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Karzai's Lip Service on Corruption (#369)
Watch Video | | July 26, 2010 | |
| Madam Speaker, I think we have seen this movie before.
Last week, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, before an audience of international leaders on whose support he depends, pledged to root out corruption, implement reforms and run a better government, but we heard the same promises at an earlier conference this January ;and we heard them again when President Karzai came to Washington for a state visit in May. There seems to be little accountability when he fails to keep his word, as he never comes away from any of these gatherings with more than a slap on the wrist, if that.
If Mr. Karzai is serious about cracking down, why doesn't he start by reining in his own brother, a strongman who rules Kandahar with iron-fisted intimidation? What does President Karzai have to say about the fact that billions of dollars in cash have been flown out of Kabul Airport in the last few years?
Lip service and vague promises are really not enough, Madam Speaker. What is sustaining the Taliban more than anything else is the Afghanistan Government's failure to have any competency or legitimacy. No one is more frustrated than the Afghan people, who voiced their displeasure with government corruption in a recent survey conducted by an Afghan watchdog group.
Bribery shakedowns are increasingly seen as a way of life. The cost of securing basic services from the government depends on paying somebody off. Even when the government isn't dishonest, it is slow and ineffective. Embarrassingly, in the provinces where they have established a foothold, the Taliban runs a tighter ship than does the Afghan Government, doing a competent job of making the trains run on time.
This cannot go on, Madam Speaker. Our continued support for a feckless regime is eroding our national credibility. The American people, who are fighting off a recession and who are badly in need of the money right here at home, resent sending that money to Afghanistan. They can't be expected to keep on doing this. They can't be expected to keep giving their bravest young people and their hard-earned tax dollars to prop up leaders who have no ability to govern responsibly.
Yet, even as skepticism about the war in Afghanistan grows here in our country, our leaders could be going in the opposite direction. There is legitimate concern that they might be going wobbly on the commitment to start the military redeployment out of Afghanistan 1 year from now.
At the conference in Kabul, Secretary of State Clinton said that the July 2011 date represented the start of a new phase, not the end of our involvement. She added that the United States has ``no intention of abandoning our long-term mission of achieving a stable, secure, peaceful Afghanistan.''
Well, Madam Speaker, if the Secretary means that we would achieve that mission with civilian resources--a Smart Security strategy which is focused on development projects, on humanitarian aid and on more support for anti-corruption efforts--then count me in, but if she means that our military commitment and occupation to Afghanistan will extend well beyond next summer, I think the American people will have something to say about that. In fact, they are saying it now. They are saying it loud and clear.
We have sacrificed enough for a failed war. It is time to bring our troops home. |
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