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.

Paradoxically, regulation may be necessary to ensure individual rights. One can make a pretty convincing argument that the “Nanny State” isn’t the result of over-zealous regulation, but over-zealous litigation.

Sure, governments in the Middle East could tax their citizens more thereby catalyzing a more efficient bureaucracy, economic development, and political accountability. The first doesn’t sound so bad, the second sounds pretty good, but the third…well, lots of leaders would rather not be accountable, so they stick with inefficient bureaucracies and low levels of economic development. It’s a bad tradeoff for most people, but not those at the top. Bad governance is typically a choice, not an accident.

Kevin Drum opines on why lawsuits are far more common in the US than in Europe:

Long story short, this difference between Europe and the U.S. is…not really due to a national culture that promotes a refusal to accept personal responsibility or anything like that. It’s mostly institutional in nature, and the incentives of our institutions point in the direction of more lawsuits instead of more regulations.

Answers that focus on institutions and incentives instead of culture are more persuasive to me.

Captain’s Journal and At War have in-depth analyses of whether the Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan are forwarding or undermining US military efforts there. (Answer for the impatient: the latter).

The meaning of transparency isn’t as clear as the term suggests.