Posts in "karzai"

By Elliot Engstrom at 4:49PM

Feb 8, 2010

Civilian deaths and conscription in Afghanistan

As has been the case since the beginning of the conflict in Afghanistan, the numbers of civilian dead or wounded continue to be staggering. Unfortunately, the Western "solution" to increase support for the Karzai government, which is in effect nothing but one more faction competing for power, will in fact simply increase the source of the problem, as the addition of 40,000 troops to the country will merely increase the amount of night bombings and air support needed for American (excuse me...coalition) forces.

Karzai seems to have a great solution to the problem of civilian deaths -- make everyone join the military! The Associated Press reports:

Karzai told a conference of the world's top defense officials in Munich that he wants to build and train an army and police force of 300,000 by 2012 that will be able to provide security for Afghanistan by 2015 without external help.

Should the US Try the "Theory of Second Best?"

Yes, we should. And it should be done immediately. Quick withdrawal from Afghanistan would force Karzai and his opium dealing warlords to govern their country by themselves. This would likely result in the collapse of the corrupt government that calls Kabul its home. Sounds vicious, doesn't it? It would paint a far rosier picture than would staying our current course. Peter Leeson and Claudia Williamson argue in a paper that,

Many predatory governments do more to damage their citizens’ welfare than to enhance it. In light of this, we show that conditional on failure to satisfy a key institutional condition required for ideal political governance—constrained politics—citizens’ welfare is maximized by departing from the other conditions required for this form of governance: state-supplied law and courts, state-supplied police, and state-supplied public goods. Since departing from these conditions produces anarchy and fulfilling them when government is unconstrained producers predatory political governance, anarchy is a second best.

The Great Puppeteer

The Obama team has outlined a new "Afghanistan Compact" which hopes to reform and eradicate corruption in the US-backed, fraudulently elected, puppet government of Hamid Karzai. This new compact is not only a waste of time, but a blatant disregard of the past. In 2006, the first "Afghanistan Compact" was signed and has yielded little, if any, results. Illegal militias have not been eradicated, the opium trade has not disappeared (especially as Karzai's own brother, Ahmed Wali, Karzai, is involved in the trade and happens to have received payments from the C.I.A.), and the country's infrastructure continues to be reminiscent of the biblical past.

Sporting another election win on his belt, President Karzai said, "We call on our Taliban brothers to come home and embrace their land." The Taliban are undoubtedly seeing a mixed message: Karzai supports the US occupation of Afghanistan and the combat efforts against the Taliban, while at the same time claiming to open his arms to the Taliban (this directly contradicts the original Afghanistan compact of abolishing illegal militias).