America’s Afghan Thugs

Posted on Dec 15, 2008

U.S. Army / Staff Sgt. Michael Bracken

Afghan National Police recruits in training.

An American living in Kandahar writes in the Washington Post that the “corrupt gunslingers” the U.S. put in charge of Afghanistan are as much to blame for the resurgence of the Taliban as anyone. “Why,” after all, “would anyone defend officials who pillage them?”

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Sarah Chayes in The Washington Post:

After the Soviet invasion, which cost a million Afghan lives over the course of the 1980s, followed by five years of gut-wrenching civil war and another six of rule by the Taliban, who twisted religious injunctions into instruments of social control, Afghans looked to the United States—a nation famous for its rule of law—to help them build a responsive, accountable government.

Instead, we gave power back to corrupt gunslingers who had been repudiated years before. If they helped us chase al-Qaeda, we didn’t look too hard at their governing style. Often we helped them monopolize the new opportunities for gain. A friend of mine, one of the beneficiaries, was astounded at the blank check. “What are we warlords doing still in power?” police precinct captain Mahmad Anwar asked me in 2002. “I vowed on the Holy Koran that I would fight the Taliban in order to bring an educated, competent government to Afghanistan. And now people like me are running the place?” I had to laugh at his candor.

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