Some in the US government are furious at Hamid Karzai because he is blocking attempts to investigate corruption. Others in the US government are the counter-parties to many of these bribes. These guys say the mugwumps don’t understand that bribes are the only way we can get the intel we need. We tend to call these no win situations. From now on, I think I will refer to them as Karzai’s Paradox.

A cynical take on why the Obama administration is so focused on fighting corruption in Afghanistan:

Insofar as the Afghan government refuses to deliver on the promises our [US government] money has purchased, it has to be challenged. It has to be made to understand that a failure to take at least some steps toward reform will eventually produce unpleasant consequences, as American support, already wavering, dwindles down to a few hardcore neocons gathered together in a single room. All of which is to say, Washington’s current fight against corruption is mainly about American, not Afghan, hearts and minds.

Representative Nita Lowey’s recent circus hearings on corruption in Afghanistan lend some credibility to this argument.

Don’t blame USAID alone. At least that’s what I argue at Budget Insight.

Readers of the blog know that I am not a real big fan of the war in Afghanistan. That being said, the House appropriation’s subcommittee on foreign affairs decision to cut $4 billion in aid to Afghanistan, but not cut the $110 billion military funding request is both hypocritical and ineffective. I am not sure which angers me more. The subcommittee claims they want to cut aid to reduce corruption, yet because aid is such a small part of the budget for Afghanistan and because most of the corruption comes from military spending, cutting aid will have a negligible effect on corruption.

If the subcommittee really cared about ensuring US taxpayer funds don’t fuel corruption in Afghanistan, it would cut defense appropriations. The DOD’s response would likely be that “corruption is a part of doing business in Afghanistan, so we can’t fight the war without bribing people.” This is exactly the point and it seems a little unfair to single out USAID for wasting taxpayers’ money there. The US is in Afghanistan because the Taliban poses a national security threat to the US (according to the US Government), yet the Government in Afghanistan it is trying to build is very corrupt. How does raking USAID over the coals help fix this problem? (Banging head on desk.)

FWIW, I don’t think aid to Afghanistan will be cut because DOD wants these projects.

Aleksandr Shkolnikov finds out what law students learn in corrupt countries:

Last week I was in Kyiv, Ukraine…I got to spend some time with law school students and learn a little bit more about their education.

They were quite open about the [corruption] problems of Ukraine…

“This is not a problem,” I was told.  Law school professors know all this, and they don’t just teach about the complexities of the law.  They tell students about how things work in real life, how to go around the law, how to get third parties to get things done when necessary.

Ha! That’s one way of dealing with the problem! Besides, I don’t think  Aleksandr acknowledges the bright side of the situation: Isn’t one of the main complaints about the “Ivory Tower” is that its residents are out of touch with the real world?

Wishful thinking isn’t enough edition:

The operation in Marjah is supposed to be the first blow in a decisive campaign to oust the Taliban from their spiritual homeland in adjacent Kandahar province, one that McChrystal had hoped would bring security and stability to Marjah and begin to convey an “irreversible sense of momentum” in the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan.

Instead…President Barack Obama’s plan to begin pulling American troops out of Afghanistan in July 2011 is colliding with the realities of the war.

There aren’t enough U.S. and Afghan forces to provide the security that’s needed to win the loyalty of wary locals. The Taliban have beheaded Afghans who cooperate with foreigners in a creeping intimidation campaign. The Afghan government hasn’t dispatched enough local administrators or trained police to establish credible governance…

Progress in Marjah has been slow…in part because no one who planned the operation realized how hard it would be to convince residents that they could trust representatives of an Afghan government that had sent them corrupt police and inept leaders before they turned to the Taliban.

So what do we learn from this article? We learn that Marjah was supposed to deliver a strong blow to the Taliban in the area, but it has failed to do that and McChrystal is frustrated as a result. Why did the operation not succeed as much as he hoped:

• Not enough troops.
• Taliban kills people who cooperate with the US and Afghan governments.
• Not enough police or civil servants.
• People don’t trust the Afghan government because it sent corrupt police and incompetent civil servants in the past.

As usual, Michael Cohen gets it right:

The notion that the challenges we’ve seen in Marjah were unexpected is utterly ludicrous. And if its true, it suggests a lack of military planning that is downright scandalous. The problems we are seeing today in Marjah were completely predictable…For anyone to plead ignorance three months later is a good indication of how divorced from reality this entire mission has become.

Yup.

From The Wall Street Journal:

To battle Afghanistan’s endemic corruption, a thousand Afghans every day are dialing 119.

U.S. officials say traffic on the hotline, introduced in late January for civilians to report dishonest policemen, is an early sign of progress in an antigraft campaign that is also seeing a growing contingent of Western forces begin to train and monitor Afghan security personnel to introduce professionalism to the ranks.

The push comes amid growing U.S. concern that the pervasive corruption inside the Afghan police and army is threatening the war effort by sapping public confidence in the central government and leading the Afghan public to side with the insurgency.

The latest and greatest in new fangled fixes for Afghanistan. RAMP-UP, Government in a Box™, Electricity is the New Government in a Box™, and now Dial 119. First, electricity will defeat the Taliban. Next, dial 119 will end corruption. The only Government in a Box in Afghanistan is the US Government.