As in Vietnam, Karzai is going to rule over an equally tiny island of corruption

Wednesday, 4 November 2009

Could there be a more accurate description of the Obama-Brown message of congratulations to the fraudulently elected Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan? First the Palestinians held fair elections in 2006, voted for Hamas and were brutally punished for it – they still are – and then the Iranians held fraudulent elections in June which put back the weird Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whom everyone outside Iran (and a lot inside) regard as a dictator. But now we have the venal, corrupt, sectarian Karzai in power after a poll far more ambitiously rigged than the Iranian version, and – yup, we love him dearly and accept his totally fraudulent election.

And now we are still trying to persuade his opponent to join a national unity government, an administration led by the man whose vote-stuffing was the very reason that same leader of the opposition – the good pseudo-Pashtun Abdullah Abdullah – refused to run in a second round of elections. And Karzai got his fawning congrats from the Obama-Brown twins. So that's OK then. Wagons Ho. For Westmoreland, read McChrystal. Send in the brave 40,000 to join the rest of the US cavalry as it fights its way west – or rather south-west – to the Khe Sanh of Afghanistan in Year Eight of the War on Terror.

The March of Folly was Barbara Tuchman's title for her book on governments – from Troy to Vietnam-era America – that followed policies contrary to their own interests. And well may we remember the Vietnam bit. As Patrick Bury, a veteran British soldier of our current Afghan adventure, pointed out yesterday, Vietnam is all too relevant.

Back in 1967, the Americans oversaw a "democratic" election in Vietnam which gave the presidency to the corrupt ex-General Nguyen Van Thieuman. In a fraudulent election which the Americans declared to be "generally fair" – he got 38 per cent of the vote – Thieu's opponents wouldn't run against him because the election was a farce.

In 1967, Washington needed the elections to give legitimacy to this revolting dictator – and thus provide credibility to its own military occupation of Vietnam in the war against Communism. As in Vietnam – where Saigon was a lonely kingdom of brutal power totally isolated from the rest of the country – Karzai is going to rule over an equally tiny island of corruption, protected by US mercenaries while the Americans perform their familiar role of propping up a dictator.

As ex-Lieutenant Bury sagely points out, the Afghan war is "campaigning on a par with the 19th-century British colonial army trying to manage the unwinnable... What was or is the strategy behind these long, bloody conflicts?" Well, in 1967, it was the possible communisation of Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Now it is Pashtunistan, Baluchistan, Waziristan. For us, the vast ignorant "plebes", it's supposed to stop the Taliban/al-Qa'ida beasts from attacking our looming towers all over again, albeit that the 2001 murderers in question largely hailed from that friendly, moderate, brutal, oligarchical monarchical dictatorship called Saudi Arabia where – thank the good gods – they don't hold elections.

But it's part of a dreary pattern. US forces were participating in a civil war in Vietnam while claiming they were supporting democracy and the sovereignty of the country. In Lebanon in 1982, they claimed to be supporting the "democratically" elected President Amin Gemayel and took the Christian Maronite side in the civil war. And now, after Disneyworld elections, they are on the Karzai-government side against the Pashtun villagers of southern Afghanistan among whom the Taliban live. Where is the next My Lai? Journalists should avoid predictions. In this case I will not. Our Western mission in Afghanistan is going to end in utter disaster.

New York Times reports that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the younger brother of Hamid Karzai, is being paid for 'a variety of services'

• Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 October 2009 13.50 GMT
• Article history

Ahmad Wali Karzai, brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. Photograph: AP

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the younger brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has been on the CIA's payroll for almost eight years, it was reported today.

The New York Times, quoting unnamed current and former US officials, reported that the CIA was paying the president's brother, long alleged to be a powerful druglord, for "a variety of services".

The report said these included the recruitment of a paramilitary group to do US bidding in and around Kandahar, where he is the head of the provincial council.

The paramilitaries – known as the Kandahar Strike Force – have been accused of conducting rogue operations and score-settling.

They are based in a Kandahar compound that Ahmed Wali Karzai also rents to the CIA and US special forces as an operations base, the report said.

The president's brother was also reported to act as a middle man for contacts between the CIA and Taliban loyalists as part of attempts to persuade them to change sides.

He has long been alleged to be involved in the opium trade in southern Afghanistan, and the CIA's links with him are a cause of deep divisions in Barack Obama's administration, the New York Times said.

Ahmed Wali Karzai denied being involved in drug trafficking, or being paid by the CIA, in an interview with the newspaper.

"I don't know anyone under the name of the CIA," he said. "I have never received any money from any organisation. I help, definitely. I help other Americans wherever I can. This is my duty as an Afghan."

Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, the US senator John Kerry said he had asked US intelligence and law enforcement for solid evidence against Ahmed Wali Karzai but had not been given any.

"I have requested from our intelligence sources and law enforcement folks the smoking gun, the evidence. Show me – what do we know?" he said.

"And I'll tell you right now, folks – nobody has given me the sort of hard and fast 'Here's what we heard them say' or 'Here's what we've caught him doing' or 'Here's what he's involved in.' So this swirls around."

Kerry said there were "things that Ahmed Wali Karzai has done that haven't been helpful. There are things he does that are very helpful for us".

He added: "We need to look hard at the balance of how we can best manage Kandahar and that particular region."

The report of CIA ties with Ahmed Wali Karzai comes at a time when the Obama administration is contemplating increasing US troop numbers in Afghanistan.

It will also revive debate on the CIA's role.

The agency was heavily criticised for its links with rightwing paramilitaries and drug lords in Latin America in the 1970s and 80s.

But after the September 11 attacks, critics argued that it had become too timid and was so constrained by rules and political correctness that it was virtually unable to gather intelligence in troubled parts of the world.

I'd have hardly though that this was a surprise, especially seeing how Hamid Karzai got to be president in the first place...