Sunday, June 13, 2010

No Wonder Karzai is Miffed

The US and NATO are deploying their intel assets in part to fight corruption!  This makes politico-military sense as corruption and abuse of power are key weaknesses in the war effort, undermining support for the Afghan government and those fighting to maintain it (that would be NATO and its partners).  Of course, this does have heaps of blowback potential since Karzai's family is pretty involved in the shenanigans. 

The article indicates that the intel has been passed onto Afghan authorities so that the local folks can do the arresting--which makes heaps of sense for a variety of reasons.  But this article is not going to do any favors for the relationships between the Americans and Karzai.
The military is focused on battling corruption at the local and provincial levels in ways that illustrate a commitment to good governance for the population to see in their day-to-day lives. Yet, Pentagon officials acknowledge that this localized effort must be supported by a more senior-level, political decision by the Obama administration on how to deal with corruption at the uppermost echelons of the Afghan government. .... Ultimately, this kind of information could also be used to help the Afghan government weed out corrupt governors.
 Of course, that requires Karzai's help since it is within his power to hire and fire governors.  Ooops.

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