Aspiring empires going back to the days of Alexander the Great have discovered a universal truth concerning the peoples of the Hindu Kush: You can’t buy their loyalty (although some of them have been known to suggest it could be rented). Plenty of DFHs have been pointing this out since the start of Dubya’s Big Aventure, but the scope and toxicity of ‘our’ ham-handed efforts are just now (again) coming to light. Spencer Ackerman at Wired has a smart article explaining “How the CIA’s Bags of Cash Undermined the Afghanistan War“:
It’s the most understandable, intuitive and tempting mistake in geopolitics: secretly pay a powerful foreigner to do what you want. The CIA, like many spy agencies, has done it throughout its history, and now we know it helped undermine the America’s longest war.
Nearly every month since the war began in 2001, the CIA has sent a guy over to Afghan President Hamid Karzai with a bag — sometimes a suitcase, sometimes a backpack, sometimes a shopping bag — full of cash. His former chief of staff says they used to call it “ghost money,” and it totals tens of millions of dollars, according to an eye-opening New York Times story. Quite the hypocritical twist from a sponsor country that so frequently hectors Karzai about corruption. “The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,” a U.S. official levels with the paper’s Matthew Rosenberg, “was the United States.”
When Iran pays off Karzai, it’s disruptive foreign meddling. But when the CIA does it, it’s supposed to be an insurance policy to entrench U.S. influence in the president’s office. Alas, there’s something more important than influence in geopolitics: leverage. When Washington most needed leverage with Karzai, it didn’t have much — at least not that it was prepared to use — and the CIA ghost money helps explain why…
Paying off foreign leaders doesn’t always fail. Sometimes it’s expedient for an immediate goal, as when the CIA rented the anti-Taliban opposition in 2001 to gain a network of local fighters. And bribery can be an insurance policy for a broader goal, as with the U.S. arms purchases to Mubarak-era Egypt to secure the peace with Israel.
But just as foreign aid distorts a local economy and prompts corruption, so too does attempting to purchase a foreign leader. The CIA has learned this again and again: Mobuto Sese Seko in Zaire/Congo; Nguyen Van Thieu in South Vietnam; Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya. Shortcutting the arduous work of foreign policy through cash payments rarely works as intended: at best, it can paper over deeper dysfunctions for a time, as with Hosni Mubarak in Egypt or with Pakistan’s duplicitous intelligence service. But over the long term, it ends up leaving the client in a stronger position than the patron, since the patron is rarely willing to walk away from the messy foreign entanglement that prompted the payout in the first place…
By all means, read the whole thing.
dr. bloor
I am not sure that “learned” is the appropriate term here.
Omnes Omnibus
It isn’t an Afghan thing; it is universal. One can never buy loyalty. It, like respect, must be earned. Also too, there really aren’t that many people who fit the old definition of an honest politician: someone who, once bought, stays bought.
The Dangerman
So, Karzai just wanted those kinds of things that money just COULD buy; obviously not a Beatles fan.
Baud
Karzai:CIA::Consultants:Romney
Rock
Imagine if a Democrat administration had done this…..
MattR
@Omnes Omnibus:
However, one can sometimes rent it for a limited time if the price is right.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Dangerman: I beg to differ. Or maybe The Flying Lizards.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattR:
The problem is, if you are renting it, you can’t sure for how long you’ll have it.
Debbie(aussie)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think they stay bought, but the buyer/s can change or increase from time to to time.
Chris
@MattR:
I remember Colin Powell saying that exact thing about Noriega: that you couldn’t buy him, but you could rent him. He also acknowledged that Noriega was dealing with America’s enemies at the same time. I… guess it was worth it to keep lines of communication open? Or something.
MattR
@Omnes Omnibus: That is the trick isn’t it. The fuse is burning but you don’t know how long it is.
beltane
Maybe the CIA sees things through an American prism. Since the US Congress can be bought, and bought for good, and at bargain basement prices, why shouldn’t foreign governments operate the same way.
Scamp Dog
@dr. bloor: This. They’ve demonstrated it a number of times, but the learning has yet to happen.
Keith
Maybe they just want their money in the form of beryllium.
PeakVT
Why does the CIA hate America so much?
muddy
Bakhsheesh! I still do the hand motion when discussing $, after all these years. Recently I was making a poster sized frame with a tunic I got in Afghanistan, I wanted to put some photos in the frame below the sleeves. I scanned some to enlarge some. In looking at the pics and remembering, there is showing of bare female leg with no to-do. I saw a few women in burkhas, but not the majority at all. Most men were clean shaven, or with bandito mustachio. April 1973. Here I am along the Khyber Pass, wearing the tunic in question. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mudpix/8682586624/in/set-72157633338396465
Suffern ACE
What were we bribing him to do?
aimai
@muddy: Marvellous picture, muddy. Just wonderful.
Brandon
Hindu Kush sounds exactly like something I would like to buy. Amirite?
Omnes Omnibus
@muddy: Very cool pictures. Thank you for sharing.
MikeJ
Tens of millions isn’t exactly a ton of money (unlike the billions disappeared in Iran). I have absolutely zero problem with renting temporary allies. I have a huge problem with sending in our troops to get killed and blowing smoke up the skirts of Americans telling them how wonderful things are.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus:
“It isn’t an Afghan thing; it is universal.”
I agree. We could go to the countries with cultures that are most like the US, lecture them about how to be ‘Americans’ better, wave model legislation in their faces, and grease the wheels with secret money, and there would be problems. Not the degree of problems as in Afghanistan, but wherever, there would be problems.
But, is this really news? Wasn’t our early success there due to buying off warlords? That might have been a good temporary expedient in order to invade the country, get AQ and leave. But when we were supposedly nation building, but all the while greasing the wheels with bribes to the warlords, didn’t Rice respond to a question about it with something like ‘So what, that is how it’s always done.’
So, this self sabotage has been going on for a long time. We just decided to try to make Karzai our chief, Western nation-state legitimized bigshot warlord.
The kind of nation building the Bush II administration said they were doing was never going to work. And it was even more messed up due to bad faith, hubris ignorance and incompetence. So, it was quintuply messed up.
Yutsano
@muddy: Kabul used to be known as the Paris of the East. It was a very cosmopolitan city with a warm, inviting atmosphere and a welcoming proud people. Then the king was deposed and the Soviets decided to overturn an election where the Afghan Communists lost. It’s a tragic tale that has led to over 30 years of constant war. And the irony is that there is a huge amount of wealth in Afghanistan that could make the people prosperous if only the battles could get settled. Sigh.
muddy
There’s plenty of grease in our own government. I used to work for a defense contractor, and got in trouble for finishing tasks too quickly. But it’s not bakhsheesh if it’s on a spreadsheet…
Mike in NC
Comforting to know the CIA drops $300K a month to try to buy off this bipolar gangster. Your tax dollars at work.
Calouste
They were forgetting a few names there. Besides Noriega, mentioned earlier, bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Ho Chu Min were also recipients of crisp green dollar bills.
Keith
@Brandon: Yeah, it could be that the CIA would do better to give them Xboxes and hang out with them for a bit.
Amir Khalid
What confuses me about all this is that the CIA keeps trying to buy (or to buy off) people who it knows will sell you out as soon as they get their hands on your money.
MikeJ
@Mike in NC:
That’s aboutwhat it would cost to keep a regiment there.
I’d rather pay one guy than have 3000 troops.
jurassicpork
Waterboarding for Jesus: An Open Letter actually sent.
The Republic of Stupidity
Debbie(aussie)
@muddy:
Nice tunic, nice legs:)
Sad isn’t it, before the west (Russia & us) got so ‘desperately’ (?) involved they were changing, becoming more secular. Money/greed/oil over reason.
Anya
So that’s where some of the billions in duffel bags that disappeared in Iraq went.
Also, too, shouldn’t the CIA supposed to be smart? They keep bribing a guy that doesn’t deliver any results. At least when they did it with Mabutu of Zaire or Siad Barre of Somalia the purpose was to keep the Soviets out.
Elizabelle
Iggy Pop is looking pretty good.
Colbert: “Could your body wear a shirt, or would it reject it like a bad organ?”
NotMax
“So sorry about some of the bags being a little light this month. Maybe you’ve heard about the sequester?”
In all seriousness though, the size and scope of the so-called ‘black budget’ has been and remains a festering quagmire of misapplication, duplicity, corruption, despoliation and squandering.
soonergrunt (mobile)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Outside of Kabul, the Afghanis one meets are intensely loyal to whomever is standing in front of them with a gun at that particular moment in time. Frankly, the money is largely ineffective and unnecessary. Afghanis think (and well tell you to your face) that whatever good our generous thing you are doing is because Allah made you do it. In a society where nobody has anything, people who are generous are only so because God is forcing them to be, or because they want something especially valuable.
Sean
The fuck? The fuck kind of fucked up conclusion is that, Ackerman? I sure as fuck fault that amoral piece of shit, along with the entire Congress, and the Presidents, current and former, who have enables and supported the bastard. I’m no Firebagger and do not regret voting for him, but Obama has always been dead wrong on how to wind down Afghanistan. It is now and in the future will be a black mark on his presidency.
NotMax
@soonergrunt (mobile)
Pet peeve alert.
Afghanis are the currency of Afghanistan.
Afghans are the people.
soonergrunt (mobile)
@Amir Khalid: faith springs eternal.
soonergrunt (mobile)
@NotMax: tell it to autocorrect.
Mnemosyne
I’m doing the only thing I can do right now: making mittens and other warm items for girls in Afghanistan.
It’s not much, but it makes me feel slightly less helpless.
(They accept knitted and crocheted items to their specs, but they MUST be made of wool or other warm animal fiber, no acrylic or polyester.)
amk
US siding with corrupt despots and draining billions to protect ‘democracy’. Nothing new here.
soonergrunt (mobile)
@Mnemosyne: Girls tend to cooking fires and to the warning fires in schools. Synthetics are highly risky for them. In a country where only the very rich can afford burn treatments, any burns can be a death sentence, and a survivor with burn scars on exposed skin has significantly degraded marriage prospects.
I don’t like it either, but there you are.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne:
Sent your link to some knitting friends. Maybe they will teach me to knit a sleeve or some socks.
Great project.
AA+ Bonds
This is one weird thing to read in an article about this topic.
Mnemosyne
@soonergrunt (mobile):
It’s that, but it’s also that synthetics aren’t as warm as wool or other animal yarns (alpaca, yak, etc.)
But the fire thing is significant because wool is self-extinguishing. You can force it to burn by holding it to an open flame, but as soon as you remove the flame, it goes out. So, yes, there’s a safety issue, too.
AforA has to emphasize the “no synthetics” on their website because most American charities prefer synthetics for things like baby blankets, hats for the homeless, etc. because they’re easier to machine-wash. For obvious reasons, that’s not really a consideration in the wilds of Afghanistan where these gifts are being sent.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Yutsano:
With all due respect- and I certainly do respect ya, cuz- that’s about as oversimplified as oversimplification gets. There’s no easy way of describing the coup that overthrew the king, then the next coup (that put the Soviet-backed PDPA in power), then the following coup (in which one faction of the PDPA, with the backing of the Soviets, overthrew the faction of the PDPA that had been in power). It’s Stalin vs. Trotsky with Pol Pot, ethnic resentments, religion and old feudalistic ties thrown in.
S. cerevisiae
@amk: Yeah, this has been going on forever with the US. Shit we did this with most of Central/South America. We never fucking learn.
TG Chicago
Ackerman said:
Distinction without a difference?
sm*t cl*de
Someone explain to me again how the way to build a tradition of democracy is to provide a money teat available to whoever buys or steals the elections.
cvstoner
@dr. bloor: Exactly. Learning would imply they wouldn’t keep doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome, which is the definition of something else: insanity.
Maude
@soonergrunt (mobile):
We can’t speak for the Afghans. We are from the US and have a totally different background.
As someone pointed out to me, Afghani is also currency. Apt.
lojasmo
@Rock:
Your tell: I see it.
El Cid
You are so stupid. Do you not understand we developed this new awesome strategy COIN (counter-insurgency for we expert military fans) which would totally fix all the stuff which didn’t happen correctly in all our other prior counter-insurgency successes?
I mean, look how we fixed Iraq after we blew the whole nation-state to shit just by sending in the dude who helped slaughter lots of people in El Salvador on behalf of Ronald Reagan! And Iraq is like, fucking awesome now!
El Cid
@S. cerevisiae: We most certainly do learn. The level of unpopularity of the U.S.’ war against the civilians of Indochina was such that we held off invading and attempting to occupy and control a major 3rd world nation-state for 30 years.
I mean, we got in the mood again with a little bit of Grenada, Panama, and Yugoslavia, but it took a generation-and-a-half for Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. to ‘kick the Vietnam syndrome’.
Invasion & conquest & of course entirely humanitarian-justified 100% all the time you bet occupation & justice-bringin’ is, like comedy, all about timing.