Afghanistan, The Washington Examiner, August 23, 2010.
“American taxpayers have picked up the tab for billions of dollars worth of shoddy schools, phantom health care clinics and government buildings abandoned before completion in Afghanistan, according to members of a U.S. team that arrived in Kabul on Monday to document the waste and fraud.
“The Commission on Wartime Contracting will look into charges ranging from massive contracting fraud to abandoned foreign laborers on U.S. military installations that have left American taxpayers ripped off and the people of Afghanistan disappointed by broken promises.
“Christopher Shays, a former Republican congressman from Connecticut who co-chairs the commission, said the allegations warrant a full investigation and that the scams involving foreign workers are presenting security risks on the bases as well as human rights abuses.
"’We are looking into cases of some contractors or outright scam artists who charge people from other countries to fly them to supposed jobs in Dubai but instead dump them with no jobs or documents on airbases in Afghanistan. That's a human-rights abuse that cannot be tolerated,’ said Shays, who heads a four-man team.
“Foreign workers -- many from the Philippines -- paid up to $2,000 dollars to contracting companies for airfare and housing "only to be left alone on the bases without identification and no way home," said one official who asked not to be named.
"’The bigger problem is that we don't know who they are but they are inside our installations without identification or jobs, and this presents a security risk for the troops on base, civilians, as well as the innocent victims of the scams," the official said.
“The commission, which will issue a semi-annual report in December to Congress and a final report next July as the administration begins a troop draw-down from Afghanistan, is investigating a host of other problems.
“Abandoned and substandard school projects, unfinished government buildings and health care facilities without management staffs are among the reported failures being reviewed by the commission.
[….]
“Other projects paid for by American taxpayers that will be examined by the commissioners include military bases, power plants, office buildings, fuel storage, schools and training centers for Afghan security forces. Many times these projects are abandoned before completion or the supplies needed to sustain their operations never arrive.
“Examples are evident throughout Afghanistan. Last October, in the small village of Hutal, American soldiers set out to get school supplies from local contractors in Kandahar. Money was made available, the supplier was contacted and the village elders were promised that the thousands of dollars in educational materials would arrive in three weeks. The supplies never arrived. It is uncertain how much money was lost on the project.
[….]
"Construction contracting in a war zone half a world away involves real challenges on cost, quality, timeliness, suitability and sustainability," commission co-chair Michael Thibault said.
‘The government needs a clearer view on the way these projects are planned, contracted and supervised. We often don't know how many people are working on U.S. bases, whether prime contractors are effectively managing their subcontractors, whether employee vetting and access control are adequate and whether Afghans can sustain projects like the $300 million Kabul power plant after U.S. personnel leave.’”
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner's national security correspondent. She can be reached at scarter@washingtonexaminer.com.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/commission-tracks-billions-contracting-dollars-wasted-afghanistan
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ARTICLE #3 – Billions contracted with US corporations for “development” projects in Afghanistan unaccounted for and open up massive opportunities for corruption.
Iman Hasan, “Afghans point finger at US: Who’s corrupt now?” The Express Tribune with the International Tribune, November 2010.
“Many Afghans, from government officials and parliamentarians to the common man are disgruntled with the US officials relentlessly accusing them of being corrupt – while ignoring their own government’s fraud and misappropriations in the $56 billion development budget approved by the Congress for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Afghans deem US responsible for corrupting their society.
“For Obama’s administration, ‘corruption warnings’ are a new blackmail tool to use against the Karzai government. There has been constant rhetoric to ‘eradicate corruption’ and ‘stop misusing US tax payers’ money,’ without realising that only 20% of the allocated funds are at the disposal of the Afghan government while 80% are utilised by the US Department of State, Defence and USAID. These three departments rely extensively on private contractors for the implementation of various projects, ranging from reconstruction of Afghanistan, eradicating drugs, training of Afghan security forces and officials and providing security to Nato supply convoys.
“Since 2001, the US congress has appropriated nearly $56 billion for the reconstruction funds of Afghanistan, which cannot be tracked down. It has either been wasted, stolen or abused.
Missing records
“There is absolutely no record of the amount utilised from 2001 to 2006 except for the vague documentation of $17.7 billion spent during the financial year 2007 – 2009, which only identifies the 7000 contractors hired to implement the projects – but does not evaluate the projects. Therefore, there is no guarantee if the US tax payers’ money amounting to $56 billion is fairly spent or abused.
“Bush’s government after eight years of engagement in Afghanistan established the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in 2008 ‘to conduct independent and objective audits, inspections, and investigations on the use of taxpayer dollars and related funds’.
“Even the Office of the Special Inspector General is unable to track down the money spent during 2001 to 2006. It recently released a report on the ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ of $17.7 billion (spent during the financial year 2007 – 2009) of the total reconstruction fund of $56 billion.
“The report is essentially a document holding the US responsible for the corruption in Afghanistan. ‘The large US investment in Afghanistan remains at risk of being wasted or subject to waste, fraud and abuse,’ reads the document.
Who benefits from America’s wars?
“65 per cent of the $17.7 billion has been channelled through the Department of Defence, which hired largely those companies who are essentially part of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). These huge corporations depend mostly or entirely on the Pentagon for their profits and have hugely benefited from the US wars.
[….]
“Some of the largest defense contractors belonging to the Military Industrial Complex hired by the Defence Department, for Afghanistan are DynCorp, Black Water (Xe Services), Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Louis Berger and Bearing Pont.
[….]
“Besides the Military Industrial Complex, there is also the intelligence complex which has been playing a greater role in corrupting the Afghan society since 2001, whose billions of dollars of expenditure has never been accounted for.
“The intelligence complex’s profligate distribution of boxes and suitcases of cash amongst the different segments of Afghan society – Afghan media, NGOs and allegedly government officials – has also encouraged other countries. India is one of the countries which has taken a leaf out of the CIA’s book.
[….]
Lack of transparency
“This is still not the complete picture of US corruption and lack of oversight of reconstruction funds – meant for achieving long term goals in Afghanistan. There is no transparency even in the salary support provided to the Afghan government employees and technical advisors since 2002. The US government is unable to determine the amount it has been paying, the identity and the total number of recipients. Since the number and identity of the recipients is not clear the salaries can go to anyone in anyone’s name.
[….]
http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/2955/afghans-point-finger-at-us-whos-corrupt-now
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ARTICLE #4: Another report on the missing billions of US taxpayer development funds for Afghanistan
Michael Tennant, “Afghanistan Reconstruction: Billions Spent, But No One Knows Just How,” New American, Dec. 29, 2010
[….]
“In Iraq, for example, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction found over $5 billion had been wasted on various projects, including hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects such as a $40 million prison, a $5.7 million convention center, and a roughly $100 million wastewater treatment plant. In addition, the special inspector general discovered that the Pentagon could not account for over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraqi funds set aside for reconstruction.“To no one’s great surprise, the situation in Afghanistan, site of another undeclared U.S. war, is no better. David Francis of the Fiscal Times reports:
'In its bid to win the hearts and minds of Afghanistan’s teeming population, the United States has spent more than $55 billion to rebuild and bolster the war-ravaged country. That money was meant to cover everything from the construction of government buildings and economic development projects to the salaries of U.S. government employees working closely with Afghans.Yet no one can say with any authority or precision how that money was spent and who profited from it. Most of the funds were funneled to a vast array of U.S. and foreign contractors. But according to a recent audit by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), there is no way of knowing whether the money went for the intended purposes.'
[….]
“The reason for these agencies’ inability to say where taxpayers’ money is going is simply that the government hasn’t demanded any sort of accountability from its recipients. ‘The money,’ Francis writes, ‘flows from Washington to Afghanistan, with little oversight and accountability, and at every step along the way someone else takes a cut.’[….]
From Francis article:
“Another report found that the United States has spent nearly $200 million on Afghan security service buildings that cannot be used. SIGAR also found that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) couldn’t account for nearly $18 billion that was paid to some 7,000 U.S. and Afghan contractors for development projects. Afghan contractors often pay kickbacks to local warlords, like Ahmad Wali Karzai, the president’s brother and the so-called “King of Kandahar.” Their actions often undermine the work of the coalition."
[….]
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/foreignpolicy/5695-afghanistan-reconstruction-billions-spent-but-no-one-knows-just-how
---------------
ARTICLE #5: The head watchdog against the massive corruption in Afghanistan resigns because of weakness of enforcement authority.
Jason Ditz, “US Watchdog for Afghan Projects Resigns,” Antiwar.com, Jan 10, 2011
“Special Inspector General Arnold Fields, the Obama Administration’s top watchdog against the massive corruption in Afghanistan, followed up last week’s pledge not to resign with a formal announcement of his resignation.
“Fields has been regularly presenting reports on the corruption surrounding US aid programmes in occupied Afghanistan, and has cautioned that there are virtually no controls in place and that much of the aid is being stolen or wasted as a result.
[….]
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/01/10/us-watchdog-for-afghan-projects-resigns
Specifically, in the context of the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan, corruption may be a way to divert money from its intended purpose for personal gain or influence. Or, in violation of a contract, it may involve cost cutting measures that produce shoddy or unfinished projects. It may entail the exploitation of workers, often brought in from other countries. Often it involves bribes or payoffs to government officials or police.
American corporations that receive big contracts from the US government are often at the center of corrupt dealings, subcontracting much of the work to Afghan or other national enterprises, suspected of putting profits over the expected work. The same is true when the Afghan government receives assistance from the US or the UK. Keep some and pass the rest on.
In many cases, the problem of corruption results in poor planning or inadequate vetting of contractors or sub-contractors by the funding source. Political favoritism is a factor. Too often little or none of the contracted work being done is up to even minimal standards. And through the process, local leaders or communities are not given the opportunity to participate.
The results of corruption are to enrich a few, undermine development projects, alienate Afghans from the government and its representatives, and keep too many Afghan citizens and their children, many of them dirt poor, from gaining opportunities that were intended for them – like jobs, a working infrastructure, effective schools, access to health care, housing, and a government that represents their interests and provides them with security in their lives and communities.
To illustrate some of these points, I draw on five articles and organize them chronologically, with the first article reported at an earlier date than the next ones, and so on. The thrust of the articles is that corruption and waste continue to be massive problems in Afghanistan.
---------------
ARTICLE #1: “The report reveals that in 2006-07, more than half of the department’s large projects, in which millions of pounds were invested, were deemed likely to fail.”
Deborah Haynes, Defense Correspondent for RAWA (Revolutionary Afghan Women’s Association) provides an of corruption in an article titled “Public millions fail to provide wells, schools and clinics in Afghanistan. [You can see the URL at the end of the article.]
Haynes’ article, reported May 22, 2009, focuses on British funded projects carried out in Afghanistan in 2004-2007 and an assessment of these projects by the Department for International Development.
“Millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money have been wasted on failed reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, according to an internal assessment by the Department for International Development.
“An evaluation by independent consultants criticized the department’s approach to planning, risk management and staffing, and said poor co-ordination with the rest of Whitehall meant that the department was slow to shift strategy as the military effort moved to counter-insurgency.
“The report reveals that in 2006-07, more than half of the department’s large projects, in which millions of pounds were invested, were deemed likely to fail, excluding money put into a fund run by the World Bank. Only a quarter of state building projects were rated successful in 2006, with 4.5 per cent of them rated value for money.
“Among the failed projects singled out in the Country Programme Evaluation is the Afghanistan Stabilisation Fund, designed to ‘establish basic security and good governance in the district and provinces of Afghanistan’. This was begun in 2004 with a £20 million payment to the Afghan Government but ended three years later with “little evidence of tangible benefit’.
“The department’s own review in 2005 warned of ‘potentially catastrophic consequences’ if weaknesses in the programme were not corrected. Beset by poor planning, a lack of transparency and failed delivery, it was abandoned in March 2007. Only 639 people received training. Commentators criticised the “disastrous” project.
“In another programme in Helmand, the department paid for 300 wells to be dug in an area prone to drought, without carrying out a geological survey. Some of the wells have since run dry as the water table retreated. The report finds that the department’s risk assessment ignored the absence of the rule of law and corruption in the region.
“A survey of Afghan opinion in Helmand found local residents complaining about poor construction, a lack of monitoring and unhappiness with the role of interpreters, while the department rated its own projects there a success. It took until late 2007 for the department to recruit a conflict adviser even though British troops started operating in Helmand in 2006.
Staffing levels in Kabul were described as ‘wholly unrealistic’. Until 2006 the development department attempted to run its programmes with only six non-Afghan staff in Kabul.
[….]
“Only one person is overseeing a massive, $404 million Afghan reconstruction contract -- and is thousands of miles away in Maryland, auditors say. The contract's supervising officer in Maryland hired someone else to work in Afghanistan, but that person didn't have much experience and wasn't able to visit many of the actual work sites, the audit said.”
[….]
“Some projects were a success, including a £20 million initiative to give small loans to the poor and an £18 million programme to build and repair roads, schools and clinics. By 2007 the department’s portfolio in Afghanistan contained 58 projects with a value of about £520 million, including £317 million for the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, administered by the World Bank.
[….]
http://www.rawa/org/temp/runews/2009/05/22/public-millions-fail-to-provide-wells-schools-and-clinics-in-afghanistan.html
Read more: http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2009/05/22/public-millions-fail-to-provide-wells-schools-and-clinics-in-afghanistan.html#ixzz1D6OaqfnN
---------------
ARTICLE #2: American taxpayers lose when billions of dollars in development funds from US to Afghanistan wasted
Sara A. Carter, “Commission tracks billions of contracting dollars wasted in Afghanistan, The Washington Examiner, August 23, 2010.
“American taxpayers have picked up the tab for billions of dollars worth of shoddy schools, phantom health care clinics and government buildings abandoned before completion in Afghanistan, according to members of a U.S. team that arrived in Kabul on Monday to document the waste and fraud.
“The Commission on Wartime Contracting will look into charges ranging from massive contracting fraud to abandoned foreign laborers on U.S. military installations that have left American taxpayers ripped off and the people of Afghanistan disappointed by broken promises.
“Christopher Shays, a former Republican congressman from Connecticut who co-chairs the commission, said the allegations warrant a full investigation and that the scams involving foreign workers are presenting security risks on the bases as well as human rights abuses.
"’We are looking into cases of some contractors or outright scam artists who charge people from other countries to fly them to supposed jobs in Dubai but instead dump them with no jobs or documents on airbases in Afghanistan. That's a human-rights abuse that cannot be tolerated,’ said Shays, who heads a four-man team.
“Foreign workers -- many from the Philippines -- paid up to $2,000 dollars to contracting companies for airfare and housing "only to be left alone on the bases without identification and no way home," said one official who asked not to be named.
"’The bigger problem is that we don't know who they are but they are inside our installations without identification or jobs, and this presents a security risk for the troops on base, civilians, as well as the innocent victims of the scams," the official said.
“The commission, which will issue a semi-annual report in December to Congress and a final report next July as the administration begins a troop draw-down from Afghanistan, is investigating a host of other problems.
“Abandoned and substandard school projects, unfinished government buildings and health care facilities without management staffs are among the reported failures being reviewed by the commission.
[….]
“Other projects paid for by American taxpayers that will be examined by the commissioners include military bases, power plants, office buildings, fuel storage, schools and training centers for Afghan security forces. Many times these projects are abandoned before completion or the supplies needed to sustain their operations never arrive.
“Examples are evident throughout Afghanistan. Last October, in the small village of Hutal, American soldiers set out to get school supplies from local contractors in Kandahar. Money was made available, the supplier was contacted and the village elders were promised that the thousands of dollars in educational materials would arrive in three weeks. The supplies never arrived. It is uncertain how much money was lost on the project.
[….]
"Construction contracting in a war zone half a world away involves real challenges on cost, quality, timeliness, suitability and sustainability," commission co-chair Michael Thibault said.
‘The government needs a clearer view on the way these projects are planned, contracted and supervised. We often don't know how many people are working on U.S. bases, whether prime contractors are effectively managing their subcontractors, whether employee vetting and access control are adequate and whether Afghans can sustain projects like the $300 million Kabul power plant after U.S. personnel leave.’”
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner's national security correspondent. She can be reached at scarter@washingtonexaminer.com.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/commission-tracks-billions-contracting-dollars-wasted-afghanistan
---------------
ARTICLE #3 – Billions contracted with US corporations for “development” projects in Afghanistan unaccounted for and open up massive opportunities for corruption.
Iman Hasan, “Afghans point finger at US: Who’s corrupt now?” The Express Tribune with the International Tribune, November 2010.
“Many Afghans, from government officials and parliamentarians to the common man are disgruntled with the US officials relentlessly accusing them of being corrupt – while ignoring their own government’s fraud and misappropriations in the $56 billion development budget approved by the Congress for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Afghans deem US responsible for corrupting their society.
“For Obama’s administration, ‘corruption warnings’ are a new blackmail tool to use against the Karzai government. There has been constant rhetoric to ‘eradicate corruption’ and ‘stop misusing US tax payers’ money,’ without realising that only 20% of the allocated funds are at the disposal of the Afghan government while 80% are utilised by the US Department of State, Defence and USAID. These three departments rely extensively on private contractors for the implementation of various projects, ranging from reconstruction of Afghanistan, eradicating drugs, training of Afghan security forces and officials and providing security to Nato supply convoys.
“Since 2001, the US congress has appropriated nearly $56 billion for the reconstruction funds of Afghanistan, which cannot be tracked down. It has either been wasted, stolen or abused.
Missing records
“There is absolutely no record of the amount utilised from 2001 to 2006 except for the vague documentation of $17.7 billion spent during the financial year 2007 – 2009, which only identifies the 7000 contractors hired to implement the projects – but does not evaluate the projects. Therefore, there is no guarantee if the US tax payers’ money amounting to $56 billion is fairly spent or abused.
“Bush’s government after eight years of engagement in Afghanistan established the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in 2008 ‘to conduct independent and objective audits, inspections, and investigations on the use of taxpayer dollars and related funds’.
“Even the Office of the Special Inspector General is unable to track down the money spent during 2001 to 2006. It recently released a report on the ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ of $17.7 billion (spent during the financial year 2007 – 2009) of the total reconstruction fund of $56 billion.
“The report is essentially a document holding the US responsible for the corruption in Afghanistan. ‘The large US investment in Afghanistan remains at risk of being wasted or subject to waste, fraud and abuse,’ reads the document.
Who benefits from America’s wars?
“65 per cent of the $17.7 billion has been channelled through the Department of Defence, which hired largely those companies who are essentially part of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). These huge corporations depend mostly or entirely on the Pentagon for their profits and have hugely benefited from the US wars.
[….]
“Some of the largest defense contractors belonging to the Military Industrial Complex hired by the Defence Department, for Afghanistan are DynCorp, Black Water (Xe Services), Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Louis Berger and Bearing Pont.
[….]
“Besides the Military Industrial Complex, there is also the intelligence complex which has been playing a greater role in corrupting the Afghan society since 2001, whose billions of dollars of expenditure has never been accounted for.
“The intelligence complex’s profligate distribution of boxes and suitcases of cash amongst the different segments of Afghan society – Afghan media, NGOs and allegedly government officials – has also encouraged other countries. India is one of the countries which has taken a leaf out of the CIA’s book.
[….]
Lack of transparency
“This is still not the complete picture of US corruption and lack of oversight of reconstruction funds – meant for achieving long term goals in Afghanistan. There is no transparency even in the salary support provided to the Afghan government employees and technical advisors since 2002. The US government is unable to determine the amount it has been paying, the identity and the total number of recipients. Since the number and identity of the recipients is not clear the salaries can go to anyone in anyone’s name.
[….]
http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/2955/afghans-point-finger-at-us-whos-corrupt-now
---------------
ARTICLE #4: Another report on the missing billions of US taxpayer development funds for Afghanistan
Michael Tennant, “Afghanistan Reconstruction: Billions Spent, But No One Knows Just How,” New American, Dec. 29, 2010
[….]
“In Iraq, for example, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction found over $5 billion had been wasted on various projects, including hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects such as a $40 million prison, a $5.7 million convention center, and a roughly $100 million wastewater treatment plant. In addition, the special inspector general discovered that the Pentagon could not account for over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraqi funds set aside for reconstruction.“To no one’s great surprise, the situation in Afghanistan, site of another undeclared U.S. war, is no better. David Francis of the Fiscal Times reports:
'In its bid to win the hearts and minds of Afghanistan’s teeming population, the United States has spent more than $55 billion to rebuild and bolster the war-ravaged country. That money was meant to cover everything from the construction of government buildings and economic development projects to the salaries of U.S. government employees working closely with Afghans.Yet no one can say with any authority or precision how that money was spent and who profited from it. Most of the funds were funneled to a vast array of U.S. and foreign contractors. But according to a recent audit by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), there is no way of knowing whether the money went for the intended purposes.'
[….]
“The reason for these agencies’ inability to say where taxpayers’ money is going is simply that the government hasn’t demanded any sort of accountability from its recipients. ‘The money,’ Francis writes, ‘flows from Washington to Afghanistan, with little oversight and accountability, and at every step along the way someone else takes a cut.’[….]
From Francis article:
“Another report found that the United States has spent nearly $200 million on Afghan security service buildings that cannot be used. SIGAR also found that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) couldn’t account for nearly $18 billion that was paid to some 7,000 U.S. and Afghan contractors for development projects. Afghan contractors often pay kickbacks to local warlords, like Ahmad Wali Karzai, the president’s brother and the so-called “King of Kandahar.” Their actions often undermine the work of the coalition."
[….]
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/foreignpolicy/5695-afghanistan-reconstruction-billions-spent-but-no-one-knows-just-how
---------------
ARTICLE #5: The head watchdog against the massive corruption in Afghanistan resigns because of weakness of enforcement authority.
Jason Ditz, “US Watchdog for Afghan Projects Resigns,” Antiwar.com, Jan 10, 2011
“Special Inspector General Arnold Fields, the Obama Administration’s top watchdog against the massive corruption in Afghanistan, followed up last week’s pledge not to resign with a formal announcement of his resignation.
“Fields has been regularly presenting reports on the corruption surrounding US aid programmes in occupied Afghanistan, and has cautioned that there are virtually no controls in place and that much of the aid is being stolen or wasted as a result.
[….]
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/01/10/us-watchdog-for-afghan-projects-resigns
Friday, September 3, 2010
Afghan bank caught in huge ponzi scheme
Historian Juan Cole writes informed and insightful commentary on events in the Middle East, important political developments in the US, and much more, on his award-winning blog, Informed Comment. On today's blog, his first post deals with another case of corruption among friends of President Karzai. (See below.) The focus of the article is on the present crisis of Da Kabul Bank, which is embroiled in financial irregularities, suggesting a ponzi scheme, having a debt of $300 million, and facing a run on the bank by depositors. Cole writes that this corruption "could be catastrophic for the country." He is angered by the thought that so many troops from the US, NATO, and Afghanistan have given their lives for what is a corrupt and illegitimate government and for the rich thieves associated with it.
From our perspective, this is yet more evidence that we are on a fool's errand in Afghanistan, compounded immensely by a US military policy that lurches from one strategy to another and calls for extending the US-led occupation of Afghanistan for years into the future. In the meantime, there are profound costs to US taxpayers, in Afghan and US lives, and to the waning credibility of the US in Central Asia, the Middle East and around the world.
Collapse of Kabul Bank Points to Fatal Corruption of Karzai Government
Posted on September 3, 2010 by Juan Cole at http://juancole.com
I write in anger. Not blind rage, mind you. A cool, searing, steady anger. I think it is a righteous anger. It is not consequential, but it is my reality. I am angry about the 1,172 US troops dead in the Afghanistan War, and all the other brave NATO and Afghan soldiers who gave their lives for a new Afghanistan. Because they haven’t gotten a new Afghanistan. They have paid the ultimate sacrifice for a ponzi scheme masquerading as a reformist government. And, as usual, you and I may well get stuck with the bill for the economic damage done by the fraud.
The house of cards that is the Hamid Karzai government in Kabul may be falling before our eyes, as vast, globe-spanning webs of corruption, formerly hidden in shadows, have suddenly had a spotlight thrown on them. The crisis raises the severest questions about whether the Obama administration can plausibly hope to stand up a stable government in Afghanistan before US troops depart.
As with the second phase of the Great Depression in the United States, the crisis begins with a run on Da Kabul Bank. Depositors took out $85 million on Wednesday, after a damning story appeared in the Washington Post. They took out another $70 million on Thursday. The bank, which owes $300 million, may now have as little as $120 million left in the kitty, though it had once been worth over a billion. But the problem is not just a run on one bank. Can Afghanistan’s whole financial system and economy emerge unscathed?
Pajhwok News Service reports,
‘The immediate concern was that news of the bank’s financial irregularities, already spreading through the capital, would prompt a run on the bank itself and that the panic would spread to other financial institutions. Bank deposits in Afghanistan are not guaranteed by the central government, officials here said. “This could be catastrophic for the country,” a senior Afghan banking official said. “The next few days are critical. I am worried.” ‘
The same world-wide real estate crisis that abruptly revealed the ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff has undone Da Bank Kabul. But imagine if Madoff had not merely been a criminal who preyed on the wealthy, but had bankrolled a president’s political campaign with his ill-gotten gains and had brought the president’s brother and the brother of the vice-president into his inner circle. And imagine if he had been only one of a handful of financiers in New York with substantial capital.
The story begins with Sherkhan Farnood, a financier who founded Da Kabul Bank after the fall of the Taliban. Over the years he appears to have used the institution for patronage for politicians and their families. Farnood gave millions to the presidential campaign of Hamid Karzai last summer, a campaign that Karzai was accused of only winning through substantial ballot fraud. (Hint: a vote wouldn’t cost much to buy in Afghanistan, and ‘millions’ would buy a lot). The other top executive at the bank, Khalilu’llah Frozi, was a campaign adviser to Karzai. Hamid Karzai’s brother Mahmoud has a 9% share in the bank.
Instead of wiring money overseas, as banks typically do, Farnood used a traditional money-transfer or hawala service, the New Ansari, which is also alleged to have been resorted to by drug smugglers, some of whose proceeds go to the Taliban and other insurgents that kill US troops. Money transferred by hawala cannot be traced electronically. The New Ansari itself is under investigation by US authorities. Persistent news reports suggest that billions of dollars in cash are being flown out of Afghanistan to Dubai, and that, let us say, irregularities are involved.
Farnood often gave out loans without proper collateral or other formalities. He loaned $100 million to Haseen Fahim, the brother of Marshal Mohammad Fahim (an old-time Northern Alliance warlord whom Karzai brought back into government as his vice-presidential running mate in summer of 2009). Haseen Fahim has substantial investments in Afghanistan’s small natural gas sector.
Farnood also apparently loaned himself $140 million to invest in real estate in Dubai, including in villas on the world islands off Jumeirah. These artificial islands made of landfill were to resemble the map of the globe once constructed, and were intended to give the wealthy the opportunity to own an entire faux country. Farnood has been flying out connected people like Mahmoud Karzai and Haseen Fahim and putting them up in the fancy chalets. Afghanistan is the fifth-poorest country in the world, with 36% of the population under the poverty line.
With the world economic downturn and real estate crash of 2008-2009, the Dubai world project largely fell apart, with investors going bankrupt in droves. Indeed, Dubai itself had to be bailed out by its rich sibling Abu Dhabi (which has petroleum; Dubai just has a financial sector). The artificial islands appear from NASA photos to have been abandoned since late 2009 when the own, Nakheel Properties, asked for a delay in repaying $29 billion in debt. Some seem to be sinking back into the lagoon or their boundaries are blurring. Close-up pictures of some of them show an eyesore.
So Farnood’s $140 million investment was suddenly not worth anything at all, and his bank began spiraling down. The details of his other bad investments have not yet emerged. The bank went from having over $1 billion in capital to now having only $120 million and owing $300 million.
President Hamid Karzai is notorious for running interference for his corrupt cronies, and that Farnood and Frozi were out of control appears to have been known for some time but nothing was allowed to be done about it. The two have now been forced out, but the question is whether it is in time to save not only the bank (doubtful) but also the entire Afghan financial system, rebuilt after the fall of the Taliban.
The Karzai government is corrupt and rotten to the core. Not a single US soldier should die to prop it up. The lie that we are fighting “al-Qaeda” in Afghanistan needs to be exposed. The US and NATO are fighting four or five groups of Pashtun insurgents, some of them until fairly recently US allies. The goal of the fighting is to keep the Karzai government from falling to the guerrillas and to train up an army and police force that could go on defending Kabul. The Afghanistan National Army from all accounts has poor morale. No wonder. What Afghan soldier or policeman would die for a ponzi scheme?
NATO should not have allowed Karzai to steal the presidential election. (At least now we have more of an idea how the theft was accomplished). It should not have allowed him to block corruption investigations.
You have to wonder if the Afghanistan parliament is up to impeaching Karzai. One thing is certain. He is part of the problem, not the solution, and as long as he is at the helm, the situation is highly unlikely to get better.
And our troops will go on dying for a vague and probably unattainable goal that the politicians dress up in idealistic flourishes, and worse, dying for a lie.
From our perspective, this is yet more evidence that we are on a fool's errand in Afghanistan, compounded immensely by a US military policy that lurches from one strategy to another and calls for extending the US-led occupation of Afghanistan for years into the future. In the meantime, there are profound costs to US taxpayers, in Afghan and US lives, and to the waning credibility of the US in Central Asia, the Middle East and around the world.
Collapse of Kabul Bank Points to Fatal Corruption of Karzai Government
Posted on September 3, 2010 by Juan Cole at http://juancole.com
I write in anger. Not blind rage, mind you. A cool, searing, steady anger. I think it is a righteous anger. It is not consequential, but it is my reality. I am angry about the 1,172 US troops dead in the Afghanistan War, and all the other brave NATO and Afghan soldiers who gave their lives for a new Afghanistan. Because they haven’t gotten a new Afghanistan. They have paid the ultimate sacrifice for a ponzi scheme masquerading as a reformist government. And, as usual, you and I may well get stuck with the bill for the economic damage done by the fraud.
The house of cards that is the Hamid Karzai government in Kabul may be falling before our eyes, as vast, globe-spanning webs of corruption, formerly hidden in shadows, have suddenly had a spotlight thrown on them. The crisis raises the severest questions about whether the Obama administration can plausibly hope to stand up a stable government in Afghanistan before US troops depart.
As with the second phase of the Great Depression in the United States, the crisis begins with a run on Da Kabul Bank. Depositors took out $85 million on Wednesday, after a damning story appeared in the Washington Post. They took out another $70 million on Thursday. The bank, which owes $300 million, may now have as little as $120 million left in the kitty, though it had once been worth over a billion. But the problem is not just a run on one bank. Can Afghanistan’s whole financial system and economy emerge unscathed?
Pajhwok News Service reports,
‘The immediate concern was that news of the bank’s financial irregularities, already spreading through the capital, would prompt a run on the bank itself and that the panic would spread to other financial institutions. Bank deposits in Afghanistan are not guaranteed by the central government, officials here said. “This could be catastrophic for the country,” a senior Afghan banking official said. “The next few days are critical. I am worried.” ‘
The same world-wide real estate crisis that abruptly revealed the ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff has undone Da Bank Kabul. But imagine if Madoff had not merely been a criminal who preyed on the wealthy, but had bankrolled a president’s political campaign with his ill-gotten gains and had brought the president’s brother and the brother of the vice-president into his inner circle. And imagine if he had been only one of a handful of financiers in New York with substantial capital.
The story begins with Sherkhan Farnood, a financier who founded Da Kabul Bank after the fall of the Taliban. Over the years he appears to have used the institution for patronage for politicians and their families. Farnood gave millions to the presidential campaign of Hamid Karzai last summer, a campaign that Karzai was accused of only winning through substantial ballot fraud. (Hint: a vote wouldn’t cost much to buy in Afghanistan, and ‘millions’ would buy a lot). The other top executive at the bank, Khalilu’llah Frozi, was a campaign adviser to Karzai. Hamid Karzai’s brother Mahmoud has a 9% share in the bank.
Instead of wiring money overseas, as banks typically do, Farnood used a traditional money-transfer or hawala service, the New Ansari, which is also alleged to have been resorted to by drug smugglers, some of whose proceeds go to the Taliban and other insurgents that kill US troops. Money transferred by hawala cannot be traced electronically. The New Ansari itself is under investigation by US authorities. Persistent news reports suggest that billions of dollars in cash are being flown out of Afghanistan to Dubai, and that, let us say, irregularities are involved.
Farnood often gave out loans without proper collateral or other formalities. He loaned $100 million to Haseen Fahim, the brother of Marshal Mohammad Fahim (an old-time Northern Alliance warlord whom Karzai brought back into government as his vice-presidential running mate in summer of 2009). Haseen Fahim has substantial investments in Afghanistan’s small natural gas sector.
Farnood also apparently loaned himself $140 million to invest in real estate in Dubai, including in villas on the world islands off Jumeirah. These artificial islands made of landfill were to resemble the map of the globe once constructed, and were intended to give the wealthy the opportunity to own an entire faux country. Farnood has been flying out connected people like Mahmoud Karzai and Haseen Fahim and putting them up in the fancy chalets. Afghanistan is the fifth-poorest country in the world, with 36% of the population under the poverty line.
With the world economic downturn and real estate crash of 2008-2009, the Dubai world project largely fell apart, with investors going bankrupt in droves. Indeed, Dubai itself had to be bailed out by its rich sibling Abu Dhabi (which has petroleum; Dubai just has a financial sector). The artificial islands appear from NASA photos to have been abandoned since late 2009 when the own, Nakheel Properties, asked for a delay in repaying $29 billion in debt. Some seem to be sinking back into the lagoon or their boundaries are blurring. Close-up pictures of some of them show an eyesore.
So Farnood’s $140 million investment was suddenly not worth anything at all, and his bank began spiraling down. The details of his other bad investments have not yet emerged. The bank went from having over $1 billion in capital to now having only $120 million and owing $300 million.
President Hamid Karzai is notorious for running interference for his corrupt cronies, and that Farnood and Frozi were out of control appears to have been known for some time but nothing was allowed to be done about it. The two have now been forced out, but the question is whether it is in time to save not only the bank (doubtful) but also the entire Afghan financial system, rebuilt after the fall of the Taliban.
The Karzai government is corrupt and rotten to the core. Not a single US soldier should die to prop it up. The lie that we are fighting “al-Qaeda” in Afghanistan needs to be exposed. The US and NATO are fighting four or five groups of Pashtun insurgents, some of them until fairly recently US allies. The goal of the fighting is to keep the Karzai government from falling to the guerrillas and to train up an army and police force that could go on defending Kabul. The Afghanistan National Army from all accounts has poor morale. No wonder. What Afghan soldier or policeman would die for a ponzi scheme?
NATO should not have allowed Karzai to steal the presidential election. (At least now we have more of an idea how the theft was accomplished). It should not have allowed him to block corruption investigations.
You have to wonder if the Afghanistan parliament is up to impeaching Karzai. One thing is certain. He is part of the problem, not the solution, and as long as he is at the helm, the situation is highly unlikely to get better.
And our troops will go on dying for a vague and probably unattainable goal that the politicians dress up in idealistic flourishes, and worse, dying for a lie.
Friday, August 27, 2010
CIA support a corrupt Afghan Official, additional reports
Kucinich: Afghanistan is ‘spy versus spy carnival of corruption’
By Muriel KaneThursday, August 26th, 2010
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/0826/kucinich-afghanistan-spy-spy
In the wake of new revelations by the New York Times of CIA support for a corrupt Afghan official, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) accused the United States of turning Afghanistan into a "spy versus spy versus spy carnival of corruption."
"We are paying all sides to fight all sides and to betray all sides," Kucinich charged in a statement released on Wednesday. "This is further evidence that the United States must remove all its troops and assets out of Afghanistan."
"The tragedy is rapidly becoming a farce," he added. "They call it intelligence, but it is actually an innovative way to steal tens of billions of dollars from the U.S. taxpayers."
The Times story had reported that the chief of administration in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's national security council, who is currently "at the center of a politically sensitive corruption investigation," has apparently been on the CIA payroll for many years.
Mohammed Zia Salehi was arrested last month on charges of soliciting a bribe "in exchange for impeding an American-backed investigation into a company suspected of shipping billions of dollars out of the country for Afghan officials, drug smugglers and insurgents." He was released a few hours later after President Karzai personally intervened, and Karzai "has since threatened to limit the power of the anticorruption unit that carried out the arrest."
Reporters Dexter Filkins and Mark Mazzetti go on to suggest that the Salehi story "underscores deep contradictions at the heart of the Obama administration’s policy in Afghanistan."
They write that some administration officials "view public corruption as the single greatest threat to the Afghan government and the American mission," while others describe the anti-corruption drive as "mission creep" and worry that "attacking corrupt officials who are crucial to the war effort could destabilize the Karzai government."
Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel's page at website firedoglake, however, believes the story has to be read in connection with two other stories by Filkins this week, both of which suggest infighting between the CIA and military special forces over which is pursuing the more effective strategy in Afghanistan.
"So after stories about who is doing more damage," Wheeler concludes, "special forces or credulous CIA, the debate shifts to whether it is more important to crack down on the corruption within Karzai’s government -- even if it means cracking down on CIA’s key assets -- or whether we have to deal with corruption because that’s the way of the world."
"Boy," Wheeler concludes, "Dexter Filkins sure has had an interesting week cataloging the sniping within American strategy, huh? Mind you, I’m not complaining about Filkins’ reporting (though his descriptions of anonymous sources doesn’t seem to comply with the NYT’s policy on identifying the motives for these anonymous leaks). ... But he does seem to be the focus of a lot of competing leaks of late."
By Muriel KaneThursday, August 26th, 2010
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/0826/kucinich-afghanistan-spy-spy
In the wake of new revelations by the New York Times of CIA support for a corrupt Afghan official, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) accused the United States of turning Afghanistan into a "spy versus spy versus spy carnival of corruption."
"We are paying all sides to fight all sides and to betray all sides," Kucinich charged in a statement released on Wednesday. "This is further evidence that the United States must remove all its troops and assets out of Afghanistan."
"The tragedy is rapidly becoming a farce," he added. "They call it intelligence, but it is actually an innovative way to steal tens of billions of dollars from the U.S. taxpayers."
The Times story had reported that the chief of administration in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's national security council, who is currently "at the center of a politically sensitive corruption investigation," has apparently been on the CIA payroll for many years.
Mohammed Zia Salehi was arrested last month on charges of soliciting a bribe "in exchange for impeding an American-backed investigation into a company suspected of shipping billions of dollars out of the country for Afghan officials, drug smugglers and insurgents." He was released a few hours later after President Karzai personally intervened, and Karzai "has since threatened to limit the power of the anticorruption unit that carried out the arrest."
Reporters Dexter Filkins and Mark Mazzetti go on to suggest that the Salehi story "underscores deep contradictions at the heart of the Obama administration’s policy in Afghanistan."
They write that some administration officials "view public corruption as the single greatest threat to the Afghan government and the American mission," while others describe the anti-corruption drive as "mission creep" and worry that "attacking corrupt officials who are crucial to the war effort could destabilize the Karzai government."
Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel's page at website firedoglake, however, believes the story has to be read in connection with two other stories by Filkins this week, both of which suggest infighting between the CIA and military special forces over which is pursuing the more effective strategy in Afghanistan.
"So after stories about who is doing more damage," Wheeler concludes, "special forces or credulous CIA, the debate shifts to whether it is more important to crack down on the corruption within Karzai’s government -- even if it means cracking down on CIA’s key assets -- or whether we have to deal with corruption because that’s the way of the world."
"Boy," Wheeler concludes, "Dexter Filkins sure has had an interesting week cataloging the sniping within American strategy, huh? Mind you, I’m not complaining about Filkins’ reporting (though his descriptions of anonymous sources doesn’t seem to comply with the NYT’s policy on identifying the motives for these anonymous leaks). ... But he does seem to be the focus of a lot of competing leaks of late."
CIA-assisted corruption at the highest levels in Afghan government
On July 8th, 2010, I posted a short article from Agence France Presse that cites a few facts and implications on corruption in Afghanistan. In today's post, I want to below refer back to a few of the highlights of this article.
Today I also print an article from English Aljazeera on corruption high up in the Karzai government which also involves the CIA. The Aljazeera article is titled "Karzai aide paid by CIA." The URL for the article is: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/08/201082643550599917.html
The point that stands out in the information is that corruption is rampant in Afghanistan and is encouraged by some parts of the US government. It is a perverse reflection of what the US does with taxpayer money in Afghanistan - and other places. This ongoing and widespread corruption is not only a sheer waste of money with respect to American taxpayers and Afghan citizens but also serves to perpetuate some of the most unsavory and anti-democratic Afghan leaders.
Facts from Agence France Presse:
Today I also print an article from English Aljazeera on corruption high up in the Karzai government which also involves the CIA. The Aljazeera article is titled "Karzai aide paid by CIA." The URL for the article is: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/08/201082643550599917.html
The point that stands out in the information is that corruption is rampant in Afghanistan and is encouraged by some parts of the US government. It is a perverse reflection of what the US does with taxpayer money in Afghanistan - and other places. This ongoing and widespread corruption is not only a sheer waste of money with respect to American taxpayers and Afghan citizens but also serves to perpetuate some of the most unsavory and anti-democratic Afghan leaders.
Facts from Agence France Presse:
- "Corruption in Afghanistan has doubled in three years since 2006 [according to Integrity Watch Afganistan]
- "more than a quarter of households [say] they had paid a bribe to receive a public service [frm a poll of 6,500 Afghan adults]
- The previous source found corruption "had become so entrenched that it threatened the multi-billion-dollar effors of the international community to help end nearly nine years of current conflict...."
- Widespread corruption also has the following effects: (1) "threatens the legitimacy of state-building; (2) "leads to increasing inquality"; (3) 'impedes the rule of law"; (4) hinders access to basic services"; (5) "and has a major [negative] effect on economic development."
Report on "Karzai aide paid by CIA"
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, allegedly pressured investigators to free Salehi [AFP]
An aide to the Afghan president at the centre of a corruption probe is being paid by the Central Intelligence Agency, The New York Times has reported, citing Afghan and American officials.
Mohammed Zia Salehi, chief of administration for the National Security Council, appears to have been on the CIA's payroll for many years, the US news organisation quoted officials in Kabul and Washington saying, although exactly what services he provides for the money was unclear.
Afghan security forces arrested Salehi in July, for allegedly soliciting a bribe in exchange for impeding a US backed investigation into a company suspected of shipping billions of dollars out of Afghanistan in the service of government officials, drug smugglers and anti-government fighters.
After being held for seven hours, Salehi was released from jail when Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, intervened forcefully on his behalf, The New York Times reported.
Salehi is being protected by Karzai allegedly because he knows too much about the inner workings of the presidential palace, including details of widespread corruption, an Afghan politician told the Times.
Money transfers
Police arrested Salehi during an investigation into New Ansari, a money transfer firm that relies on couriers and other low-technology methods to move cash into and out of Afghanistan.
Since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, New Ansari has grown into a financial hub in Afghanistan, moving billions out of the country, mostly to Dubai, for "wealthy Afghans of every sort" including politicians, drug traffickers and anti-government fighters, The New York Times reported.
Salehi is allegedly a confidant of some of the most powerful people in the Afghan government, including Engineer Ibrahim Spinzada who was, until recently, the deputy chief of the Afghan intelligence service.
The CIA declined to comment on allegations that it paid Salehi.
Allegations of corruption and nepotism have dogged the US presence in Afghanistan and such problems undermine support for Karzai's government and foreign nation-building efforts, analysts say.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Widespread corruption is a barrier to development in Afghanistan
Dr. James C. Dabhi's argues in the following article that Afghan society is plagued by widespread bribes and corruption, especially in all levels of the government. Dabhi presents evidence from Integrity Watch Afghanistan, interviews with UN officials, and information from a Toronto Star report, to document his analysis. He contends that democracy is weak in Afghanistan and is "concentrated within the elite class and family network." While necessary to the development of democracy, civil society remains weak while many parts of academia are "not free from corruption and nepotism." Two implications of Dabhi's analysis are that there are at present no Afghan forces powerful enough to challenge government corruption and the US-led occupation has been unable to reduce it.
Bribe and corruption violate people’s right to development in Afghanistan
Dr. James C. Dabhi
July 20, 2010 - http://www.aopnews.com/opinion/dabhi_corruption.shtml
Bribe and corruption are not new to south Asian countries; Afghanistan may be topping the list. Some may say it is a way of life here. Bribe and corruption are haraam (an Arabic term meaning forbidden) but people in power and position thrive on it.
Afghan and foreign officials have been under attack for being corrupt. There have been public charges blaming each other for the rampant corruption surrounding aid spending. Afghan officials say most of the corruption is due to the fact that foreign contractors and NGOs control the aid. Afghan Justice Minister Habibullah Ghalib recently told reporters in Kabul, "The foreigners come here and wipe their dirty hands on our clean clothes." But international officials generally defend the foreign NGOs' record and transparency. They argue that the international aid is generally well spent and there are good audit controls in place to ensure that it meets the needs of the people.
Eliminating corruption has become the top priority for the government in Afghanistan and it will be an issue discussed in Kabul conference. The agenda if translated into to action has a huge political and economic implication for those who reap the benefits of corruption (in Afghanistan and outside). Therefore scepticism among the masses about the political-will of the higher ups in implementing the agenda is understandable.
According to a recent survey by Integrity Watch Afghanistan, the average Afghan household pays out an estimated $100 US in petty bribes every year. With approximately 70 percent of the population surviving on less than $1 US per day, the burden on families is enormous. A staggering sum of $100-250 million USD is paid in bribes every year. To put it in relevant terms, this is equivalent to half the national development budget for 2006. Rupert Colville of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported, “The main conclusion is that the abuse of power is the key driver of poverty in Afghanistan”. The report says the majority of Afghans live in poverty despite the fact that some $35 billion US (£23 billion) in aid was poured into the country between 2002 and 2009. The BBC online news reported that "widespread corruption further limits access to services for a large proportion of the population". It blames Afghan officials for advancing their own interests at the expense of the general public.
Kai Eide, the new UN Special Representative in Afghanistan, said at an event, "Corruption in Afghanistan is endemic, it hurts the poorest people disproportionately, pushes people away from the state and undermines our joint efforts to build peace, stability and progress for Afghanistan's peoples.” He also went on to say that government corruption must be tackled from the bottom up with the people, Afghan civil society and the media having a crucial role in supporting government efforts.
Widespread corruption is systemic, structurally deep rooted and has gone unchallenged for years. It is systemic and structural because it not simply a few individuals taking bribes, but the entire governmental structure seems to be operating using bribes, whether it is the legislature, bureaucracy or judiciary. To illustrate the extent of the corruption, in 2008 Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno quoted Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabet as saying: “They are in the central government, the provincial governments, the district centres, police stations, army garrisons, the banks, the aid agencies – not a sector of Afghan society is without contamination of corruption”.
No doubt there are a few people in the system who refuse to take bribes. But the refusal of a few, though courageous and praiseworthy, will not have much of an overall impact or bring about the desired reform.
Corrupt leaders and people of position in the system are much more dangerous than a police officer asking for a couple of dollars at the airport check-in or low-ranking official asking for a few hundred Afghanis to move your file up. Many of us get annoyed and shout at these small fry and often ignoring the big guns who are the main culprits. Those in high places have money, arms and connections, so people naturally fear for their lives when it comes to challenging high-level corruption.
Government knows who is engaging in corrupt behaviour, but it will not be easy for it to take these people to task. After all, it is difficult to hurt one’s own, isn't it? Corrupt enemies can be easily targeted, but what about friends who are corrupt? These are the ones you call upon when you need a favour. To eliminate a person is no big deal in this part of the world and it can easily be covered up with a bribe. Exposing these people through print and electronic media requires tremendous courage. It is a risky business but are there other options?
Democracy is still young in Afghanistan and not adequately comprehended by a larger population; and politicians and bureaucrats are no exception. By and large the politics here is feudal, patriarchal, concentrated with the elite class and family network. A political system based on ideology and development discourse has yet to emerge. For a civil society to flourish it must be nurtured in a democratic climate which at the moment is largely hyped by the international community in Afghanistan. This civil society barely exists in this country, and where it does it is weak. Academia is not free from corruption and nepotism either, and those in academic circles often lack the courage, commitment and leadership required to address these issues.
The civil society and the news media can be a big help in fighting corruption that is if the state allows sufficient freedom to these entities to play their role. But when the state players have such a stake in the bribery and corruption, why would they want to allow civil society and the media to be the spoiler? The media and civil society will have to begin to realise that rights are often not freely given, but have to be taken. Unless these actors collectively exercise their right to expose corruption and pursue follow up, hardly anything will change and the masses will continue to suffer.
Academia can help in the process of transformation of the country but then academia and educational institutions need to act without engaging in what is called party politics. They cannot remain apolitical and mute spectators. They need to provide some leadership through their research-based data through seminars, workshops and campaign against corruption nationwide. Let their studies support the civil society in highlighting the nature of corruption that exists and how it has violated the right to development of the masses here in Afghanistan
Unless ordinary Afghan women and men make their voices heard, corruption and nepotism will persist. In the process, hundreds of millions of dollars will be siphoned off in corruption, money that was intended for the development of the people of Afghanistan.
Dr. James C. Dabhi is a visiting Professor at Herat and Bamiyan Universities. He can be reached at jimmydabhi@gmail.com
Bribe and corruption violate people’s right to development in Afghanistan
Dr. James C. Dabhi
July 20, 2010 - http://www.aopnews.com/opinion/dabhi_corruption.shtml
Bribe and corruption are not new to south Asian countries; Afghanistan may be topping the list. Some may say it is a way of life here. Bribe and corruption are haraam (an Arabic term meaning forbidden) but people in power and position thrive on it.
Afghan and foreign officials have been under attack for being corrupt. There have been public charges blaming each other for the rampant corruption surrounding aid spending. Afghan officials say most of the corruption is due to the fact that foreign contractors and NGOs control the aid. Afghan Justice Minister Habibullah Ghalib recently told reporters in Kabul, "The foreigners come here and wipe their dirty hands on our clean clothes." But international officials generally defend the foreign NGOs' record and transparency. They argue that the international aid is generally well spent and there are good audit controls in place to ensure that it meets the needs of the people.
Eliminating corruption has become the top priority for the government in Afghanistan and it will be an issue discussed in Kabul conference. The agenda if translated into to action has a huge political and economic implication for those who reap the benefits of corruption (in Afghanistan and outside). Therefore scepticism among the masses about the political-will of the higher ups in implementing the agenda is understandable.
According to a recent survey by Integrity Watch Afghanistan, the average Afghan household pays out an estimated $100 US in petty bribes every year. With approximately 70 percent of the population surviving on less than $1 US per day, the burden on families is enormous. A staggering sum of $100-250 million USD is paid in bribes every year. To put it in relevant terms, this is equivalent to half the national development budget for 2006. Rupert Colville of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported, “The main conclusion is that the abuse of power is the key driver of poverty in Afghanistan”. The report says the majority of Afghans live in poverty despite the fact that some $35 billion US (£23 billion) in aid was poured into the country between 2002 and 2009. The BBC online news reported that "widespread corruption further limits access to services for a large proportion of the population". It blames Afghan officials for advancing their own interests at the expense of the general public.
Kai Eide, the new UN Special Representative in Afghanistan, said at an event, "Corruption in Afghanistan is endemic, it hurts the poorest people disproportionately, pushes people away from the state and undermines our joint efforts to build peace, stability and progress for Afghanistan's peoples.” He also went on to say that government corruption must be tackled from the bottom up with the people, Afghan civil society and the media having a crucial role in supporting government efforts.
Widespread corruption is systemic, structurally deep rooted and has gone unchallenged for years. It is systemic and structural because it not simply a few individuals taking bribes, but the entire governmental structure seems to be operating using bribes, whether it is the legislature, bureaucracy or judiciary. To illustrate the extent of the corruption, in 2008 Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno quoted Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabet as saying: “They are in the central government, the provincial governments, the district centres, police stations, army garrisons, the banks, the aid agencies – not a sector of Afghan society is without contamination of corruption”.
No doubt there are a few people in the system who refuse to take bribes. But the refusal of a few, though courageous and praiseworthy, will not have much of an overall impact or bring about the desired reform.
Corrupt leaders and people of position in the system are much more dangerous than a police officer asking for a couple of dollars at the airport check-in or low-ranking official asking for a few hundred Afghanis to move your file up. Many of us get annoyed and shout at these small fry and often ignoring the big guns who are the main culprits. Those in high places have money, arms and connections, so people naturally fear for their lives when it comes to challenging high-level corruption.
Government knows who is engaging in corrupt behaviour, but it will not be easy for it to take these people to task. After all, it is difficult to hurt one’s own, isn't it? Corrupt enemies can be easily targeted, but what about friends who are corrupt? These are the ones you call upon when you need a favour. To eliminate a person is no big deal in this part of the world and it can easily be covered up with a bribe. Exposing these people through print and electronic media requires tremendous courage. It is a risky business but are there other options?
Democracy is still young in Afghanistan and not adequately comprehended by a larger population; and politicians and bureaucrats are no exception. By and large the politics here is feudal, patriarchal, concentrated with the elite class and family network. A political system based on ideology and development discourse has yet to emerge. For a civil society to flourish it must be nurtured in a democratic climate which at the moment is largely hyped by the international community in Afghanistan. This civil society barely exists in this country, and where it does it is weak. Academia is not free from corruption and nepotism either, and those in academic circles often lack the courage, commitment and leadership required to address these issues.
The civil society and the news media can be a big help in fighting corruption that is if the state allows sufficient freedom to these entities to play their role. But when the state players have such a stake in the bribery and corruption, why would they want to allow civil society and the media to be the spoiler? The media and civil society will have to begin to realise that rights are often not freely given, but have to be taken. Unless these actors collectively exercise their right to expose corruption and pursue follow up, hardly anything will change and the masses will continue to suffer.
Academia can help in the process of transformation of the country but then academia and educational institutions need to act without engaging in what is called party politics. They cannot remain apolitical and mute spectators. They need to provide some leadership through their research-based data through seminars, workshops and campaign against corruption nationwide. Let their studies support the civil society in highlighting the nature of corruption that exists and how it has violated the right to development of the masses here in Afghanistan
Unless ordinary Afghan women and men make their voices heard, corruption and nepotism will persist. In the process, hundreds of millions of dollars will be siphoned off in corruption, money that was intended for the development of the people of Afghanistan.
Dr. James C. Dabhi is a visiting Professor at Herat and Bamiyan Universities. He can be reached at jimmydabhi@gmail.com
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Rising corruption in Afghanistan undermines US occupation efforts
Afghan Corruption Doubled Since 2006: Survey
by Agence France Presse, July 8, 2010
KABUL - Corruption in Afghanistan has doubled in three years since 2006, despite pledges by the government to clean up graft in one of the world's poorest countries, according to a survey released Thursday.
Afghans paid one billion dollars in bribes in 2009, twice the value of those paid in 2006, according to Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA), a non-profit corruption watchdog.
In a poll of 6,500 Afghan adults, one in seven said they had experienced bribery, with more than a quarter of households saying they had paid a bribe to receive a public service.
It said corruption had become so entrenched that it threatened the multi-billion-dollar efforts of the international community to help end nearly nine years of current conflict, and rebuild Afghanistan after 30 years of war.
"The findings of this survey show that corruption threatens the legitimacy of state-building, badly affects state-society relations, feeds frustration and the support for the insurgency," IWA said.
Corruption also "leads to increasing inequality, impedes the rule of law according to Afghan standards, hinders access to basic public services, which impacts the poor most severely, and has a major negative effect on economic development," it said.
Corruption has been identified as one of the major problems plaguing Afghanistan as it tackles a Taliban-led insurgency that has spread across the country and intensified in recent years.
The United States and NATO allies are boosting foreign troop figures to 150,000 in coming weeks to escalate the fight in the Taliban's southern heartland and eradicate the insurgent threat in favour of civilian rule.
Key to the counter-insurgency strategy is winning the trust of ordinary people, assuring them that government officials are clean and judicial infrastructure accountable, which has not always been the case.
President Hamid Karzai is under intense pressure from Western backers that keep him in power to tackle corruption endemic in Afghan life, including in the polls that saw him re-elected last year to a second five-year term.
Earlier this year Karzai boosted the powers of the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption, an anti-corruption body that had faced fierce accusations of being toothless and half-hearted in its battle to wipe out official graft.
© 2010 AFP
by Agence France Presse, July 8, 2010
KABUL - Corruption in Afghanistan has doubled in three years since 2006, despite pledges by the government to clean up graft in one of the world's poorest countries, according to a survey released Thursday.
Afghans paid one billion dollars in bribes in 2009, twice the value of those paid in 2006, according to Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA), a non-profit corruption watchdog.
In a poll of 6,500 Afghan adults, one in seven said they had experienced bribery, with more than a quarter of households saying they had paid a bribe to receive a public service.
It said corruption had become so entrenched that it threatened the multi-billion-dollar efforts of the international community to help end nearly nine years of current conflict, and rebuild Afghanistan after 30 years of war.
"The findings of this survey show that corruption threatens the legitimacy of state-building, badly affects state-society relations, feeds frustration and the support for the insurgency," IWA said.
Corruption also "leads to increasing inequality, impedes the rule of law according to Afghan standards, hinders access to basic public services, which impacts the poor most severely, and has a major negative effect on economic development," it said.
Corruption has been identified as one of the major problems plaguing Afghanistan as it tackles a Taliban-led insurgency that has spread across the country and intensified in recent years.
The United States and NATO allies are boosting foreign troop figures to 150,000 in coming weeks to escalate the fight in the Taliban's southern heartland and eradicate the insurgent threat in favour of civilian rule.
Key to the counter-insurgency strategy is winning the trust of ordinary people, assuring them that government officials are clean and judicial infrastructure accountable, which has not always been the case.
President Hamid Karzai is under intense pressure from Western backers that keep him in power to tackle corruption endemic in Afghan life, including in the polls that saw him re-elected last year to a second five-year term.
Earlier this year Karzai boosted the powers of the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption, an anti-corruption body that had faced fierce accusations of being toothless and half-hearted in its battle to wipe out official graft.
© 2010 AFP
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Interview excerpts - Daniel Ellsberg on Obama's good war in Afghanistan
Below I quote some points made on Democracy Now by Daniel Ellsberg, interviewed by Anjali Kamat and Amy Goodman, March 30, 2010. Ellsberg drew parallels between the war in Afghanistan and the Vietnam War. In the excerpts from the interview that follow I focus on some of his responses on Afghanistan – for the most part. Ellsberg’s position on the Afghanistan War is to bring it to an end as soon as it is reasonable to do so. (Go to democracynow.org for the full interview.)
A little background on Daniel Ellsberg - We [Democracy Now] are joined by a man who played a major role in efforts to end the Vietnam War in the 1970s. In 1971, the then-RAND Corporation analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked to the media what became known as the Pentagon Papers, a 7,000-page classified history outlining the true extent of US involvement in Vietnam. After avoiding a life sentence on espionage charges, Daniel Ellsberg has continued to speak out against US militarism until the present day.
Daniel Ellsberg - [excerpts from interview follow]
Obama’s war - President Obama is taking every symbolic step he can to nominate this as Obama’s war, just as the Vietnam War became Nixon’s war in November of 1969, just about the time I was copying the Pentagon Papers in hopes of forestalling that, and Johnson made Vietnam his war, Johnson’s war, and McNamara’s war in June of 1965…with very much the same results in the end, tragic results.
Secret cables - Secret cables from the US ambassador in Kabul, Lieutenant General, retired, Karl Eikenberry were leaked by someone in January…He’s describing the President, Karzai, to whom he’s accredited and who he just visited with President Obama. And Karzai has presumably read Eikenberry’s assessment of him as—that he is not an adequate strategic partner for the United States, and for reasons of corruption and inefficiency.
Drugs are necessary to Afghan government- Allegedly, we hear that Obama’s reason for going seventeen hours over to Afghanistan was to convey in person our desire that he clean up his government….In Karzai’s government, as in the Mafia, corruption are us, drugs are us. Corruption is his government. That’s his constituency, his source of income. There is no chance whatever that he’ll, for instance, root out his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, from Kandahar, which is our next base of operations, despite the fact that our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says no success is possible in Kandahar while corruption is still the heart of that, while drug dealing is the heart of that, so long as Wali, the President’s, Karzai’s brother, is in charge there.
Counterinsurgency will not work - What it ignores is that the recruiting tool of our adversaries there is predominantly the presence of foreign troops. And when we add more foreign troops, we are sustaining that recruiting tool. And for every enemy trying to eject foreigners from his country that we kill, and especially his families, the wedding parties, and the funeral parties after we’ve hit the wedding parties, all of those recruit more people in a way that will—assures us that, contrary to what President Obama is saying, we will not prevail. When he does say we aren’t going to quit, in the short run, at least, he’s right, unfortunately. We have many years ahead of us.
Additional US troops will make the problem worse - ….when we have those extra 30,000 to 40,000 troops there and are up to the level of 100,000, which, with NATO troops, will bring us up to the level at which the Soviets occupied Afghanistan and failed after ten years, the thought that that’s the last request by McChrystal is simply absurd. McChrystal himself was asking for 80,000 troops at this point, and that, too, was a first installment.
Training of Afghans for Afghan army [and police] will continue to go badly - ….That is not going to come from the Afghan troops, who desert about as fast as we recruit them and who are not very highly motivated working for foreigners, like the government of Vietnam soldiers we worked with. They are not going to fill that gap.
The number of US troops in Afghanistan will not be drawn down next year - ….four years from now we will have more troops in Afghanistan than we have two years from now.
Afghan civilian casualties -….He [Gen. McChrystal] also, for the first time, talks about wanting to reduce civilian casualties. But by increasing the number of US troops over there greatly and increasing the number of engagements, even if you reduce the rate of civilian deaths per engagement, the overall effect is going to be that you’re killing the relatives of people who are going to enlist in the insurgency.
Congress will have to withhold funding for the war to end, but that’s unlikely - ….The head of the Appropriations Committee, David Obey, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, Harry Reid in the Senate have all said they oppose further escalation, just like Eikenberry, the general who is our ambassador in Afghanistan. But does that mean they will vote against the appropriations that send those people over there to die and to kill? No, very, very unlikely
A little background on Daniel Ellsberg - We [Democracy Now] are joined by a man who played a major role in efforts to end the Vietnam War in the 1970s. In 1971, the then-RAND Corporation analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked to the media what became known as the Pentagon Papers, a 7,000-page classified history outlining the true extent of US involvement in Vietnam. After avoiding a life sentence on espionage charges, Daniel Ellsberg has continued to speak out against US militarism until the present day.
Daniel Ellsberg - [excerpts from interview follow]
Obama’s war - President Obama is taking every symbolic step he can to nominate this as Obama’s war, just as the Vietnam War became Nixon’s war in November of 1969, just about the time I was copying the Pentagon Papers in hopes of forestalling that, and Johnson made Vietnam his war, Johnson’s war, and McNamara’s war in June of 1965…with very much the same results in the end, tragic results.
Secret cables - Secret cables from the US ambassador in Kabul, Lieutenant General, retired, Karl Eikenberry were leaked by someone in January…He’s describing the President, Karzai, to whom he’s accredited and who he just visited with President Obama. And Karzai has presumably read Eikenberry’s assessment of him as—that he is not an adequate strategic partner for the United States, and for reasons of corruption and inefficiency.
Drugs are necessary to Afghan government- Allegedly, we hear that Obama’s reason for going seventeen hours over to Afghanistan was to convey in person our desire that he clean up his government….In Karzai’s government, as in the Mafia, corruption are us, drugs are us. Corruption is his government. That’s his constituency, his source of income. There is no chance whatever that he’ll, for instance, root out his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, from Kandahar, which is our next base of operations, despite the fact that our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says no success is possible in Kandahar while corruption is still the heart of that, while drug dealing is the heart of that, so long as Wali, the President’s, Karzai’s brother, is in charge there.
Counterinsurgency will not work - What it ignores is that the recruiting tool of our adversaries there is predominantly the presence of foreign troops. And when we add more foreign troops, we are sustaining that recruiting tool. And for every enemy trying to eject foreigners from his country that we kill, and especially his families, the wedding parties, and the funeral parties after we’ve hit the wedding parties, all of those recruit more people in a way that will—assures us that, contrary to what President Obama is saying, we will not prevail. When he does say we aren’t going to quit, in the short run, at least, he’s right, unfortunately. We have many years ahead of us.
Additional US troops will make the problem worse - ….when we have those extra 30,000 to 40,000 troops there and are up to the level of 100,000, which, with NATO troops, will bring us up to the level at which the Soviets occupied Afghanistan and failed after ten years, the thought that that’s the last request by McChrystal is simply absurd. McChrystal himself was asking for 80,000 troops at this point, and that, too, was a first installment.
Training of Afghans for Afghan army [and police] will continue to go badly - ….That is not going to come from the Afghan troops, who desert about as fast as we recruit them and who are not very highly motivated working for foreigners, like the government of Vietnam soldiers we worked with. They are not going to fill that gap.
The number of US troops in Afghanistan will not be drawn down next year - ….four years from now we will have more troops in Afghanistan than we have two years from now.
Afghan civilian casualties -….He [Gen. McChrystal] also, for the first time, talks about wanting to reduce civilian casualties. But by increasing the number of US troops over there greatly and increasing the number of engagements, even if you reduce the rate of civilian deaths per engagement, the overall effect is going to be that you’re killing the relatives of people who are going to enlist in the insurgency.
Congress will have to withhold funding for the war to end, but that’s unlikely - ….The head of the Appropriations Committee, David Obey, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, Harry Reid in the Senate have all said they oppose further escalation, just like Eikenberry, the general who is our ambassador in Afghanistan. But does that mean they will vote against the appropriations that send those people over there to die and to kill? No, very, very unlikely
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Major military offensive in Helmand provice - the effects?
A major test of President Obama’s “surge” policy in Afghanistan is in the offing. The surge, already underway in Helmand province, will add 30,000 additional US troops in Afghanistan, raising the total US troop level to about 100,000. This does not include the additional private contractors who will provide services for the new troops. The principal mission of the additional force, combined with Afghan soldiers and NATO allies, is to find and eliminate the Taliban from areas they control and take measures to keep these areas from falling back into the hands of the Taliban. Once these goals are achieved, so the theory goes, reconstruction and economic development can begin. These are all of the elements of the counterinsurgency strategy that has been adopted by the US generals in Afghanistan and endorsed by the Obama administration.
As reported by Rod Norland in an article for the New York Times today (Feb. 4th), “NATO and the Afghan army are about to launch their biggest joint offensive of the war….” Tony Perry reports for the Los Angeles Times on February 3rd that “US Marines and the Afghan army plan a major assault on Taliban fighters in Marja, the last main community under the militants’ control in what had been a largely lawless [Taliban-controlled] area of the Helmand River Valley….”
According to Wikipedia, “Marjah is a town in the province of Helmand…south-west of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.” Helmand itself is in the southern part of Afghanistan. We also learn that Marja has a population of 85,000 and that there are 1,700 [or so] insurgents in the town.
The Pakistan newspaper, The Nation, reports in its February 4th online issue that “Col. George ‘Slam’ Amland says that the offensive is be a showpiece of the ‘clear, hold, build and transition’ counterinsurgency strategy, in which Taliban fighters are forced out of a region and then a ‘civilian surge’ begins to rebuild war-ravaged community and bolster confidence of Afghan villagers in their provincial and national governments.”
The upcoming attack has been publicized in the hope that the Taliban insurgents in Marja will withdraw without a fight. Nordland’s writes in his New York Times report: “The deliberate publicizing of the offensive – with news conferences, press releases and public pronouncements – is relatively unusual for the military.”
All of this reporting leaves us with serious questions.
If the Taliban fighters leave the city before the US-led offensive begins and the US military can ascertain that they have left, then perhaps Marja and its citizens will be spared the devastation and death that accompanies military battles. But if the US forces face resistance or assume there will be resistance, then the city and its citizens may suffer massive damage. The destruction in 2004 of Fallujah in Iraq is an example of how a city can be laid to waste.
It is also not clear whether the citizens of Marja know about the looming assault. Will they be spared the destruction of an attack or not? Will they flee the city, becoming refugees? Withal, there appears to be no planning for the disruption and harm that may afflict them. The Israelis dropped leaflets in Gaza right before they bombed the strip, but there were no safe places for the Gazans to go.
In his report in the Los Angeles Times, Tony Perry refers to Col. Amland’s optimistic scenario:
“Though the military part of the Marja operation is the most dramatic, the role of US civilian employees, including those from the US Agency for International Development and the Agriculture Department will be even more significant, Amland said. The Afghan government is ready to install local officials to begin reopening schools and clinics and polling residents about what they want their government to do.”
Four points. First, to be more consistent with the evidence, 80% or more of the money spent on the Afghan war – and the Iraq war - has gone to support warfare, not reconstruction and economic development. What such wars do produce are refugees and casualties and more hatred toward the occupiers. Second, the Karzai government has been corrupt and ineffective. Third, insurgents are mobile - and they can withdraw to safer areas and still do harm to occupying forces and unprotected civilian populations. Fourth warlords dominate many of the towns and villages that have long been outside of Taliban control. What about them?
As reported by Rod Norland in an article for the New York Times today (Feb. 4th), “NATO and the Afghan army are about to launch their biggest joint offensive of the war….” Tony Perry reports for the Los Angeles Times on February 3rd that “US Marines and the Afghan army plan a major assault on Taliban fighters in Marja, the last main community under the militants’ control in what had been a largely lawless [Taliban-controlled] area of the Helmand River Valley….”
According to Wikipedia, “Marjah is a town in the province of Helmand…south-west of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.” Helmand itself is in the southern part of Afghanistan. We also learn that Marja has a population of 85,000 and that there are 1,700 [or so] insurgents in the town.
The Pakistan newspaper, The Nation, reports in its February 4th online issue that “Col. George ‘Slam’ Amland says that the offensive is be a showpiece of the ‘clear, hold, build and transition’ counterinsurgency strategy, in which Taliban fighters are forced out of a region and then a ‘civilian surge’ begins to rebuild war-ravaged community and bolster confidence of Afghan villagers in their provincial and national governments.”
The upcoming attack has been publicized in the hope that the Taliban insurgents in Marja will withdraw without a fight. Nordland’s writes in his New York Times report: “The deliberate publicizing of the offensive – with news conferences, press releases and public pronouncements – is relatively unusual for the military.”
All of this reporting leaves us with serious questions.
If the Taliban fighters leave the city before the US-led offensive begins and the US military can ascertain that they have left, then perhaps Marja and its citizens will be spared the devastation and death that accompanies military battles. But if the US forces face resistance or assume there will be resistance, then the city and its citizens may suffer massive damage. The destruction in 2004 of Fallujah in Iraq is an example of how a city can be laid to waste.
It is also not clear whether the citizens of Marja know about the looming assault. Will they be spared the destruction of an attack or not? Will they flee the city, becoming refugees? Withal, there appears to be no planning for the disruption and harm that may afflict them. The Israelis dropped leaflets in Gaza right before they bombed the strip, but there were no safe places for the Gazans to go.
In his report in the Los Angeles Times, Tony Perry refers to Col. Amland’s optimistic scenario:
“Though the military part of the Marja operation is the most dramatic, the role of US civilian employees, including those from the US Agency for International Development and the Agriculture Department will be even more significant, Amland said. The Afghan government is ready to install local officials to begin reopening schools and clinics and polling residents about what they want their government to do.”
Four points. First, to be more consistent with the evidence, 80% or more of the money spent on the Afghan war – and the Iraq war - has gone to support warfare, not reconstruction and economic development. What such wars do produce are refugees and casualties and more hatred toward the occupiers. Second, the Karzai government has been corrupt and ineffective. Third, insurgents are mobile - and they can withdraw to safer areas and still do harm to occupying forces and unprotected civilian populations. Fourth warlords dominate many of the towns and villages that have long been outside of Taliban control. What about them?
Monday, January 25, 2010
Afghan election postponed due to Washington concerns over election fraud
Juan Cole, along with a number of sources, reports that the Afghanistan parliamentary elections have been postponed for four months. Cole and others emphasize that pressure was brought on the Karzai government to postpone the election because of concerns in the administration to avoid another fraudulent election.
These reports help to confirm the view taken in other articles and comments on this blog, and by Malalai Joya, namely, that the Karzai government is riddled with corrupt officials, many of them warlords and/or narco-trafficker in control of districts or villages outside of Taliban-dominated areas.
Bob
---------------------------
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Monday, January 25, 2010
Afghanistan postpones parliamentary elections
Afghanistan postpones parliamentary elections - latimes.comThe LAT lays out the basic facts around the postponement of parliamentary elections in Afghanistan. The Afghan press stresses two factors aboveall:Afghanpaper.com writing in Dari Persian says it was told by concerned Afghan officials who declined to allow their names to be used that the four-month delay was almost entirely a result of pressure from the Obama administration and its Western allies, and was aimed at allowing UN election workers to allow for anti-fraud and anti-corruption measures to be taken so as to forestall a fiasco like the August presidential election, where substantial numbers of ballots were disqualified.
In addition, the electoral commission says it only has $70 mn. in the kitty to hold the parliamentary elections, which will cost $120. President Hamid Karzai is asking the international community for the other $50 mn., so presumably he had the Independent Electoral Commission make this announcement now so that he can go hat in hand to international donors at the Istanbul and London conferences. So the postponement is being positioned by Karzai and his people as a fundraising stunt (the political scientists would speak of the extraction of strategic rent). But Afghanpaper.com suggests that the money shortfall is only a cover story, and if we took that position seriously it would indicate that the Obama team just does not want another election fiasco in Afghanistan in the build-up to the 2010 midterms.
These reports help to confirm the view taken in other articles and comments on this blog, and by Malalai Joya, namely, that the Karzai government is riddled with corrupt officials, many of them warlords and/or narco-trafficker in control of districts or villages outside of Taliban-dominated areas.
Bob
---------------------------
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Monday, January 25, 2010
Afghanistan postpones parliamentary elections
Afghanistan postpones parliamentary elections - latimes.comThe LAT lays out the basic facts around the postponement of parliamentary elections in Afghanistan. The Afghan press stresses two factors aboveall:Afghanpaper.com writing in Dari Persian says it was told by concerned Afghan officials who declined to allow their names to be used that the four-month delay was almost entirely a result of pressure from the Obama administration and its Western allies, and was aimed at allowing UN election workers to allow for anti-fraud and anti-corruption measures to be taken so as to forestall a fiasco like the August presidential election, where substantial numbers of ballots were disqualified.
In addition, the electoral commission says it only has $70 mn. in the kitty to hold the parliamentary elections, which will cost $120. President Hamid Karzai is asking the international community for the other $50 mn., so presumably he had the Independent Electoral Commission make this announcement now so that he can go hat in hand to international donors at the Istanbul and London conferences. So the postponement is being positioned by Karzai and his people as a fundraising stunt (the political scientists would speak of the extraction of strategic rent). But Afghanpaper.com suggests that the money shortfall is only a cover story, and if we took that position seriously it would indicate that the Obama team just does not want another election fiasco in Afghanistan in the build-up to the 2010 midterms.
Friday, January 22, 2010
General McChrystal wants to fund/arm tribal militias
The following article presents evidence revealing the make-it-up-as-you-go US military plan for Afghanistan. General McChrystal wants to fund and arm local tribal militias through his "Local Defense Initiative." There are at least three implications. One implication is that the US military in Afghanistan does not have the personnel (and perhaps know how) to win the support of local village leaders in many of the areas outside of the areas already controlled by the Taliban. The second implication is that Afghan leaders, who have a dominating influence in villages or districts and who have militias to enforce their will, are warlords. According to Milalai Joya, warlords are no better for the Afghan people than the Taliban. Their power is based on fear and coercion rather than on the interests of the local populations. The third implication is that the Afghan military and police force remain unable to protect the security of the people in many areas of the country.
Bob
Eikenberry Blocking Gen. McChrystal’s Afghan Militias Plan
Posted By Jason Ditz On January 21, 2010 @ 8:34 pm
US officials say that the inability of General Stanley McChrystal to move forward with his “Local Defense Initiative” (LDI) in Afghanistan is directly related to Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s opposition to the program.
The LDI, in short, is a plan for the US to fund and in some cases arm tribal militias in the hopes that those groups will be able to fight the nation’s ever growing insurgency. Gen. McChrystal has hoped the plan could make up for struggling NATO efforts to increase the size of the Afghan military and police forces.
But Eikenberry expressed concern that the program was unwise until they had managed to transform the Afghan central government into a credible ruling force, as increasing the power of locals could further threaten Karzai’s tenuous reign. He also reportedly said that shoddy intelligence could mean the US was funding groups whom it was fundamentally at odds with.
Making matters worse, officials have expressed concern that the LDI could further strengthen tribal warlords, who would presumably be leading most of these forces. Afghan society is rife with corruption, and warlords are seen as no small part of that phenomenon.
Though Gen. McChrystal is under pressure to produce quick results to sell the continuation of the war to the American public, the consensus, at least among civilian administrators, is that the LDI may create even more problems than it is supposed to solve.
Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com/
URL to article: http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/21/eikenberry-blocking-gen-mcchrystals-afghan-militias-plan/
Bob
Eikenberry Blocking Gen. McChrystal’s Afghan Militias Plan
Posted By Jason Ditz On January 21, 2010 @ 8:34 pm
US officials say that the inability of General Stanley McChrystal to move forward with his “Local Defense Initiative” (LDI) in Afghanistan is directly related to Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s opposition to the program.
The LDI, in short, is a plan for the US to fund and in some cases arm tribal militias in the hopes that those groups will be able to fight the nation’s ever growing insurgency. Gen. McChrystal has hoped the plan could make up for struggling NATO efforts to increase the size of the Afghan military and police forces.
But Eikenberry expressed concern that the program was unwise until they had managed to transform the Afghan central government into a credible ruling force, as increasing the power of locals could further threaten Karzai’s tenuous reign. He also reportedly said that shoddy intelligence could mean the US was funding groups whom it was fundamentally at odds with.
Making matters worse, officials have expressed concern that the LDI could further strengthen tribal warlords, who would presumably be leading most of these forces. Afghan society is rife with corruption, and warlords are seen as no small part of that phenomenon.
Though Gen. McChrystal is under pressure to produce quick results to sell the continuation of the war to the American public, the consensus, at least among civilian administrators, is that the LDI may create even more problems than it is supposed to solve.
Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com/
URL to article: http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/21/eikenberry-blocking-gen-mcchrystals-afghan-militias-plan/
Monday, January 18, 2010
Taliban attacks in Kabul
There are so many places that suicide bombers can strike in Afghanistan. Kabul is no exception, as the following report by Juan Cole indicates. While the US-led occupation (mostly US) gears up to intensify counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism efforts in Taliban-controlled parts of the country, especially in the southern and eastern regions, the Taliban bent on expanding their fundamentalist regime are still able to launch strikes even in the capitol city.
Counter-insurgency has as one of its elements the idea that the US-led occupation can win support of the Afghan people village-by-village with a combination of force, reconstruction projects, the pursuit of good relations with village elders, and cash. This is a daunting challenge, given there are 34,000 Afghan villages.
As reported in other articles on this blog, the occupation forces are light on knowledge of Afghan culture and social structures and limited in the time they are able to spend developing trustworthy relations. In the meantime, the occupation, directly or through armed drones, is still killing civilians and destroying the lands and homes of Afghans. And, very importantly, the legitimacy of the occupation is tainted by its close relations with warlords outside of Taliban-influenced or -dominated areas. These are warlords who are corrupt, connected to the drug trade, who control their own militias, and who have little interest in the well-being of their own people, especially girls and women. As Malalai Joya points out, the majority of Afghan people are caught up in a conflict in which there are no good choices, except the latent democratic spirit and resilience of many ordinary Afghans.
Out of the desperation of extreme poverty or fear, Afghans are frequently coming under the rule of the Taliban as they look for some semblance of order and wherewithal to surviv. In the meantime, the areas from which the Taliban can foster violence and its tyrannical governance is unabated and, according to reports on this blog, slowly grows. Suicide bombings are one reflection of grisly state of affairs.
Bob
------------------------------
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Monday, January 18, 2010
Kabul gets the Baghdad Treatment from Taliban Bombers
The Taliban mounted their boldest and most ambitious assault on the capital of Kabul in recent years on Monday, with a series of well-coordinated bombings in the vicinity of the presidential palace and a platoon-sized expeditionary force wreaking havoc. The Afghan Voice Agency reports in Dari Persian that numerous bombs were set off near the presidential palace, shaking Kabul. The first was detonated at 9:45 am local time at the five-star Hotel Kabul Serena, 500 meters (yards) from the presidential palace, where many diplomats and journalists stay. The Serena was still on fire Monday night. As ambulances raced to the site to pick up the wounded, the attackers set off a second bomb at the Malik Asghar intersection in the capital. This blast was close to the central government ministries of foreign affairs, the economy, education, and Kabul municipality.
This tweet from Kabul says that there were lots of bombs going off.
Other news sources speak of machine gun fire echoing through Kabul all day, as streets were deserted.At the same time the bombs were being set off, a platoon of armed insurgents holding a five-story downtown Kabul City Center shopping mall began firing at nearby government buildings and banks. KabuL City Center Mall, courtesy Afghanistan Online and Maria Amiri.
The gunmen then engaged with Afghan National Army troops. Afghan government and NATO helicopters arrived to give air support against the attackers. Eyewitnesses report that the attackers killed and wounded dozens of people.Then the shopping center caught or was set on fire, and the fire brigrades raced toward it and toward the Hotel Serena. A second shopping center, Gulbahar, was also bombed or set ablaze, according to AFP.
The News (Pakistan) reports that by mid-afternoon Afghanistan officials were saying that the situation was under control. At least ten persons were left dead, including four suicide bombers. AFP reported 13 injured. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that 20 guerrillas, some armed with suicide belts, had come into the city to target the presidential palace and government edifices.
The terrorist tactic here, of targeting nice hotels, shopping districts and government buildings, seems to me to be modeled on what Sunni extremists did twice in 2009 (August and November) to Baghdad, though this Kabul operation was not nearly as sophisticated or destructive. The choice to use a guerrilla platoon, some with vest bombs, limited its scope, as compared to what could have been achieved with car bombs (but perhaps NATO is better at searching trunks than are the Baghdad authorities.)
The attack seems likely to have aimed at making Karzai look weak and not in control on the eve of his attendance at the upcoming London international conference on Afghanistan. It may also have been a reply to Karzai's appointment of about half the ministers on the way to forming a new government.
Counter-insurgency has as one of its elements the idea that the US-led occupation can win support of the Afghan people village-by-village with a combination of force, reconstruction projects, the pursuit of good relations with village elders, and cash. This is a daunting challenge, given there are 34,000 Afghan villages.
As reported in other articles on this blog, the occupation forces are light on knowledge of Afghan culture and social structures and limited in the time they are able to spend developing trustworthy relations. In the meantime, the occupation, directly or through armed drones, is still killing civilians and destroying the lands and homes of Afghans. And, very importantly, the legitimacy of the occupation is tainted by its close relations with warlords outside of Taliban-influenced or -dominated areas. These are warlords who are corrupt, connected to the drug trade, who control their own militias, and who have little interest in the well-being of their own people, especially girls and women. As Malalai Joya points out, the majority of Afghan people are caught up in a conflict in which there are no good choices, except the latent democratic spirit and resilience of many ordinary Afghans.
Out of the desperation of extreme poverty or fear, Afghans are frequently coming under the rule of the Taliban as they look for some semblance of order and wherewithal to surviv. In the meantime, the areas from which the Taliban can foster violence and its tyrannical governance is unabated and, according to reports on this blog, slowly grows. Suicide bombings are one reflection of grisly state of affairs.
Bob
------------------------------
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Monday, January 18, 2010
Kabul gets the Baghdad Treatment from Taliban Bombers
The Taliban mounted their boldest and most ambitious assault on the capital of Kabul in recent years on Monday, with a series of well-coordinated bombings in the vicinity of the presidential palace and a platoon-sized expeditionary force wreaking havoc. The Afghan Voice Agency reports in Dari Persian that numerous bombs were set off near the presidential palace, shaking Kabul. The first was detonated at 9:45 am local time at the five-star Hotel Kabul Serena, 500 meters (yards) from the presidential palace, where many diplomats and journalists stay. The Serena was still on fire Monday night. As ambulances raced to the site to pick up the wounded, the attackers set off a second bomb at the Malik Asghar intersection in the capital. This blast was close to the central government ministries of foreign affairs, the economy, education, and Kabul municipality.
This tweet from Kabul says that there were lots of bombs going off.
Other news sources speak of machine gun fire echoing through Kabul all day, as streets were deserted.At the same time the bombs were being set off, a platoon of armed insurgents holding a five-story downtown Kabul City Center shopping mall began firing at nearby government buildings and banks. KabuL City Center Mall, courtesy Afghanistan Online and Maria Amiri.
The gunmen then engaged with Afghan National Army troops. Afghan government and NATO helicopters arrived to give air support against the attackers. Eyewitnesses report that the attackers killed and wounded dozens of people.Then the shopping center caught or was set on fire, and the fire brigrades raced toward it and toward the Hotel Serena. A second shopping center, Gulbahar, was also bombed or set ablaze, according to AFP.
The News (Pakistan) reports that by mid-afternoon Afghanistan officials were saying that the situation was under control. At least ten persons were left dead, including four suicide bombers. AFP reported 13 injured. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that 20 guerrillas, some armed with suicide belts, had come into the city to target the presidential palace and government edifices.
The terrorist tactic here, of targeting nice hotels, shopping districts and government buildings, seems to me to be modeled on what Sunni extremists did twice in 2009 (August and November) to Baghdad, though this Kabul operation was not nearly as sophisticated or destructive. The choice to use a guerrilla platoon, some with vest bombs, limited its scope, as compared to what could have been achieved with car bombs (but perhaps NATO is better at searching trunks than are the Baghdad authorities.)
The attack seems likely to have aimed at making Karzai look weak and not in control on the eve of his attendance at the upcoming London international conference on Afghanistan. It may also have been a reply to Karzai's appointment of about half the ministers on the way to forming a new government.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Corruption undermines US reconstruction in Afghanistan
Corruption, Lack of Oversight Plague US Reconstruction Efforts in Afghanistan
Posted By Jason Ditz On January 15, 2010 @ 7:34 pm In Uncategorized
In a report released today, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) hit out at the assorted reconstruction policies of the US, blaming poor communications and reporting for missed deadlines.
But the problems go deeper than that. as seen in its $732 million project to improve electricity supplies in the nation. Electrical capacity has more than doubled in the last eight years, according to auditors.
But that capacity will likely go to waste, as the Afghan government will be unable to afford fuel to operate its plants without foreign aid. Even then, the corrupt Afghan legal system requires 25 official signatures before a citizen can legally obtain electricity, meaning most Afghans either have to bribe their way to access or not bother.
SIGAR notes that Congress has allocated $39 billion for reconstruction since 2001, but it has only actually been overseeing those operations since 2008. Officials say they have absolutely no way of telling how much of this money has been lost to inefficiency and corruption.
Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/15/corruption-lack-of-oversight-stall-us-reconstruction-efforts-in-afghanistan/
Posted By Jason Ditz On January 15, 2010 @ 7:34 pm In Uncategorized
In a report released today, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) hit out at the assorted reconstruction policies of the US, blaming poor communications and reporting for missed deadlines.
But the problems go deeper than that. as seen in its $732 million project to improve electricity supplies in the nation. Electrical capacity has more than doubled in the last eight years, according to auditors.
But that capacity will likely go to waste, as the Afghan government will be unable to afford fuel to operate its plants without foreign aid. Even then, the corrupt Afghan legal system requires 25 official signatures before a citizen can legally obtain electricity, meaning most Afghans either have to bribe their way to access or not bother.
SIGAR notes that Congress has allocated $39 billion for reconstruction since 2001, but it has only actually been overseeing those operations since 2008. Officials say they have absolutely no way of telling how much of this money has been lost to inefficiency and corruption.
Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/15/corruption-lack-of-oversight-stall-us-reconstruction-efforts-in-afghanistan/
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Poll of Afghan political attitudes
Juan Cole reviews some of the principal findings of a poll of Afghan attitudes by the Asia Foundation (http://asiafoundation.org/). On this blog, we have been influenced by the writing of Malalai Joya, her book, A Woman Among Warlords, and the presentations she has given in various parts of the US and Canada on a recent tour promoting her ideas. Joya makes the point that many Afghan people hold democratic values, perhaps often repressed but nonetheless present. She contends, given propitious conditions, democratic values will surface at the grassroots, in village after village, and serve to transform the country. The poll by the Asia Foundation provides some empirical support for her optimism about the potential for democracy in Afghanistan.
Bob
-----------------------------------
Juan Cole, Informed Comment, January 5, 2009
A survey of the Afghan People by the Asia Foundation
Afghans supported Personal Freedoms, Women's Education in Asia Society Poll
Surprises in the Asia Society poll done in June, 2009, of attitudes of Afghans.
It was a big poll, with some 6400 respondents from all over the country. It reveals a society increasingly connected by new communications technology, where devotion to democratic values is deepening and commitment to women's rights is rapidly growing. The stereotype of Afghan traditionalism and rigidity, and the stagnation of a traditional society, is powerfully challenged here. So too is the idea that Talibanism is coming back as an appealing ideology.
Here are some things I didn't expect:
Afghans were more optimistic than before about the direction of their country.
They also had, in June, a touching confidence that the August presidential election would be carried out in a fair way.
Afghans said in unprecedentedly high numbers that that freedom (54%) and peace (41%) were among the greatest benefits they expected from democracy. They are more realistic, though, that it won't end corruption and may not lead to prosperity. But it seems that a sense of personal liberty is growing in most of the country, to which people are becoming attached. They also seem to have reached a conclusion that democracy leads to social peace because conflicts are reworked into politics.
On the other hand, they are not sure they have liberty. Some 40% said that people are now free to express their opinions publicly, while 39% disagreed, complaining that speech is restricted. Fewer (29%) cited security concerns as a limit on free speech than ever before (in 2007 it was 40%). One in five specifically name the Taliban as part of that threat to freedom of expression.
Some 61% said it is unacceptable to speak ill of the government, a pretty authoritarian, pro-Karzai stance. But that was down from 69% in 2007.Some 78% say democracy is the best form of government in 2009 (down slightly from 2008, but still the overwhelming majority). Last summer, 69% said that they were satisfied with how it is working in Afghanistan, unchanged from the previous year.
Half of Afghans believe that illiteracy is the major problem bedeviling Afghan women. There is also growing support for their right to work outside the house. The report says: "over the same period there has been a consistent rise in the proportion of respondents who identify the lack of employment opportunities for women as a significant issue, from two percent in 2006 to 19 percent in 2007, 24 percent in 2008 and 28 percent in 2009."A quarter of Afghans now think there are too few jobs outside the home for women up from 2% three years ago! Some 67 percent think women should be allowed to work. (This employment for women outside her own house had been forbidden by the Taliban, even though the country is awash in widows)
Afghans, aside from a small Taliban fringe, strongly support education for women and equal rights for them under the law. Some 87% support equal opportunity for education for both sexes, and 83% favor women continuing to have the right to vote.
On the other hand, Afghans' enthusiasm for women serving at all levels of political life has declined. Most get their news from transistor radio, although radio ownership is declining.
A majority of Afghans (52%) now use cell phones--a big increase over previous years. The ubiquity of cell phones would have implications for political mobilization, since people can now network more easily. We've seen it in neghboring Pakistan.It is clear from these responses that the hard line ideology of the Taliban is rejected by the vast majority of Afghans, for whom it has no appeal. Indeed, openness to new thinking-- the importance of personal liberty, freedom of speech, employment opportunities and education for women-- has been rapidly increasing.
One rather fears that Karzai's alleged stealing of the presidential election may have weakened faith in democracy. We'll know more the next time such a survey is done. One thing is clear: ideas and values are in enormous flux, and the idea of a return of the Taliban to power in a country that thinks like this is highly unlikely.
Bob
-----------------------------------
Juan Cole, Informed Comment, January 5, 2009
A survey of the Afghan People by the Asia Foundation
Afghans supported Personal Freedoms, Women's Education in Asia Society Poll
Surprises in the Asia Society poll done in June, 2009, of attitudes of Afghans.
It was a big poll, with some 6400 respondents from all over the country. It reveals a society increasingly connected by new communications technology, where devotion to democratic values is deepening and commitment to women's rights is rapidly growing. The stereotype of Afghan traditionalism and rigidity, and the stagnation of a traditional society, is powerfully challenged here. So too is the idea that Talibanism is coming back as an appealing ideology.
Here are some things I didn't expect:
Afghans were more optimistic than before about the direction of their country.
They also had, in June, a touching confidence that the August presidential election would be carried out in a fair way.
Afghans said in unprecedentedly high numbers that that freedom (54%) and peace (41%) were among the greatest benefits they expected from democracy. They are more realistic, though, that it won't end corruption and may not lead to prosperity. But it seems that a sense of personal liberty is growing in most of the country, to which people are becoming attached. They also seem to have reached a conclusion that democracy leads to social peace because conflicts are reworked into politics.
On the other hand, they are not sure they have liberty. Some 40% said that people are now free to express their opinions publicly, while 39% disagreed, complaining that speech is restricted. Fewer (29%) cited security concerns as a limit on free speech than ever before (in 2007 it was 40%). One in five specifically name the Taliban as part of that threat to freedom of expression.
Some 61% said it is unacceptable to speak ill of the government, a pretty authoritarian, pro-Karzai stance. But that was down from 69% in 2007.Some 78% say democracy is the best form of government in 2009 (down slightly from 2008, but still the overwhelming majority). Last summer, 69% said that they were satisfied with how it is working in Afghanistan, unchanged from the previous year.
Half of Afghans believe that illiteracy is the major problem bedeviling Afghan women. There is also growing support for their right to work outside the house. The report says: "over the same period there has been a consistent rise in the proportion of respondents who identify the lack of employment opportunities for women as a significant issue, from two percent in 2006 to 19 percent in 2007, 24 percent in 2008 and 28 percent in 2009."A quarter of Afghans now think there are too few jobs outside the home for women up from 2% three years ago! Some 67 percent think women should be allowed to work. (This employment for women outside her own house had been forbidden by the Taliban, even though the country is awash in widows)
Afghans, aside from a small Taliban fringe, strongly support education for women and equal rights for them under the law. Some 87% support equal opportunity for education for both sexes, and 83% favor women continuing to have the right to vote.
On the other hand, Afghans' enthusiasm for women serving at all levels of political life has declined. Most get their news from transistor radio, although radio ownership is declining.
A majority of Afghans (52%) now use cell phones--a big increase over previous years. The ubiquity of cell phones would have implications for political mobilization, since people can now network more easily. We've seen it in neghboring Pakistan.It is clear from these responses that the hard line ideology of the Taliban is rejected by the vast majority of Afghans, for whom it has no appeal. Indeed, openness to new thinking-- the importance of personal liberty, freedom of speech, employment opportunities and education for women-- has been rapidly increasing.
One rather fears that Karzai's alleged stealing of the presidential election may have weakened faith in democracy. We'll know more the next time such a survey is done. One thing is clear: ideas and values are in enormous flux, and the idea of a return of the Taliban to power in a country that thinks like this is highly unlikely.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Many Afghan people prefer Taliban justice to government corruption and inaction
A central pillar of the US military's counterinsurgent strategy is to go to the villages and win the support of Afghans, village by village, by building schools, infrastructure, and other civilian projects. There are innumerable obstacles: language barriers, the distrust of foreign occupiers, the lack of expert intermediaries from the village or region, the cost in time and resources, and so on. There is also the fact that 80% of what the US spends for Afghanistan goes to the military rather than to reconstruction. In the context of these difficulties, the Taliban are meeting the needs of many Afghan villages by giving them a kind of local justice and helping them to avoid corrupt government officials and other exploiters of their situations.
Bob
------------------------------
From The Times [in the UK]
December 30, 2009
Afghans turn to Taleban justice as insurgents set up shadow government
Jerome Starkey in Kabul
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6970962.ece
When Habiba’s elderly husband was badly beaten in a village brawl there was only one place, she said, that she could turn to for help and justice.
Barefoot and weeping, the farmer’s wife, 50, trekked for four hours through Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains to meet the local Taleban commander.
“My feet were bleeding and I cried the whole way but I didn’t care about my safety,” she said. “We are poor people. We know the Government doesn’t help people like us.”
Corruption and incompetence in President Karzai’s Government — particularly at local level — have forced a growing number of people to seek the services of the Taleban.
The shadow government is not limited to justice. In Helmand, in August, Taleban commanders issued printed travel permits on headed notepaper from the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” to let people through checkpoints on the roads in and out of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.
A senior Nato intelligence official admitted this week that the Taleban “has a government-in-waiting, with ministers chosen,” ready to take over the moment the current administration failed. He warned, in a bleak assessment of the insurgents’ strength: “Time is running out. Taleban influence is expanding.”
The Taleban, which Nato says run shadow governments in 33 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, are only too willing to help settle local disputes. Their strict, if brutal, interpretation of Islamic law is often preferable to the lengthy and costly Government alternative.
“My husband had a broken leg so he sent me to find Mullah Zafar,” Habiba said. “We don’t know anyone in the Government and we know they won’t solve our problems.”
Mullah Zafar Akhund is the Taleban’s shadow governor in Jaghatu district, Wardak province, a short drive south of Kabul.
Habiba’s husband, Abdullah, who is 20 years her senior, fought with a neighbour called Qasim over water rights. Village customs prescribe which fields should be watered at which times. Habiba said that Qasim was stealing the water when it was not his time and turned violent when her husband challenged him.
“I waited two hours to see Mullah Zafar,” she said. “He listened to my story and sent three of his soldiers to come back to my village. They spoke to the village elders who told them the same thing. The soldiers beat Qasim and ordered him to give us his water for seven nights.”
Habiba, an ethnic Hazara, is not a natural ally of the Taleban. Most of them are Pashtuns, and thousands of Hazaras were massacred under the Taleban regime. The insurgents have exploited local disputes that the Government cannot solve to gain footholds in new areas, irrespective of the ethnic divides. For many years, locals said, Mullah Zafar provided an alternative to
Government institutions.
Six months ago he felt sufficiently entrenched in Jaghatu to issue a decree that anyone found using Government services would face summary execution.
“Not everybody likes them but they were good to me,” said Reza Yousef, one of Habiba’s neighbours with a similar experience of Taleban justice. He spent four years petitioning government officials for help with a land dispute. “They didn’t care,” he said. “It took Mullah Zafar four days.
“Ten years ago we had a problem with our land,” he said. “One of our neighbours was powerful because he had connections [to a warlord] and he took some of our land.
“When [Hamid Karzai’s] Government came I complained many, many times but they didn’t hear me.”
Mr Yousef said that he could not afford the mandatory bribe to push his complaint through the system. He took his case to the village elders, or shura, and they ruled in his favour three times.
His neighbour, Younus, ignored their decisions, confident that he was protected through his links to Karim Khalili, the Hazara warlord recently appointed as one of Mr Karzai’s vice-presidents.
“It was around three years ago I went to Mullah Zafar and showed him the papers which prove the land is mine,” Mr Yousef said. “He sent four of his soldiers to my village to see for themselves and the next day he came to the village himself and held a shura with all the elders.”
The meeting, overlooked by insurgents armed with Kalashnikovs and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, was, in effect, a Taleban court.
“Younus was hiding in the place where they keep cows but they found him and they beat him badly. His face was bleeding,” Mr Yousef said.
Younus was exiled for two months and ordered to hand back the land. “If you complain to the Government it takes years; they ask you for bribes and you have to go to their offices every day,” Mr Yousef said. “That’s why people choose the Taleban.”
Bob
------------------------------
From The Times [in the UK]
December 30, 2009
Afghans turn to Taleban justice as insurgents set up shadow government
Jerome Starkey in Kabul
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6970962.ece
When Habiba’s elderly husband was badly beaten in a village brawl there was only one place, she said, that she could turn to for help and justice.
Barefoot and weeping, the farmer’s wife, 50, trekked for four hours through Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains to meet the local Taleban commander.
“My feet were bleeding and I cried the whole way but I didn’t care about my safety,” she said. “We are poor people. We know the Government doesn’t help people like us.”
Corruption and incompetence in President Karzai’s Government — particularly at local level — have forced a growing number of people to seek the services of the Taleban.
The shadow government is not limited to justice. In Helmand, in August, Taleban commanders issued printed travel permits on headed notepaper from the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” to let people through checkpoints on the roads in and out of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.
A senior Nato intelligence official admitted this week that the Taleban “has a government-in-waiting, with ministers chosen,” ready to take over the moment the current administration failed. He warned, in a bleak assessment of the insurgents’ strength: “Time is running out. Taleban influence is expanding.”
The Taleban, which Nato says run shadow governments in 33 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, are only too willing to help settle local disputes. Their strict, if brutal, interpretation of Islamic law is often preferable to the lengthy and costly Government alternative.
“My husband had a broken leg so he sent me to find Mullah Zafar,” Habiba said. “We don’t know anyone in the Government and we know they won’t solve our problems.”
Mullah Zafar Akhund is the Taleban’s shadow governor in Jaghatu district, Wardak province, a short drive south of Kabul.
Habiba’s husband, Abdullah, who is 20 years her senior, fought with a neighbour called Qasim over water rights. Village customs prescribe which fields should be watered at which times. Habiba said that Qasim was stealing the water when it was not his time and turned violent when her husband challenged him.
“I waited two hours to see Mullah Zafar,” she said. “He listened to my story and sent three of his soldiers to come back to my village. They spoke to the village elders who told them the same thing. The soldiers beat Qasim and ordered him to give us his water for seven nights.”
Habiba, an ethnic Hazara, is not a natural ally of the Taleban. Most of them are Pashtuns, and thousands of Hazaras were massacred under the Taleban regime. The insurgents have exploited local disputes that the Government cannot solve to gain footholds in new areas, irrespective of the ethnic divides. For many years, locals said, Mullah Zafar provided an alternative to
Government institutions.
Six months ago he felt sufficiently entrenched in Jaghatu to issue a decree that anyone found using Government services would face summary execution.
“Not everybody likes them but they were good to me,” said Reza Yousef, one of Habiba’s neighbours with a similar experience of Taleban justice. He spent four years petitioning government officials for help with a land dispute. “They didn’t care,” he said. “It took Mullah Zafar four days.
“Ten years ago we had a problem with our land,” he said. “One of our neighbours was powerful because he had connections [to a warlord] and he took some of our land.
“When [Hamid Karzai’s] Government came I complained many, many times but they didn’t hear me.”
Mr Yousef said that he could not afford the mandatory bribe to push his complaint through the system. He took his case to the village elders, or shura, and they ruled in his favour three times.
His neighbour, Younus, ignored their decisions, confident that he was protected through his links to Karim Khalili, the Hazara warlord recently appointed as one of Mr Karzai’s vice-presidents.
“It was around three years ago I went to Mullah Zafar and showed him the papers which prove the land is mine,” Mr Yousef said. “He sent four of his soldiers to my village to see for themselves and the next day he came to the village himself and held a shura with all the elders.”
The meeting, overlooked by insurgents armed with Kalashnikovs and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, was, in effect, a Taleban court.
“Younus was hiding in the place where they keep cows but they found him and they beat him badly. His face was bleeding,” Mr Yousef said.
Younus was exiled for two months and ordered to hand back the land. “If you complain to the Government it takes years; they ask you for bribes and you have to go to their offices every day,” Mr Yousef said. “That’s why people choose the Taleban.”
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