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Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009
Dallas Morning News: Afghan corruption shouldn't stall troop increase
When Hamid Karzai ascended to Afghanistan's presidency in 2002, it was easy for Americans to think he was someone who could be trusted to unite his country, end decades of internecine warfare and responsibly use billions of dollars in international aid to turn Afghanistan into a viable, self-sustaining state.
After all, he was articulate, gregarious, performed well on American talk shows.
What more could we want from the leader of a country whose government America has been propping up for the past eight years?
Legitimacy and clean governance would have been nice, for starters.
Karzai and his supporters apparently didn't trust Afghanistan's democratic voting system to decide who should occupy the presidency.
Rather than risk having the people's choice be swept into power, he rigged tens of thousands of votes in August's elections. And when he was caught, he complained and protested and placed so many conditions on a runoff race that his closest competitor, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, decided to pull out altogether.
A corruption pandemic is sweeping Afghanistan, fed by billions in opium dollars and siphoned international aid.
Rather than try to curtail it, Karzai is feeding it -- and undermining U.S. military goals in the process. No wonder his authority has rarely extended beyond the limits of the capital, Kabul. Karzai's weakness is compounded by his inability to wrestle control of provincial capitals from warlords renowned for corruption and human rights abuses.
This helps explain why President Barack Obama is having such a hard time deciding on the next step in the U.S. military deployment there.
An increase in U.S. troop levels will not have a major effect on corruption, but it will confront a growing Taliban insurgency that is using the central government's weakness to win recruits and extend its coverage. Considering the Taliban's role as hosts to al-Qaeda's leadership as they planned and executed the 9/11 attacks, halting their resurgence must be America's top -- and most urgent -- priority.
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