President Obama’s tough talk with Hamid Karzai about corruption in Afghanistan this weekend will likely have little effect on the Afghan president who is aware that the U.S. administration views him as “the lesser of numerous evils” available in its quest to defeat the Taliban, American and regional officials said.
Since Karzai took office in 2004, complaints of graft and corruption have been constant, and have hampered U.S. and NATO efforts to win over the civilian population, according to experts on the region. Last August, when Karzai was declared the winner of an election plagued by fraud, the rift between Afghanistan and its Western allies widened.
American officials have continued to back Karzai publicly, while privately saying he remained the best available option to avoid chaos in the country.
But numerous government and military officials in the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan interviewed by this reporter have complained that lack of accountability on the part of Karzai’s government and continuous reports of corruption have contributed to rising discontent among the people of Afghanistan, and aided the resurgence of the Taliban.
“We have lost the war to win the hearts and minds of the people,” said a U.S. military official, who spoke to the Washington Examiner. “Somewhere along the line we’ve failed. … We have a government in Kabul that everyone knows is corrupt and we can’t seem to do a thing about it. It’s like watching a train wreck.”
Obama’s weekend visit, his first since he was sworn into office 14 months ago, was met with a decided lack of enthusiasm in Kabul, according to local press reports.
Over the past year, tensions between two nations have become more pronounced, as Karzai has developed closer ties with Iran and has taken the initiative to negotiate with insurgent leaders like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, head of the Hezb-i-Islami, a terrorist organization.
Just ahead of Obama’s arrival in Kabul, Karzai met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, in part to celebrate the Iranian and Afghan new years. Karzai returned from that visit less than an hour before Obama’s plane landed in Kabul, according to news reports from the region.
Saleh Mohammad Registani, a member of the Afghan parliament, complained to this reporter that Karzai’s government hides behind the shield of U.S. aid and support, while taking “billions of dollars” through corruption.
“Most of the provincial government positions are purchased for the right price,” Mr. Registani said. “Then the people of those communities are blackmailed or forced to pay up so the politicians can replace the coffers.”
Further adding to the problem is the billions of dollars in opium poppy profits amassed by Taliban warlords, experts say. The funds are used to buy loyalty of government officials, police, Afghan soldiers and even judges, according to officials
Despite pressure on Karzai by the United States and European nations to reduce Afghanistan’s poppy crop since the war began in 2001, it is still the world’s leading source of opium, cultivating 93 percent of the world’s heroin crop.
And many Afghan and U.S. officials blame Karzai for protecting his half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of the Kandahar provincial council. He is accused of helping to set up safe routes and weapons to the Taliban in the southern province.
On Monday a U.S. military official was quoted in news reports warning Wali Karzai that if he’s found to have links to the Taliban or insurgents he would be put on the target list to be captured or killed.
Since President Karzai took office in 2004, Afghanistan has climbed the international ladder of the most corrupt nation on Earth as measured by Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization that seeks to expose global corruption. It was ninth under the Taliban. It is now second, behind only Somalia.
“Corruption has been increasingly recognized as an undermining factor for the reconstruction of Afghanistan in several national and international contexts,” reported the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Prince Abdul Ali Seraj, a member of the country’s former royal family and president of the National Coalition for Dialogue with Tribes of Afghanistan, echoed many other critics in the United States and around the region in a talk with this reporter.
“If the people can’t trust the government, how can we ever win their hearts and minds or ever make this a land of peace?” he asked.
