After the WikiLeaks publication of classified military documents, the pressure on Western countries to withdraw from Afghanistan has become even greater. But unrealistic transition deadlines have damaging repercussions, argues Andrew Small of the German Marshall Fund.
“We have moved from a narrative, which lasted for years, that everything was fine when it wasn’t, to a narrative that everything is going wrong when it isn’t.”
This lament from a former Western official, who, like others quoted in this piece, did not speak for attribution, summed up the frustrations of many in Kabul about the growing disconnect between the political timetables inside and outside the country. The concern is not only that the various transition deadlines are unrealistic, but that their very existence is creating counterproductive pressures that will make them even harder to achieve.
After last weekend’s WikiLeaks publication of more than 90,000 classified military documents that paint a bleak picture of the war at the grassroots level, it has become even more difficult to argue that there is indeed any good news coming out of Afghanistan. But the one thing about last week’s Kabul Conference on which everyone agrees is that the event happening at all was a tremendous success.
[More]
Having nothing better to do today, I am offering up this long winded explanation of why, whenever I read just another article about corruption in Afghanistan, I usually just think to myself, what an ignorant and mindless twit this author is and immediately move on to the next, hopefully more thoughtful article, so, lets take a moment to think outside the box of privileged liberal progressive ignorance that our MSM can seldom seem to escape and consider corruption as it might pertain to a completely different culture under completely different circumstances to our own.
Up until a couple of hundred years ago, before we in the west had developed our modern sophisticated systems, and when our culture was quite different to the one we now live in, it was entirely normal in our societies to purchase title and position, almost every transaction was handled on a cash basis, and it was quite expected to have to grease the palms of a few bureaucrats in order to achieve any result at all out of any government office, however in the present time, in our more modern societies, we would see such practices as signs of corruption.
Afghanistan is not Toronto, New York, London or Berlin with their sophisticated banking systems where an ATM is to be found on almost every wall. In fact, Afghanistan’s banking system had barely ever made it past the collecting pretty stones stage, and that was before the country was devastated by three decades of war. The current height of architectural achievement in Afghanistan seems to be two walls still standing up by leaning against each other, I somehow doubt those walls would have ATM machines on them, and if there actually were any banks in most of Afghanistan they would likely be prime targets for Taliban terrorists. Also money goes a lot further in Afghanistan so their currency is usually worth very little in comparison to our own, with one Afghani (Afghanistan currency) currently being worth all of about two whole cents US, so in order to pay Afghan police, judges, troops etc. their wages, industrial pallets full of almost worthless Afghan currency must be moved about the country’s very dangerous roads under armed guard.
Afghanistan’s state of the art banking system.
http://tinyurl.com/23hrd84
Normally, in cases where corruption was expected I would say follow the money, but that just seems way too easy in Afghanistan’s case, because I have seen an industrial skid loaded with small bills under armed guard before, and not only is it a hard thing to miss, it is a rather difficult sight to take your eyes off of. Therefore, it just seems to me that if, when he is not busy with governing the most difficult country in the world, President Karzai has somehow managed to divert the attention of the armed guards who would be held responsible for it, long enough to swipe several industrial pallets full of money (or about a thousand dollars US) and bury them in his backyard or somewhere within Afghanistan’s unsophisticated banking system (under some rubble perhaps), it should not really be all that difficult a thing to prove, so why has there been no evidence of it offered up to date by his accusers? Under these circumstances, it seems much more likely to me that the lion’s share of any money that has gone missing was most likely skimmed off the top electronically by the UN, NGOs, and aid agencies, just as they have previously done in Iraq, Africa, Haiti, etc…, and to the tsunami victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, etc…, long before any such funds ever reached Afghanistan.
Finally, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Are we to pretend there is no corruption at all to be found in our societies? What would Afghan citizens, most of whom are doing whatever they can to survive in a country devastated by three decades of war, think if they were to pick up one of our newspapers and read about how liberals have accused the last two US Presidents of stealing nominations or elections, or of the corruption inherent in any vote buying Liberal Government here in Canada, or of a Democrat Congress that includes Charlie Rangel, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd etc. where it still helps to grease a few palms here and there, or of what has been going on for decades in Greece and the rest of Europe etc.. I suppose nobody in our societies ever pays cash for contraband cigarettes, or for items on eBay, or to have their car fixed under the table so as to avoid taxes etc., or ignores any laws they don’t happen to like…