Obama Dreams of Partnering With Corrupt Afghanistan Government

President Obama’s prime time speech from West Point this past Tuesday evening contained elements that only could originate in a brain dead airless Washington D.C. environment. Barack Obama used to be an intelligent man. But then he won the job of being the President and occupied the Whitehouse. As a result his brain has been quickly infected with a dangerous and probably non-curable “think tank” Washington disease. Unfortunately, most of his advisers have carried the disease for years so we have quite a negative feedback loop at work in the oval office that almost guarantees fuzzy dream thread worn thinking.

President Obama spoke of building up the government capacity in Afghanistan. As well said in Juan Cole’s Informed Comment blog when it comes to a government in Afghanistan there is no there there.

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President Barack Obama’s commitment to “finish the job” in Afghanistan by sending 55,000 US troops to that country (counting the 21,000 he dispatched last winter shortly after being inaugurated) depends heavily on a hope of building up an Afghan government and army over to which the US can eventually turn control. But one of the questions we seldom hear any detail about concerns the country’s governmental capacity. Does the government function? Can it deliver services?

As might be expected, governmental capacity is low, but here are some specifics. Months after the controversial presidential election that many Afghans consider stolen, there is no cabinet, and parliament is threatening to go on recess before confirming a new one because the president is unconstitutionally late in presenting the names. There are grave suspicions that some past and present cabinet members have engaged in the embezzlement of substantial sums of money. There is little parliamentary oversight. Almost no one bothers to attend the parliamentary sessions. The cabinet ministries are unable to spend the money allocated to them on things like education and rural development, and actually spent less in absolute terms last year than they did in the previous two years. Only half of the development projects for which money was allotted were even begun last year, and none was completed.
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Committing more resources to fight to support a totally corrupt government in Afghanistan is pure madness. It will surely lead to Obama being a one term President. President Obama you need to get out of the airless Washington environment and rethink Afghanistan. All our involvement there is accomplishing is to make a few corrupt politicians and warloards filthy rich. All at the expense of the drowning US taxpayer.