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“Narcotecture,” that’s what people call the mansions in Kabul that are home to drug lords, corrupt politicians, and private contractors. These lavish homes are due to bribery, private military contracts, and Afghanistan’s flourishing opium trade, the last of which the UN estimates contributed $500 million to the Taliban and criminal groups last year.

It was troubling enough to interact with the armed guards who stood outside the barbed-wire gates of these homes, threatening to shoot me if I pointed my camera toward them. What I found even more disturbing though was seeing the disparity between this narcotecture and the tents and bombed out shelters just a block away–squalid conditions in which too many Afghans live.

This narcotecture is such a powerful image. It reinforces the fact that by escalating this war, our country is propping up a corrupt Karzai government while doing little to remedy Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis. These are issues congressional oversight hearings could help address. If you haven’t already, join over 42,500 people who have already signed the petition for oversight hearings, and then pass this petition to all your friends and relatives. Help us reach 50,000 names!