Karzai Flushing Legitimacy Down the Heroin Drain

by anderson

Nathaniel Fick and Vikram Singh offer a clear-headed, though resolutely grim assessment of the worsening situation in Afghanistan: the country is on the verge of being lost -- as far as western interests are concerned. The population has almost no faith in their government, and antipathy to the NATO/US occupation is on the rise, both for the occupation's support of a plainly corrupt Karzai government and an abysmal record of imprudent air strikes and resultant civilian deaths. But it is government corruption that they assess is the greatest extant threat for its effect in bolstering support for the Taliban.

Every aspect of sound counterinsurgency strategy revolves around bolstering the government’s legitimacy. When ordinary people lose their faith in their government, then they also lose faith in the foreigners who prop it up. The day that happens across Afghanistan is the day we lose the war.

They offer a three part solution, the most important being routing US-backed government rife with corruption.

First, the Afghan government must confront corruption in its own ranks. Tribal elders in Ghazni told us that they are “slapped on one cheek by the Taliban, and on the other cheek by the government.” They talked of extortion by the police, dysfunctional courts and rampant bribery in government offices. The average Afghan spends one-fifth of his income on bribes. It’s no surprise so many actively or passively support the Taliban.

To fight corruption, President Hamid Karzai should immediately do three things: fire those seen as the most corrupt cabinet ministers, provincial governors and district governors; arrest and prosecute the most notorious warlords from the civil war in the 1990s, who committed unspeakable atrocities but are living openly in Kabul or the provinces; and break the relationship between the government and the country’s largest industry, the poppy trade.

Note that last one.

The firing of corrupt ministers and provincial governors speaks quietly and in general terms, which makes it sound infinitely easier than it would likely be in practice. Because any such program is going to have to immediately address one inconvenient reality for Hamid Karzai: he is his own source of Afghan discontent, as he is suspected of (at least) protecting his own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, governor of the Kandahar Provincial Council, who is under high suspicion of being involved in the Afghan heroin trade.

In at least two episodes, confiscated shipments of narcotics have been linked to Ahmed Karzai and American officials are displeased that there is such a close connection to US-backed president.

The White House says it believes that Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in drug trafficking, and American officials have repeatedly warned President Karzai that his brother is a political liability….

Numerous reports link Ahmed Wali Karzai to the drug trade, according to current and former officials from the White House, the State Department and the United States Embassy in Afghanistan, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. In meetings with President Karzai, including a 2006 session with the United States ambassador, the Central Intelligence Agency’s station chief and their British counterparts, American officials have talked about the allegations in hopes that the president might move his brother out of the country, …

“We thought the concern expressed to Karzai might be enough to get him out of there,” one official said. But President Karzai has resisted, demanding clear-cut evidence of wrongdoing, several officials said. “We don’t have the kind of hard, direct evidence that you could take to get a criminal indictment,” a White House official said. “That allows Karzai to say, ‘where’s your proof?’ ”

If this is indeed Karzai's position toward his ill-begotten sibling, it appears that Karzai will hold his tribe close and risk the future of his government for the sake of his brother's heroin trade. It seems someone ought to impress upon Karzai that his days in Kabul are numbered if he hold this course. Because either the Americans will take him out or the Afghans will. The Americans may hesitate at this, but rest assured, Afghans will not.