How America Corrupted Afghanistan: Time to Look in the Mirror * By Anthony H. Cordesman

How America Corrupted Afghanistan - Center for Strategic and Int'l Studies
The U.S. cannot ignore Afghan corruption and hope for any kind of victory or meaningful end state in the Afghan conflict. The fact remains, however, that corruption is only one of the problems that the U.S. and its allies must address in an active war zone, and anti-corruption drives are largely a triumph of hope over experience in societies with a history of systematic corruption. They almost inevitably do little more than prosecute a few token scapegoats and turn the leaders of any serious anti-corruption program into martyrs. This is especially true of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, where the host government needs the corrupt and loyal powerbrokers and where the U.S. needs the support of a corrupt host government.

This situation is highly unlikely to change in the middle of a war where Karzai needs all of the internal support he can get, and the rest of the Afghan political and legal system either is too weak to pose a challenge or would like a share of the money. Moreover, the problem with corruption is scarcely limited to Karzai or leaders at the top. It affects all of Afghan society from top to bottom. Unfortunately, the worst aspects of this corruption are largely the product of our mistakes.