While US talks withdrawal, Afghan corruption soars

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_US_AFGHANISTAN_CORRUPTION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-06-25-04-05-47

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The farmer picking apples in the outskirts of Kabul must pay the Taliban $33 to ship out each truckload of fruit. The governor sends in armed men to chase workers off job sites if the official bribes aren't paid. Poor neighborhoods never get their U.N.-provided wheat, long since sold on the black market.

These are some of the elements, large and small, that together form the elaborate organized crime environment Afghans contend with daily. And despite the hoped-for success of the U.S. military surge and President Barack Obama's claims of significant progress, Afghanistan's resemblance to a mafia state that cannot serve its citizens may only be getting worse, according to an upcoming report by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.

The 46-page study, to be released next week, looks specifically at Afghanistan's heartland: the rural areas of Ghazni, Wardak, Logar and other provinces just beyond the periphery of Kabul. Unemployment is high, government presence is low and the insurgency operates with impunity. Corruption and cooperation with the Taliban reach the highest levels of local governance.

"Nearly a decade after the U.S.-led military intervention little has been done to challenge the perverse incentives of continued conflict in Afghanistan," the research group says. Rather, violence and the billions of dollars in international aid have brought wealthy officials and insurgents together. And "the economy as a result is increasingly dominated by a criminal oligarchy of politically connected businessmen," the report concludes.

[Lasher]

1. What significant progress?

We went into Afghanistan to get bin Laden. We got him. If they're still making progress, they're doing something they shouldn't be doing. Charity begins at home.

[nonperson]

2. Afghanistan is Afghanistan

It will be Afghanistan after we leave just as it's been after every invader has left for centuries. Their political and moral climate is what it is just as ours is. I'm sure that America's soaring corruption is clearly visible to those on the outside and we aren't even occupied by a corrupt invader like Afghanistan.

Their way of life is no more corrupt than ours. We just have better weapons and excuses so our corruption wins.

[unhappycamper]

3. Is it time to bring them home yet?

By time all the costs are accumulated, the US will have spend around $4 trillion dollars on these adventures.

[bemildred]

4. Do they do corruption polls in Kabul or something? nt