Afghanistan: Karzai a Problem or Solution?

Recent Vote Highlights Wide-Ranging Allegations of Corruption against U.S.-Backed President

(CBS)  One of the biggest challenges President Obama faces in charting a future for the war in Afghanistan is that country's troubled leadership.

Hamid Karzai presides over a government that's been called everything from inept to corrupt - a far cry from when he first took office, reports "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric.

When Hamid Karzai became the interim president of Afghanistan in 2001, there were great expectations that he would be an honest leader.

"A majority of Afghans, including some people in the Taliban thought Karzai was the right person to lead the country towards peace and stability," said Michael Semple of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government

But eight years later, both Karzai's people and his allies worry he's anything but honest.

"Now people seem to be deeply disappointed," Semple said. "He's failed as a leader and presides over a corrupt administration."

Video: Katie Couric Reports on Karzai's Leadership

CBS News Special Report: The Road Ahead

When Karzai sought his second reelection to the presidency, he chose Marshal Fahim as a running mate. Fahim is believed to be a drug dealer and a war lord.

"The coalition that Karzai put together to support him in this election drew on, frankly, some of the worst elements of recent Afghan history," said John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security.

When the election was held in August, there were so many reports of fraud committed by Karzai's supporters that a massive recount and U.N. investigation are underway. His opponent Dr. Abdullah Abdullah refuses to concede.

"I think had he had the best interest of Afghanistan in his heart he would have respected the law of the country, the constitution, the electoral law," Abdullah said.

There are also accusations that Karzai's own brother is linked to the drug trade. He's the leader of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, the region producing 90 percent of the world's opium and heroin.

"There's no security and it seems that the mafia has more to say about what goes on in the presidential palace than the people," Semple said.

The commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, admits all of these allegations of corruption in the government make his job harder.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin asked McChrystal whether the corruption drives people into the arms of the Taliban?

"It absolutely does," McChrystal said. "A lack of trust in their government undercuts the willingness to support their government."

Related: McChrystal on "60 Minutes"

And if the Afghan people don't support their government, they might not want to sign up and join an army to defend it - making it all the more uncertain how much longer U.S. forces will stay.

"I'm not gonna you know, put on a happy face and say, oh yeah, well, we'll get that done in a year or two," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. "This is hard work. And it requires having a government that has the trust, the confidence and the loyalty of the security forces."

More special coverage on CBSNews.com:

Marines in Afghanistan: A Day in the Life
Taliban Gaining Firepower and Confidence
Battle of Wanat - Inside the Ambush
Afghanistan, 8 Years In: How We Got Here
McCain, Kerry Answer Key Questions on Afghanistan
Public's Views of Afghanistan War Have Turned Sour

[hungry1968-16]

by underdogus09 October 8, 2009 9:03 AM EDT
Moscow and Tehran are benefiting. US government know very well the Kabul government is under the control of people linked to Iran and Russia.






And since it was Bush that installed Karzi as the president, it MUST be his fault, right?

[underdogus09]

Moscow and Tehran are benefiting. US government know very well the Kabul government is under the control of people linked to Iran and Russia.

[hungry1968-16]

by underdogus09 October 8, 2009 8:41 AM EDT
Moscow and Tehran have already congratulated Karzai for winning!!






What a coincidence!!

So did Bush!

[hungry1968-16]

This is what happens when you install "democracy" on a nation of people, that don't believe in the concept.

[sjc_1]

I think they believe in democracy, they just do not want corruption. This is the same with us in the U.S. The system of corporate campaign contributions is a built in system of getting favors. We put up with it, but we should not.

[underdogus09]

Moscow and Tehran have already congratulated Karzai for winning!!

[finkfust]

He was installed by America, so whether he's a problem or a solution, he's AMERICA'S problem or solution in Afghanistan. Good luck to the Afghan people......... they need it!

[clancy49]

Does anyone truly believe our government isn't just as corrupt? Wasn't our election just as bought? Haven't our elections be just as bought? He is in league with drugs, crime, corruption. Our leaders are the same. How many House Representatives and Senators State and Federal have been caught in scandals of money laundering, sex, drugs, and political corruption. Just like Letterman, the U.S. media shouldn't throw bricks if they live in a glass house.

[edgy44]

Karzai thinks he's the King. That's why he wears the funny hat. He takes the U.S. Treasury and funds anyone who will pledge not to kill him. Those pledges are of course crooks. He needs to get run over accidently by a USA tank.

[newsworthy8]

This dude is a big problem for the USA..get rid of him and then carry on, if the drug trade is not stopped then get the hell out of there..why are we placing our troops at risk for a bunch of druggies over there????

[TrishaL59]

A recent report on controversy within the last elections to take place in Afghanistan. An observer from the United Nations was shocked that Hamid Karzai got the support of great number of 120,000 voters that voted him in. The observers counted on purpose the number of voters to come in at all the ballot boxes. Only 38,000 turned out to have crossed the doors to cast their ballots...

The last elections are rigged and no one can say a word about it....

[gordon_geeko]

When is the last time the US government was able to pick the leader of a 3rd world government (excuse me, developing nation) who wasn't corrupt, unpopular with their own people, or had a hidden agenda that didn't suit our goals? Even the initial leaders of post-war Germany and Japan were warmed-over Nazis and Japanese Imperialists. Their economies were dependent on us for years after the war, and they were just as educated and modernized as we were before the war. Afghanistan hasn't changed much since Alexander the Great stopped by. The best you can hope for is a transition to democracy like Turkey's in the 1920's. The ethnic minorities of Turkey would tell you that didn't go well for everyone involved. The only way to stop Al Qaida from gaining a base in Afghanistan is to focus entirely on that problem instead of trying to nationbuild, whatever that is. Nations build themselves when they're ready to do so.

[sjc_1]

The Republicans have the idea of the "good" dictator. That is any dictator that agrees with them. A Republic is any form of government that is not a monarchy, that includes dictatorships. Bush was quoted as saying "I don't mind dictatorships if I am the dictator". That should tell you a lot.

[bajajohn1]

You are probably right. We can not bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age because they already are in the Stone Age

[jwesel1]

US goal has always been to plunder the resources of developing countries. They just need to do it by proxy by first installing a CEO there to do the dirty work for them, e.g. Musharraf, Karzai, etc. The only country they couldn't do this is Iran, hence you have daily threat against their government.

[pensacola8-2009]

Neither the British nor the Russians could do anything with the savage barbaric tribes of the region. Neither can we. We must leave.

We have an economic recovery to nurse.

The longer we stay, the more we teach our opponents about how to attack us.

So far, we taught them about remotely piloted vehicles, effective night vision tactics, and more efficient use of pshychologic war tactics....

We should leave as soon as possible. Secretary Gates should be relieved and replaced with sequester orders imposed upon him.

[lami987]

There is nothing wrong in opium or guns. People are to blame in both cases. We shouldn't stop Afgans from planting opium and selling it. Neither should we stop our gun dealers from selling guns in the US. We can never succeed by having two different standards, one for guns and the other for drugs. We do need to regulate the sale of drugs just like we have for guns.

[bubbadubba]

Karzai is a gadfly and a weak Bush installed puppet.
They need a real leader in Afghanistan, someone who is not there to help the oil companies.

[stychokiller]

Call me cynical, but the best thing that the US can do re: Afghanistan is to bribe around two dozen local chieftains to the tune of around $1Billion apiece to rule their own piece of Afghanistan. They can use the money to buy all the weapons they need to defend their part of the country (from us of course!).
It's time to acknowledge reality and admit that some countries are just not worth saving. Sell'em guns and seal the borders - let them kill each other, as they've been doing for hundreds of years. They'll stay busy fighting amongst themselves and leave the rest of the civilized world alone. If they should try to organize another Taliban regime, then go in and bust up their government again, but don't waste time, money and blood trying to civilize these people.

[wdh3007]

Karzai is not a solution and seems to be more of a problem he needs to be more like Musharaff was in Pakistan but he is to passive & subtle and that means no progress in fighting those upfront who want to take over your country and kill you.

[bajajohn1]

Thought here are that our effort will fail, with or without more troops, simply because our so-called NATO allies are not more fully engaged with combat troops. While Europe's currency is kicking the dollar's butt, our treasury is spending money on a war that we have to fight alone. We must remember this next time Europe is in great distress and genocide occurs like in Serbia

[eyesopenwide]

I find it interesting that so many folks have bought into the flimsy rationale for these illegal wars conjured up in a broad money-making conspiracy involving the Bush/Cheney crime syndicate (with the Carlyle Group and Halliburton) raking in billions in blood money profits. (Making a killing, literally).

Even if you believe the fairy-tale-huckster official explanation of 911, 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudia Arabian, but yet we attacked Iraq and Afghanistan. Why?

Because Afghanistan is the spot the major players in the oil and natural gas industries, Unocal, Exxon, etc. have decided to put oil and natural gas pipelines, thus solidifying their hold on mid-east supplies and putting them in a position to control these natural resources on into the foreseeable future. You do remember the Taliban leaders visiting Bush in the White House in the summer of 01, don?t you?

The Bush Family has a major stake in the Carlyle Group and Unocal, which is why they installed a past director of Unocal as their puppet president in Afghanistan, to try and insure protection for their pipelines, which are worth potentially trillions of dollars in profits. And don?t be naïve enough to think that just because they?re not holding elected office, that they aren?t still pulling the strings.

962 publicly repeated lies (wmd, wmd, they even showed us satellite photos of the exact locations) ought to be enough for most intelligent folks to figure out that something is very wrong with all of this.

Rather than sending more of our sons and daughters to get churned up in this blood money-making scheme, or put another way, SACRIFICED ON THE ALTAR OF GREED, we need to be reinvestigating 911, we need to be holding war-crime/genocide trials for the entire Bush/Cheney crime syndicate, and we need to demand that Mr. Obama follow through on his campaign pledge to stop this insanity.

Even if you've bought hook, line, and sinker, the bizarre physics-defying explanation of the events of 911, that cave men with razor blades defeated the greatest military ever assembled, (rofl) you should be intelligent enough to understand that we're literally creating entire generations of new terrorists by bombing the hundreds of thousands of innocents caught up in this blood-for-oil man-made catastrophe. But then, that would fit right in with Darth the Cheney's scheme for never ending war for never ending profits while they steal away our rights and freedoms in the name of protecting us from the boogeyman. Don't believe a word of it.

The blood of a million human beings, many or most innocent woman and children, is now on our hands.

We might as well be chasing Emmanuel Goldstein. Oh that?s right we are, because we've always been at war with Eurasia.

Stop the war, start the war-crime trials, or welcome to 1984.

[us_1776]

eyeswideopen, your post nails it.

[boatdocster]

Thanks for an excellent post. I'll never understand why the far right was so quick to buy off on Bush's "bait and switch". Saudi Arabians attacked us; not Afghans, not Iraqis. However, via the peanut brain of GWB and his handlers (KBR, Oil, Halliburton, Dicckk Cheney) we attack 2 other sovereign nations that neither attacked us or threatened us. 9 years later, 2 trillion dollars spent and nothing to show for it except access to oil wells in Iraq and pipelines in Afghanistan. Little wonder the L. Paul Bremer very quickly repaired the pipelines in Iraq after Saddam's ouster, but the meters to account for oil stayed broken for another 5 years!!!

GOP logic at its best.

[AOCGUY]

Let us not forget that the stated purpose going into Afghanistan was not to punish the nation led by the Taliban but to arrest Bin Laden, who by his own admission ordereed and planned the attacks of 911. Had the Taliban extradited Bin Laden as requested by the US government, the Taliban would still be in power and we would not be there.

It is unrealistic to take the position that governments do not have the right to pursue criminals who have murdered its citizens. If fact protection of its citizens is the prime purpose of any legitimate government. Ideally legitimate governments respect that right and cooperate in the pursuit and prosecution of criminals. The Taliban failed in that and have paid the price for their decision.

[AOCGUY]

Just because Saudi citizens commit crimes against US citizens it does not mean that the nation of Saudi Arabia either condoned nor is responsible for those crimes. Since the criminals involved were in Afghanistan not Saudi Arabia it would have made no sense to attack Saudi Arabia.

[finkfust]

AOCGUY - No you're wrong. Most of them never went to Afghanistan, but almost all of them DID go to Saudi Arabia at some time.

[armyoftwelve]

At this point karzai is a total problem. However, we can't just overthrow him-so we have to walk a find line and develop relationships with other parts of the government that aren't dependant on him.

[bajajohn1]

The real problem if corruption charges prove false, is the 'appearance of impropriety' on the part of Karzai. Just that minimalist doubt in the mind of the public is enough to hamper progress in both the police action and nation-building effort as presently conceived. Maybe Karzai can be paid-off or forced to resign.

[brianbwb-2009]

When Bush topples the legitimate government, and installs ex-unocal coffee boy Karzai to sign his pipeline deal and nothing more, what can one expect, other than ineptitude and corruption?

Rigging elections is only to be expected from anyone backed by the Bush administration.

bapajohn, there is no way the charges can be proved false, the corruption is evident to everyone, from the opium dealers to the merchants, to the children going to school, their so-called "leader" allows a hostile foreign power to kill its citizens, and sides with the invaders, no more proof is needed.

Minutes after the US does finally pull out, and we will, as we will have no choice, Karzai is a dead man, and he knows it, his only hope is to try to make it out of the country and go back to work for Unocal before that happens.

I don't feel sorry for him, with eyes wide open, he made his deal with his devil, and it will be his price to pay.