Monday, January 5, 2009
Going to Algeria
I'm leaving tomorrow for Algeria and Morocco, where I expect to be working for the next few weeks. I'm not sure whether I'll be able to post things there, which could interfere with my plans to "launch" this thing on Inauguration Day. Stay tuned...
Friday, January 2, 2009
NYT calls out the Karzai family
The NYT's Dexter Filkins has said, more clearly than I have seen before, what Afghans have long understood and the international community has gradually come to appreciate: the Afghan government is deeply corrupt and the Karzai family is in on the game:
"Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.
A raft of investigations has concluded that people at the highest levels of the Karzai administration, including President Karzai’s own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, are cooperating in the country’s opium trade, now the world’s largest. In the streets and government offices, hardly a public transaction seems to unfold here that does not carry with it the requirement of a bribe, a gift, or, in case you are a beggar, “harchee” — whatever you have in your pocket."
Most surprising to me was the article's suggestion that Dr. Abdul Jabbar Sabit, until recently the Attorney General, was himself a part of the corruption he gained considerable fame for combating; I met Dr. Sabit in Kabul and heard a great deal from others about his honesty. In any case, the dysfunctionality of the Karzai government will pose a major challenge to the incoming administration; until aid money starts making it past bureaucrats' pockets, it will not start to rebuild the country.
"Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.
A raft of investigations has concluded that people at the highest levels of the Karzai administration, including President Karzai’s own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, are cooperating in the country’s opium trade, now the world’s largest. In the streets and government offices, hardly a public transaction seems to unfold here that does not carry with it the requirement of a bribe, a gift, or, in case you are a beggar, “harchee” — whatever you have in your pocket."
Most surprising to me was the article's suggestion that Dr. Abdul Jabbar Sabit, until recently the Attorney General, was himself a part of the corruption he gained considerable fame for combating; I met Dr. Sabit in Kabul and heard a great deal from others about his honesty. In any case, the dysfunctionality of the Karzai government will pose a major challenge to the incoming administration; until aid money starts making it past bureaucrats' pockets, it will not start to rebuild the country.
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