Carry on Karzai
David Blackburn 3:46pm
The New York Times reports that 15 Afghan ministers, past and present, are under investigation on suspicion of corruption. Obama’s and Brown’s unequivocal stance on the Mk.3 Karzai government leaves the president with no choice but to sacrifice a few lambs.
However, if ever there’s a bolthole Karzai will scamper through it. Corruption is Afghanistan’s chief political currency and Karzai’s authority, such as it is, rests on backhanders. Oligarchic Afghan law decrees that ministers must be prosecuted by a specially convened court, and guess who controls judicial patronage? It’s an ingenious constitutional contrivance for seeming to do something but actually doing nothing.
The recent history of Afghan special courts is hardly illustrious. In 2004, an anti-narcotics tribunal was founded, armed with draconian sanctions and supported by a dope-busting SWAT team. There were no convictions…in Afghanistan?
Afghanistan’s inept political and judicial structure render high-profile crooks, drug-lords, warlords and politicians virtually immune from justice. Karzai owes everything to these men and can/will do as little as possible to regulate their operations. If corruption is to be tackled, the international community will have to play its part.
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Vulture
November 24th, 2009 4:22pm Report this comment15 Ministers? That must about add up to the number of British front benchers (on both sides of House) guilty of corruption. Perhaps we can play them at Rugby : the Kabul Korrupters v. the Westminster Wasters.
I fear that Exesgate has lost us the right to look down on the Afghanis from the commanding heights of the moral high ground.
Ian Walker
November 24th, 2009 4:42pm Report this commentBetter to get good governance going at local level, and then support that percolating up to national level.
Trying to impose a modern Western democracy from the top down on a tribal war zone like Afghanistan is doomed to faliure.
PayDirt
November 24th, 2009 5:08pm Report this commentWhy pick on Afganistan for corruption stories? How about all the corruption that still goes on in the new extended European Union, countries such as Bulgaria and Romania to name but just two?
David Lindsay
November 24th, 2009 5:17pm Report this commentPull out the troops who are already there, never mind sending any more.
And take note that from Afghanistan to Kosovo, the "nations" (Kosovo is not one) that we "build" (a very odd way of describing what we actually do in and to these places) are world leaders. World leaders, that is, in corruption.
porkbelly
November 24th, 2009 5:30pm Report this commentAnd yet we are told that we must buy off the Taliban and cut deals with warlords in the name of peace. Afghanistan is not Canada...loyalty is given on the basis of tangible things - money, protection, etc. - not high-minded principles of transparency, civic honesty and the common good. The question we should ask of Karzai is not whether he tolerates corruption, but whether he is effective at solidifying support and defeating the enemy. To imagine he can do this without spreading around loot and influence is naive in the extreme. His model for governance should be the Chicago School (and I don't mean Milton Friedman).
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