The United States is the Biggest Source of Corruption in Afghanistan
The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan: The United States?
April 29, 2013It's like something out of a mob movie: Suitcases, backpacks, and sometimes plastic shopping bags packed full of cash, delivered discretely to a willing politician.
The purported money-exchangers: The Central Intelligence Agency and Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai. According to a report in The New York Times, Karzai's office in Kabul has been on the receiving end of tens of millions of dollars from the U.S., and is still getting paid to this day.
"The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan," one American official told the paper, "was the United States."
Karzai confirms @nytimes story, calls CIA #ghostmoney useful. Describes CIA cash, totaling millions, as a small sum nyti.ms/14DAchWSEE MORE: The bizarre tale of the Mississippi feud behind the ricin letters
— Matthew Rosenberg (@mrosenbergNYT) April 29, 2013
Still, both Afghan and American officials have called the bribes ineffective, saying that the CIA "has greased the wheels of the same patronage networks that American diplomats and law enforcement agents have struggled unsuccessfully to dismantle, leaving the government in the grips of what are basically organized crime syndicates," writes Rosenberg.
Another indication that the CIA's bags of cash are questionable: Iran had, for some time, been doing the same thing — to little effect. Tehran eventually halted its payments, but, at the very least, Afghan officials tell the Times, Iran was more transparent about its donations, sending millions of dollars through Karzai's chief of staff, who would then have it stored in a state-run bank and the contribution announced at the next cabinet meeting.
Afghanistan, the third most corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International's 2012 Corruption Index, is well-known for its illicit government dealings — but it seems now we have pretty clear evidence that the U.S. plays a big role in keeping Afghanistan dishonest.