Tolerating Corruption in Afghanistan: The Synergy of "The War on Terror" and "The War on Drugs"

So the CIA has been accused of making payments to Afghan officials in the midst of the Karzai corruption scandal. And then Karzai played the terror card by crying out against these allegations, lest they weaken the war on terrorism (the War on Terror is the refuge of scoundrels, too). So...Voila!...the US military's position is to tolerate corruption in Afghanistan in the name of fighting the Taliban! I don't know where to begin with this. For one thing, as is discussed in a somewhat round-about way in this Washington Post article, that means also tolerating the drug trade of Afghanistan's crime syndicates.

This just illustrates to me the absurdity of "The War on Drugs" and how "The War on Terror" is used to further that absurdity. I like to repeat Gen. Smedley Butler's quote that "War is a racket" -- and the WOD and the WOT are shining examples of that. But it should be plain as day -- look who the Defense Secretary is -- Robert Gates, the Bush family operative who rose through the CIA under Reagan-Bush as William Casey's handmaiden in Iran-Contra and in arming Hussein in what became known as the Iraqgate scandal. Later, of course, he was appointed CIA Director by Bush Sr., and then ultimately Defense Secretary by Bush Jr. So while his military is taking the stance of tolerating corruption in Afghanistan (especially now that the CIA is linked to it), he makes nice words for appearances' sake "that the United States must do more to ensure that its contracting practices aren't fueling corruption." I don't need to draw you a picture --- you can connect the dots.

This is all a big racket -- look at the pattern of the US arming our "friends" at one point, and later fighting them as "enemies" -- Iraq, Noriega, backing Afghanistan against the Soviets... Look at the CIA-Contra-Crack scandal -- and how the Bush family, their cronies and the CIA still leave fingerprints all over covert criminal activities -- through the present day. Given how they use their wars to make out like bandits openly with defense contracts and the like, and with all the history of money laundering by the Bush/CIA/crony network -- we can only speculate how they make out on the covert side -- especially when encouraging tolerance of corruptions in places like Afghanistan. We've documented it again and again here at Democrats.com.

Like I've written before, we don't have a "War on Organized Crime" here in the States, since that would be like Karzai setting up an independent task force to fight his own corrupt regime (that's supposed to be uproariously funny...since Karzai just fired an anti-corruption prosecutor in a Nixonian move). So we have the opposite of all that, including a "War on Drugs" which actually furthers the interests of organized crime, here and abroad. Anyway, below are excerpts from the WashPost article about this "new" (or is it more like an enhanced?) policy of the US military towards Afghan corruption. Read it and weep over how the military and policy wonks use verbal gymnatics to justify tolerating crime syndicates and the drug trade in the name of fighting the Taliban.

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - U.S. commanders in southern Afghanistan are adopting a strategy that increasingly places the priority on fighting the Taliban even if that means tolerating some corruption.

Military officials in the region have concluded that the Taliban's insurgency is the most pressing threat to stability in some areas and that a sweeping effort to drive out corruption could create chaos and a governance vacuum that the Taliban could exploit.

"There are areas where you need strong leadership, and some of those leaders are not entirely pure," said a senior defense official. "But they can help us be more effective in going after the primary threat, which is the Taliban."

The issue of corruption in Afghanistan has taken on renewed urgency in recent weeks with the arrest of a senior aide to President Hamid Karzai and new questions about Kabul's commitment to fighting graft. Senior Obama administration officials have repeatedly emphasized the need to root out graft in Afghanistan and have deployed teams of FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents to assemble corruption cases. The United States has spent about $50 billion to promote reconstruction in Afghanistan since 2001.

It was not immediately clear whether the White House, the State Department and law enforcement agencies share the military's views, which come at a critical time for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. After an eight-month buildup, the 30,000 additional soldiers and Marines that President Obama ordered to this country are almost entirely in place, allowing U.S. and Afghan forces to conduct sweeps of Taliban strongholds and detain insurgent leaders at the highest levels of the nearly nine-year-long war, military officials said.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates visited two U.S. Army units on Friday that had been hit with tough losses in recent days as they cleared insurgents from areas in and around this southern Afghanistan city, the spiritual home of the Taliban and the site of some of the heaviest fighting for U.S. and Afghan forces.

"It has been a tough week for you," Gates told soldiers from an Army battalion that had lost seven soldiers this week. "Unfortunately, there are going to be more tough weeks ahead."

The Kandahar campaign reflects the breadth of the problems that the United States faces throughout Afghanistan and explains why some U.S. officials are reluctant to take too hard a line on Afghan corruption. "Kandahar is not just a Taliban problem; it is a mafia, criminal syndicate problem," the senior defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "That is why it is so complicated. But clearly the most pressing threat is the Taliban."

Some military and civilian advisers to the U.S.-led command in Kabul argue for a comprehensive effort to root out graft and other official abuses, contending that government corruption and ineffectiveness have prompted many Afghans to support the insurgency. "You can't separate the fight against corruption from the fight against the Taliban," one of the advisers said. "They are intimately linked."

But U.S. officials and defense analysts say that challenging local power brokers and criminal syndicates, many of which depend on U.S. reconstruction contracts and ties to the Afghan government for support, would likely add to the unrest in southern Afghanistan and produce a higher U.S. casualty rate. "Putting an end to these patronage networks would not come cheaply," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised U.S. commanders in Afghanistan.

By contrast, allowing some graft among Afghan power brokers on the condition that they agree to limit their take and moderate predatory activities, such as their use of illegal police checkpoints, could promote near-term improvements, Biddle said. "We spend a lot more money in Afghanistan than the narcotics trade," he said. "A lot of money that funds these networks comes from us. So we can essentially de-fund these networks, taking away their contracts."

Yeah, right, whatever you say, Biddle...

Related:"Karzai in Panic as Graft Probe Closes in"