General Stanley McChrystal - Fighting Corruption by Relying on Corrupt Officials | The Long Crisis

US General Stanley McChrystal has a tough assignment as the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. He has been tasked with winning a war that is not winnable in the sense of restoring order and political stability in a country that is totally corrupt, and which is located in a totally corrupt part of the world.

A good example of the difficulties confronting Gen. McChrystal is in controlling the considerable truck traffic traveling the border crossing points between Pakistan and Afghanistan. U.S. forces are not allowed near the teeming border when it is open, so they have never seen quite how Colonel Abdul Razziq, the young looking but tough and savvy Afghan border police boss in the Spin Boldak region, single-handedly rules over billions in international trade. While relying upon Col. Razziq and his 7000 strong force of Afghan border policeman to keep supplies required by the US military and NATO forces moving from Pakistan into Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal knows full well that the man that he is relying upon, Col. Razziq is totally corrupt and is skimming millions of dollars per year from border crossing fees paid by the trucking companies to the Afghanistan government.

The Afghan government collects about $40 million per year in border crossing fees. This sum is estimated to be about 1/5 of the fees that are actually collected by the border police and which past through Col. Razziq’s hands. This estimate would generate revenues of about $160 million per year for Col. Razziq’s border crossing rip off business. The sum of money actually collected by Col. Razzig is probably far more than $160 million per year. Here’s why.

In addition to border crossing fees the trucking companies must pay protection fees to prevent their shipments from being attacked by the Taliban. Some of the protection money is then passed along to the Taliban for their forbearance in not attacking the trucks carrying shipments of mostly supplies required by coalition forces. Of course, the increased fees that must be paid by the trucking companies are passed along to the shippers. Since the shippers are mostly the United States and NATO military the coalition forces are actually funding the Taliban’s war efforts as well as enriching Col. Razziq and his men.

President Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan will be a tremendous boost to the income of the corrupt Col. Razziq and his cohorts. The addition of 35,000 additional American fighting men will require a corresponding increase in the supplies required by the men and the escalated war effort. Since Afghanistan is a landlocked nation, and American air lifting capacity is already strained to the limit, almost all of the necessary increase in supplies will be trucked in across the border from Pakistan.

This means that Col. Razzig and his border policeman will be collecting far more in border crossing fees as well as additional millions in convoy protection fees. That also means that the Taliban will be receiving additional funding for their part in protecting the convoys carrying equipment and supplies to the coalition forces against attack from the same Taliban that is receiving the payoffs. Yes, I know that sounds strange, but America has taken up arms in a world as alien to American cultural understanding as the world of Pandora in the movie Avatar.

Corruption is a deeply ingrained way of life in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In an area of the world where the majority of the population lives in grinding poverty and public service people, such as policemen are poorly paid, any opportunity to receive extra income is seldom passed up. From the highest levels of government to the lowest levels of public service and private businesses that provide services to the public corruption is a way of life. Americans at all levels, for some reason, just don’t seem to grasp the level of corruption in these countries and how deeply it is ingrained in the cultures.

Even Gen. Stanley McChrystal, with his experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, likely doesn’t really understand what he is up against in fighting the forces of corruption. Of course, the military power of the US and NATO forces will prevail in any toe to toe battles against the Taliban. However, the Taliban are smart enough to know this and will therefore fight a low intensity guerrilla war against the coalition forces. Even Gen. McChrystal deep down inside must realize that a low-level guerrilla war against a totally dedicated and fanatical Taliban force will be impossible to win in the conventional military sense of the word win. Gen. McChrystal himself has stated that the war cannot be won militarily, but that a political solution must be arrived at for Afghanistan to achieve any real sense of long-term stability.

However, how can you achieve a fair political solution when the Afghanistan government at the highest levels is corrupt and the corruption extends all the way through almost every government agency, especially in the national police and border patrol? There is another problem that Gen. McChrystal and the Obama administration face in trying to prevail in Afghanistan by establishing a democratic, stable, and corruption free government. The fact is, many high-ranking Afghanistan government officials, warlords, and characters such as Col. Razziq, as well as contractors, Western consultants, Western companies who supply war supplies and materials, and in general war profiteers, have become extremely wealthy due to the war in Afghanistan. These people would likely be pleased should the war drag on for another 100 years.

In time, even Gen. Stanley McChrystal will likely realize that he is on a fools error in that the war in Afghanistan is not winnable. The cultural differences, especially the culture of corruption, are just too large to overcome. Even in America, American style democracy is not working very well at the moment, and it is impossible to export the American style of governing to one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world. The big question is whether the good general will be able to convince his commander-in-chief of that fact. President Obama has made a huge policy error in escalating a war that can not be won. The culture of total corruption will see to that.