Sep 5, 2010
Barak

Corruption

That Afghanistan is the most corrupt country in the world is not a surprise: lots of money and little oversight almost guarantee such an outcome.

6 Comments

  • Particularly agree on the argument that the American are right to seek stability but do not really care of what provokes instability…Maybe it is time for the US to incorporate a third party into a credible fight against corruption. Unfortunatly so far, no institutions have been proven to be effective..nevertheless any may appear a better fit on that issue…don’t really know who would be ready to enter the Gangsta Gorillas cage!

  • FYI a TI response to the argument according to which there is “good corruption”.

    http://blog.transparency.org/2010/07/31/the-very-questionable-case-for-good-corruption/

  • I am not sure what a third party could do. It’s not as if the warlords are trying to hide what’s happening. We know the extent of corruption. The US government is simply unsure whether it wants to seriously fight it.

  • agree with Barak. Once one more party is added to eliminate corruption, one more curroption follows; the connection between corrupted parties becomes more solid. Second, without adequate and appropriate process of communications between those parties, they would start to fight against each other to get more attentions and money. Lastly, US government ‘itself’ is already a part of the whole corruption in Afgan, I think. If I were in Afgan now, I would be suspicious about both of US and Afghan gov. Because so-called elite politicians from both sides are trying to cover and hide everything to achieve their own short-term goals (as Barak thinks). I don’t mean that US and Afghan politicians or political institutions are absolutely corrupted. They are leaning on the culture of corruption too much since they don’t know what to do. It’s so sad.. Just in case, can women change it..? I wanna think about the role of woman’s leadership.

  • Agree with both of you, nevertheless:
    1. maybe a fresh eye could (surely) “miraculously” swipe the slate clean
    2. As sad and unfashion it may sound, I am not sure women can change a lot in such a chaos. Women leadership works/starts to work in already more or less stable countries, or else they are just taken as pretext of change and at the end of the day reveal themselves to be only hiden wives of Mr. X (ex: Nepal “big” politcal change)
    3. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/world/asia/08kabul.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=todayspaper

    “When politics is only a matter of money”…still not sure if smooth process can achieve anything. Maybe social movement ( if ever possibel again there) could consitute a very slim glimmer of hope (and maybe there, women could have a role) But I know, I am way too far from reality…

    4. Still need to think about it!

  • Very hard. The collapse of Kabul bank shows how deeply corruption runs in the country. Corruption is the glue that holds Karzai’s government together. Since there is no viable alternative, I suspect the US government will pretend to fight corruption without seriously doing anything about it (dial 119!). Next week’s election will be a good test.

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