I thought I'd share a few news stories in the Afghanistan Observer and the Daily Afghanistan Outlook newspapers - stories that alternately make one laugh or cry. This diary is not a detailed assessment of current conditions in Afghanistan but a postcard that attempts to give readers a flavor of the local press, and maybe provide an opportunity to talk a little about corruption, electioneering, bird fighting, girl's education, and other topics. I did update it to reflect the fact that Mohammed Zia Salahi, accused of corruption, appears to be on the CIA's payroll per a NYT article this morning, and which has been reported widely on Afghan television.
First, a story that illustrates a theme well known to reporters on religion around the world - the Afghan version of finding an image of Jesus on a tortilla:
Shahada appears on the skin of melon
A statement considered one of the five pillars of Islam has appeared on the skin of a melon in the northern province of Samangan. Muhammad Hasham, who works at the provincial justice department, said he bought the cantaloupe-type melon in the bazaar and had taken it home to his family to eat on Tuesday night. However, when one of his daughters took a knife to cut the melon, she saw the Shahada statement on its skin.
The meaning of the statement (Shahada) is "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of God". Hasham said he took the melon to a prayer leader at a mosque in Aibak City, who confirmed that the statement was indeed the Shahada. The mullah, Maulvi Abdul Manan, said the statement showed the power and authority of God.
The Shahada has also appeared on the skin of an eggplant and other fruit and vegetables in the country.
This is Ramadan and everyone fasts from sunrise to sunset. A cold melon is something most everyone looks forward to after spending the afternoon thirsty, hot and hungry. I appreciate God's ironic, Book of Job kind of humor, writing the Shahada on the skin of a melon to deny a pius man and his daughters the simple pleasure of a cold melon. But who is going to plunge a knife through the Shahada?
I'd love to see a televised Afghan version of true crime reporting, of the sort that occupies 80% of MSNBC's time when they are not broadcasting Olbermann, Schultz or Maddow:
4 drug smugglers arrested by Kabul Airport Police
The smuggled narcotics were placed in almond, miniaturized snot "totally made of narcotic" and put in their stomachs trying to smuggle to Dubai, India, Turkey and European countries. Jabarkhail, Chief of Kabul Airport Police...was explaining his 5 month achievements said, his men have arrested 22 drug smugglers and 38kg of narcotics.
Five months, and only 38kg of opium? That's not even the production of a single village. Afghanistan produces many, many tons of opium. I keep thinking of Jabarkhail as Barney Fife, incompetent but proud of himself for intercepting 265 packages of "snot", but that's probably far too optimistic a picture. In reality, corruption is so deeply entrenched in the Afghan government that it seems like the US is spending as much staff time fighting corrupt and venal government officials as it spends fighting the Taliban. I am extremely pessimistic about the possibility of establishing a credible government as long as Karzai remains in power - he is absolutely incompetent. Whether deliberately through tribal loyalty, or through utter obliviousness, this government is busy undermining its last shred of legitimacy. The US is doing its best to combat this, but I fear that stability in Afghanistan will require a change in government. Hopefully for Karzai and for the US, this won't end up with him swinging from the end of a lamp post as happened to Najibullah when the Soviets pulled out.
US, Afghanistan Plan to Screen Cash at Kabul Airport to Prevent Corruption
The measures represent the latest effort to combat rampant corruption in Afghanistan... Authorities also said they intend to eliminate an arrangement that has allowed top government officials and other well-connected Afghans to board planes – even while carrying suitcases packed with cash – without declaring the transfers or being searched.
US government officials have also provided Afghan units with wiretapping equipment that has been used to build corruption cases against senior government officials in Afghanistan, including a top national security advisor to President Hamid Karzai.
Karzai has lashed out against investigations that have implicated members of his inner circle and has moved to limit the powers of US-backed anti-corruption teams. On Friday, Karzai pledged to support the units, but he also said in a statement that the teams should be free of "foreign interference or political influence"...
A senior US official said that serial numbers on US currency were used to develop the corruption case against Afghanistan’s former Minister of Islamic Affairs this year. The Minister, Mohammed Siddiq Chakari, has been accused of extorting millions of dollars from companies seeking contracts to take pilgrims on the Hajj.
Check out the last paragraph: The Minister of Religious Affairs was shaking down companies sending the faithful to Mecca. Is it any wonder the Taliban are gaining strength? One of the main reason the Taliban is gaining strength is the absence of any credible governmental alternative. Most people distrust and fear the Taliban, although increasingly the lines between a war on the Taliban and a war on the Pashtun ethnic group are blurring and actual Taliban support is growing among Pashtuns. A vast majority of Afghans who oppose the Taliban are also devout Muslims, and they are justifiably outraged at pilgrims being milked for cash by a government official.
I think the Obama Administration has been wise to create and protect anti-corruption units that cause sufficient public embarrassment and give the US leverage on Karzai, although this is somewhat controversial even within the Administration. Karzai is coming under enormous pressure to clean up the government at least a little, and he is playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship in response. Karzai is right that the units are a form of foreign interference, but he's hardly in a position to complain about it. One of the most recent casualties of this push to control corruption is Mohammed Zia Salehi, chief of administration for the National Security Council and paid CIA informer. Here's an excerpt from the NYT this morning:
Mr. Salehi was arrested by the Afghan police after, investigators say, they wiretapped him soliciting a bribe — in the form of a car for his son — in exchange for impeding an American-backed investigation into a company suspected of shipping billions of dollars out of the country for Afghan officials, drug smugglers and insurgents.
Salehi is corrupt, but appears also to have been reporting to the US on corruption within the government. Karzai intervened to get him released from jail in July, after his arrest on corruption charges. More from the NYT:
Mr. Salehi’s relationship with the C.I.A. underscores deep contradictions at the heart of the Obama administration’s policy in Afghanistan, with American officials simultaneously demanding that Mr. Karzai root out the corruption that pervades his government while sometimes subsidizing the very people suspected of perpetrating it.
Mr. Salehi was arrested in July and released after Mr. Karzai intervened. There has been no suggestion that Mr. Salehi’s ties to the C.I.A. played a role in his release; rather, officials say, it is the fear that Mr. Salehi knows about corrupt dealings inside the Karzai administration.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
One of the ironies of the Obama Administration is that Pres Obama has been worse at communication and better at management than expected - the reverse of what many thought when he was elected. Now Karzai is feeling the sting of some actual personnel management from the White House, as opposed to the utter drift of the Bush years, and he's not liking it.
"Karzai will protect him [Salehi]," the politician said, "because by going after him, you are opening the gates."
The US is stuck - they can't fire Karzai exactly, but I suspect they don't want him around much longer and would jump at the chance to find an alternative. Ashrafghani would be a better replacement. Now that Karzai's popularity is spectacularly low, I wonder whether the US is considering how to redirect policy toward transitioning this Blagojevich-like political figure out of power before the war is completely lost. Karzai is increasingly out of touch with reality and the US will continue to take a heavy handed approach with him behind the scenes until he's either out of power, or the US pulls out of Afghanistan and leaves him to his fate. Right now, it seems to me, it's a race to see which happens first.
In the face of the corruption and the chaos, the electioneering continues. The US is relentless in its efforts to create at least the infrastructure of democracy, pumping money and effort into electoral commissions, elections, and helping draft legal structures defining the relationship between national, provincial and local governments. But what the public sees is the chaos of non-stop campaigning.
Electioneering a Nuisance for Mazar Residents
"We are fed up with these vehicles fitted with loudspeakers and making announcements all day" said Surat Mir, 24, owner of a carpet shop in Mazar-i-Sharif. Mir said the city already had a traffic problem and the election just made it worse. He said some of his customers would leave his shop when the vans were parked out in front... Other residents say the slogans are old fashioned and rhetoric.
Contrary to some of the rhetoric one hears in the US, most of the Afghans I've spoken to like the idea of democracy, civic participation and accountability in theory - provided it actually leads to stability and accomplishes something. But the lack of progress, and the amount of energy and money and noise that accompanies what passes for Afghan democracy is a little much for many people.
Likewise, most Afghans want their daughters educated, and it is painful to hear idiots in the US issuing blanket condemnations of Muslims as being against women's rights. But in Afghanistan, the issue of women's rights and women's education is deeply politicized. The Taliban attack women and those who assist them because they wish to incite fear of the west on the part of traditionalists, especially in the Pashtun community. We all know the parallels with the teabaggers and the anti "ground zero Mosque" crowd in the US who attempt to derive political support from fear of a "Muslim" takeover. Here it is exactly the same. Afghan women will not be pole-dancing or starting same-sex biker clubs anytime soon. Taliban propaganda of Western cultural domination is exaggerated but is arguably has more of a basis in reality than the insane ravings of Fox News about "triumph mosques" on the site of the WTC.
As many as 73 school girls and their teachers were taken to hospital on Wednesday in the capital Kabul in what authorities suspect is another incident of gas poisoning. Initially, a crime branch official told Pajhwok Afghan News that 41 girls at the Tawtia middle school had fallen ill. He said that someone had thrown a poisonous substance into the school at 9:45 AM although it was not immediately clear what that was.
In the interim, Afghan women and girls suffer - and will frankly suffer worse if the Taliban does dominate the government. Again, most Afghans would like their children - sons and daughters - to be educated, and not simply educated in "religion". The Taliban's version of the culture wars extends more generally to a war on education:
School Re-Opened After 3 Years
Kalat – A school that had been closed for three years due to security was reopened in the Dai Chopan district of southern Zabul province, an official said... The school was closed for three years for unknown reasons, residents of the area promised to keep the security of the schools in future... Only 40 of 190 schools are open in Zabul province because of security problems.
Let me end the diary with something redolent of the culture of this country. Birds appear frequently in Farsi poetry and sufi writings, and partridges in particular play a big role in traditional Afghan stories, songs and culture. There's something very Afghan about this news story, with it's undercurrent of amnesty during Ramadan:
140 partridgtes released in Samangan
Policemen in northern Samangan province have collected 140 partridges from bird sellers and released them into the air, officials said. Hunters gave partridges to traders for fighting and gambling... Brig. Gen. Abdul Razaq Elkhani said the partridges were released as a token of respect for the holy month of Ramadan. The hunters promised not to catch the birds anymore, he added.