Fahim, Karzai and Khalili: The Unholy Trinity of Afghan Corruption

You know what’s funny? Hamid Karzai, Electioneer-in-Chief, stood between these two guys, Mohammed Qasim Fahim and Karim Khalili to declare [h/t and photo credit, Wired's Danger Room blog]:

Those who spread corruption should be tried and prosecuted. Corruption is a very dangerous enemy of the state. …Afghan ministers should be professional and servants of the people. The government officials should register their earnings.

Just for the record, Hamid Karzai had roughly a million fraudulent votes thrown out in the election. You can learn all about Fahim and Khalili in a Human Rights Watch report titled (and I’m not even kidding) Blood-Stained Hands which details the war crimes for which they and their subordinates were responsible. So by all means, gentlemen, explain to us how you’re going to lead Afghanistan into a new era of peace, prosperity and transparency.

As Matthew Hoh noted in his resignation letter, the corruption at the very top in the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is only the most visible symptom of the rot that’s set in within the Afghan state from top to bottom, which includes:

Glaring corruption and unabashed graft;

A President whose confidants and chief advisors comprise drug lords and war crimes villians, who mock our own rule of law and counternarcotics efforts;

A system of provincial and district leaders constituted of local power brokers, opportunists and strongmen allied to the United States solely for, and limited by, the value of our USAID and CERP contracts and whose own political and economic interests stand nothing to gain from any positive or genuine attempts at reconciliation; and

The recent election process dominated by fraud and discredited by low voter turnout, which has created an enormous victory for our enemy who now claims a popular boycott and will call into question worldwide our government’s military, economic and diplomatic support for an invalid and illegitimate Afghan government.

The Afghan government is not worth one more American life or dollar. This cartel is a very large part of the problem, not the solution, in Afghanistan. We should be reducing, not increasing, or military commitment in that country, post haste.

Tomorrow I’ll be interview Matthew Hoh on the situation in Afghanistan. Until then, here’s another clip of his conversation with Daniel Ellsberg about the need for us to start the drawdown.

As I point out in my latest post, “It’s common knowledge that a president — but above all a Democratic president — who tried to de-escalate a war like the one now expanding in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, and withdraw American troops, would be so much domestic political dead meat. This everyday bit of engrained Washington wisdom is, in fact, based on not a shred of evidence in the historical record.”

As a start, I explore just why that Washington “wisdom” does not hold water and then, knowing that in the coming weeks President Obama will indeed tell us his Afghan War decision, I write his Oval Office prime-time speech for him — “A New Way Forward: The President’s Address to the American People on Afghan Strategy” in which he chooses the “minus option” and begins winding down the Afghan War.

This is, of course, my fantasy, but thanks to weeks of leaks from the President’s endless “comprehensive review of war strategy,” we — the rest of us — have had all the disadvantages of essentially being in on the president’s councils, and none of the advantages of offering our own advice. Personally, I don’t see why we shouldn’t weigh in. I prefer not to leave the process to his speechwriters and advisors.

Here’s just a taste of “his” speech, written in something like Obama’s voice (I hope), a passage, just after he’s present seven aspects of the Afghan disaster that all of his advisors agree upon:

“These seven points have been weighing on my mind over the last weeks as we’ve deliberated on the right course to take. Tonight, in response to the realities of Afghanistan as I’ve just described them to you, I’ve put aside all the subjects that ordinarily obsess Washington, especially whether an American president can reverse the direction of a war and still have an electoral future. That’s for the American people, and them alone, to decide.

“Given that, let me say as bluntly as I can that I have decided to send no more troops to Afghanistan. Beyond that, I believe it is in the national interest of the American people that this war, like the Iraq War, be drawn down. Over time, our troops and resources will be brought home in an orderly fashion, while we ensure that we provide adequate security for the men and women of our Armed Forces. Ours will be an administration that will stand or fall, as of today, on this essential position: that we ended, rather than extended, two wars.”

I hope you find this piece provocative and, in its own way, enjoyable.

James Vega–writing for The Democratic Strategist, co-edited by William Galston, Stan Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira–just published a 2,600+ word memo arguing that “Obama’s final decision” to “approve a significant increase in the number of troops” would not be a “betrayal” of the Democratic base.

You know, that Democratic base that overwhelmingly opposes sending more troops. What utter garbage.

Democrats — Don’t be misled. The media is going to call Obama’s new Afghan strategy a “betrayal” of the Democratic base — but it’s not. It’s actually a decisive rejection of the Republican/Neo-Conservative strategy of the “Long War”

…Based on current reports, Obama’s final decision will approve a significant increase in the number of troops – the exact number depending on the number of major cities to be covered and the degree of protection to be provided for the major road highways. For the many critics who believe that sending large numbers of additional U.S. troops may actually be counterproductive, this is a clear disappointment. But it is also already clear that Obama’s strategy will do several other important things.

• It will establish specific criteria for success and failure.
• It will define the mission in a concrete and specific way that can be openly debated and revised.
• It will include an explicit “exit strategy” rather than an open-ended commitment.

Obama’s specific plan for Afghanistan may turn out to be right or wrong – there are entirely reasonable and cogent arguments that a smaller military “footprint” could actually enhance our ability to achieve our ultimate objectives more than a larger one. But, in any case, the method Obama has used to reach his decision is one that has profoundly undermined the basic foundations of the strategy neoconservatives have been following to embroil America in a perpetual “Long War” – an endless series of open-ended, military campaigns that drag on for decades, constantly requiring more and more troops to achieve hopelessly vague and unquantifiable objectives of fundamental social and cultural transformation across the Muslim world.

Again, total garbage. Decision-making processes are important, true. Asserting civilian control over the military is fundamental to the health of our democratic republic, true. But these issues are totally separate from the question of whether or not sending more troops is a betrayal of the president’s base.

Look, “strategists,” this is very simple. Decisive majorities of Democrats oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan: 60 percent want to actually start withdrawing troops, versus only 26 percent who favor adding any number of troops.

Memo to the memo-writers: you might want to refer to well-documented Democratic public opinion since your About Us section says you:

“seek to publish substantial articles that draw strategic conclusions from the latest public opinion and demographic research conducted by the academic community and commercial public opinion polling firms as well as from the leading think-tanks and policy institutes across America.”

If President Obama sends more troops, he “betrays” his base. The end. This is not complicated.

Writing 2,600+ words to take the long way around doesn’t change a “no” to a “yes.” The very least you could do to sell this attempted Jedi mind trick would have been to fabricate a poll. At least then you wouldn’t be patronizing the majority of Democrats whose names you use to get your analysis in the door in order to stab us in the back.

I’m convinced that when we look back on the key events on the road out of Afghanistan, we’ll mark Matthew Hoh’s resignation as one of the milestones. Hoh’s resignation letter is a devastating four-page indictment of the misguided U.S. policy in that country, and his experience in Anbar, Iraq gave his views heft in the debate about whether an Iraq-style “surge” provided a template for “success” in Afghanistan. Do yourself a favor: if you haven’t yet read the letter, do so.

Matthew Hoh recently sat down with Daniel Ellsberg for a Brave New Conversation, the trailer for which you can see above. I’ll interview Hoh later this week to get his thoughts on the way forward in Afghanistan and the reaction to his resignation. For now, though, enjoy the conversation.

Note: Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal.

“The showing of Rethink Afghanistan, November 11, 2009, Jefferson City, MO created a sense of unity and oneness within the group of eighteen participants. After our speaker, Mark Haim, director of Mid-MO Peace Works, provided additional ideas about this problematic situation, the questions and discussion became “lively” and invigorating creating a stage for activism. The petitions to “end the war” were eagerly signed and many decided to call the White House the next day and speak for “ending the war not escalating the troop level.” One person decided to continue showing the DVD to others. This was a “rethinking process” that will continue to be on-going. We want to thank Robert Greenwald, the participants, the film and the entire staff at Brave New Foundation.”

Thanks for your tireless efforts and kind words, Betty! Keep up the great work!

If you want to host a screening for your community, feel free to write me or visit our screenings page for more information!

The Progressive Caucus just sent a letter to President Obama asking for a meeting to discuss “a comprehensive rethinking of our military mission, a complete redesign of our reconstruction and stabilization strategy and a courageous reconciliation strategy for Afghanistan.”

Signed by Congresswomen Lee and Woosley and Congressmen Grijalva, Honda and McGovern, the letter lists several concerns about the ongoing mission in Afghanistan, including:

• the prospect of additional troop commitments without a clear mission and without criteria with which to evaluate success;
• the failure of foreign aid to rebuild Afghan “institutions, infrastructure, and individual capacity”;
• the lack of legitimacy of the Afghan government, demonstrated and worsened by the stolen election, corruption in aid distribution and “foreign intelligence and security alliances.”

The letter comes as the president prepares to announce his decision regarding the future of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. This is the latest of several high-profile attempts by current and former U.S. officials to push back against calls for another troop increase in Afghanistan:

• Matthew Hoh recently resigned his post as the top civilian official in Afghanistan’s Zabul province in a letter widely circulated by Ambassador Holbrooke;
• U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, recently sent a now-public set of cables to Washington, D.C., cautioning the president against sending more troops to support the corrupt Karzai regime;
• Congressmen Obey and Murtha recently expressed their discomfort about troop increases to the press;
• Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi repeatedly expressed her discomfort with sending more troops to Afghanistan.

There’s political space for the president to refuse to increase troops, and growing public support for bringing them home. If the president put his considerable public charisma behind a policy of de-escalation, he could relieve his presidency of a burden that threatens to sink it.

There is much discussion in the media today about “corruption” in Hamid Karzai’s Afghanistan, but remarkably little actual reporting about it. Just back from Kabul, TomDispatch regular Pratap Chatterjee, author of Halliburton’s Army, helps to rectify that deficit. He offers a rare, news-making, eye-opening inside look at how that country’s system of nepotism and corruption — involving its old “warlords” from the days of the post-Soviet civil war and its new corporate “reconstruction” raiders — actually works. His piece is an anatomy of the way the brother of the country’s new vice president (and long-time warlord), Mohammed Fahim, is raking in tens of millions of dollars in diesel fuel contracts for an American-built power plant — even though far cheaper methods of bringing electricity to the Afghan capital now exist.

“Every morning,” Chatterjee begins, “dozens of trucks laden with diesel from Turkmenistan lumber out of the northern Afghan border town of Hairaton on a two-day trek across the Hindu Kush down to Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. Among the dozens of businesses dispatching these trucks are two extremely well connected companies — Ghazanfar and Zahid Walid — that helped to swell the election coffers of President Hamid Karzai as well as the family business of his running mate, the country’s new vice president, warlord Mohammed Qasim Fahim.”

He then follows the history of corruption and the path of the money — both Afghan and American — as he traces the business dealings of the Afghan elite, including figures connected to Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and well-connected western “reconstruction” companies.

He concludes: “This week, Mohammed Qasim Fahim will be sworn in as the next vice-president of the new government of Afghanistan. Under an agreement with USAID, this new government is required to spend Afghan money to buy yet more diesel for the [U.S.-built] Tarakhil power plant, which in turn will put money exclusively and directly into the vice president’s brother’s pocket.”

This is a devastating look at how Afghaniscam actually works.

Question: Will troop escalation make the Karzai government more dependent on the U.S.?

Question: Can the U.S. train an Afghan National Army that can stand on it’s own?

Question: What is the impact of the war on Afghanistan on the greater region?

If you only read the first paragraph of this Jim Michaels’ USA TODAY story, you might walk away with a nice feeling about civic life in Afghanistan:

KABUL — U.S. and Afghan officials have agreed on a new nationwide strategy that will funnel millions of dollars in foreign aid to villages that organize “neighborhood watch”-like programs to help with security.

This past week’s news included the story of Specialist Alexis Hutchinson’s 11-month-old boy taken by the Army and given to Child Protective Services so she could be sent to Afghanistan.

On November 3rd, we heard about an Afghan named Guldubbin who killed five British soldiers. Guldubbin was claimed by the Taliban as one of their own, but as Christina Lamb explained in her Times UK piece [h/t Patrick Cockburn]:

Senior sources say local intelligence shows the [Taliban] claim is false, however. In addition, witnesses contacted by The Sunday Times say other factors lay behind the massacre.

According to two Afghans who knew him, Gulbuddin had complained of being brutally beaten, sodomised and sexually abused by a senior Afghan officer. A policeman named Ajmal, a friend of the gunman, said Gulbuddin had been constantly tortured. “He was being used for sexual purposes,” said Ajmal.

…

When Gulbuddin opened fire with a machine gun, his target was his alleged abuser. According to the Afghan sources, the five British soldiers were killed simply because they were present and considered to be the man’s protectors.

…

In sexually repressed Pashtun society, it is common for those in dominant positions to take young men as sexual partners — known as bacha bazi — even though the penalty for anyone caught engaging in a homosexual act is brutal.

Patrick Cockburn explains that many “Afghan villagers prefer to deal with the Taliban rather than the government security forces is that the latter have a habit of seizing their sons at checkpoints and sodomizing them.” What’s worse, coalition officials have been covering it up:

Western military officials eager to show success in training the Afghan army and police have reportedly suppressed for years accounts from Canadian troops that the newly trained security forces are raping young boys.

Specialist Hutchison’s child was placed with CPS, then, so she could go help shore up a regime heavily populated with predators that would love to get their hands on her little boy.

Supposedly, we’re in Afghanistan to protect women. What garbage. We’re not even in Afghanistan to protect little boys, much less the hapless women of that country. In fact, we’re there to protect the political power of what women’s rights groups call “The Rule of the Rapists.” And these are equal opportunity rapists, let me tell you: men, women, little girls and boys. With the budget of the government of Afghanistan totaling a pittance, and with 75 percent of that pittance being devoured by graft, these predators will stride around, leering at their next victims wearing clean, pressed new uniforms and shiny new sidearms paid for by the taxpayers of the United States.

In our fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida, our desired ends are justifying the most repulsive of means. We’re in bed with the rapists.

I have a question for the people of faith making policy for the U.S. government: If you died tomorrow, do you imagine that any of your complicated rationalizations for sending guns and young people and money to this horror show will suffice to explain yourself to your God?