Community | October 27, 2009 | 17 comments

Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html?hp

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KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.

The ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration. The critics say the ties complicate America’s increasingly tense relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who has struggled to build sustained popularity among Afghans and has long been portrayed by the Taliban as an American puppet. The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.

More broadly, some American officials argue that the reliance on Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful figure in a large swath of southern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is strongest, undermines the American push to develop an effective central government that can maintain law and order and eventually allow the United States to withdraw.

“If we are going to conduct a population-centric strategy in Afghanistan, and we are perceived as backing thugs, then we are just undermining ourselves,” said Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the senior American military intelligence official in Afghanistan.

Ahmed Wali Karzai said in an interview that he cooperates with American civilian and military officials, but does not engage in the drug trade and does not receive payments from the C.I.A.
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17 comments // Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll

  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • Image

    • Occupiers involved in drug trade: Afghan minister
      http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=110130&sectionid=351020403

      General Khodaidad Khodaidad said the majority of drugs are stockpiled in two provinces controlled by troops from the US, the UK, and Canada, IRNA reported on Saturday.

      Afghanistan is the world's biggest supplier of opium.

      Drug production in the Central Asian country has increased dramatically since the US-led invasion eight years ago.

      A recent report by the United Nations states that Afghan opium is having a devastating impact on the world, killing thousands in consumer countries.

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • Malalai Joya, one of Afghanistan’s leading democracy activists. In 2005, she became the youngest person ever elected to the Afghan parliament. She was suspended in 2007 for her denunciation of warlords and their cronies in government. She has just written her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out.

      AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about the latest news, Malalai Joya, about the brother of Hamid Karzai, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the New York Times revealing today that Ahmed has been on the CIA payroll for much of the past eight years. Who is he?

      MALALAI JOYA: You know, my people call him “Small Bush” in Kandahar province, this brother of Hamid Karzai. But he’s—this is not the first time that New York Times wrote. Recently also, I wrote that he’s a famous drug trafficker. And many others who have high posts in Karzai’s government, sometimes his ministers, expose each other that they—for persons who had high posts in Karzai government, they are drug traffickers. And the government says stop planting of opium, but the governor commanders of the same province is drug traffickers.

      This eight years, $36 billion the government of Afghanistan received, while they themselves give report. Most of this money went into pocket of warlords, drug lords, [inaudible] lords, these donors and officials themselves. And at least this example should be in of that right now. Even some important media is writing and sometimes exposing these drug lords and these warlords in Afghanistan, that right now I say that, for example, brother of Hamid Karzai is receiving millions of dollars through dirty business of opium.

      And this was the main project of the CIA in Afghanistan, that under the banner of women rights, human rights, democracy, they occupied my country. They imposed these terrorists, blood and creed of the Taliban, on my people. And also they changed my country to the center of drug. Only [inaudible] have to know about the deep tragedy of Afghanistan and wrong policy of the US, that even UN gave report, that recent report of the UN. Right now—oh, my god, I think you also got this report. Anyway, that right now, as I said, that they changed Afghanistan to the center of drug. They received millions of dollars that has been looted. Situation of women is getting worse. And security, how much important—day by day, it’s worse for my people, especially for the women. And that’s why, because of all of these main reasons, we—day by day, we say this is the mockery of democracy and mockery of war on terror.
      http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/28/a_woman_among_warlords_afghan_democracy

      Enemies of Happiness
      http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/309/

      WAS THAT CLEAR ENOUGH ;)

    • 2 years ago
  • artemis6
    • 0
      artemis6  

    • It was we who bombed civilian targets . We should rebuild their infrastructure . Aiding warlords was only good for the corporate strategy of stealing resources at low prices . We should undo the harm we have done , but I am not holding my breath . Even if my vote never counts again , I will not willingly vote for another corporate lackey .

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • Image

    • MEANWHILE...

      A WOMAN AMONG WARLORDS

      Known as the "most famous woman in Afghanistan," dissident parliamentarian Malalai Joya returns to the US, this time to share her new political memoir, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice, co-written with Derrick O'Keefe.
      http://afghanwomensmission.org/index.php

      For most Afghan women like Zoya, the past eight years of US occupation have legitimized criminal warlords and a corrupt government, resulted in thousands of bombing deaths of civilians, and consequently strengthened the Taliban. While women gained some rights on paper in the nation’s new constitution, in practice more women are being imprisoned, committing suicide, suffering rapes, and other abuses than ever before.

      This summer’s embarrassingly fraudulent presidential election was seen by a vast majority of Afghans as a debacle of democracy. Education, employment and health indicators all point to a nation whose women are possibly worse off than under Taliban rule.
      http://afghanwomensmission.org/press_releases/index.php?articleID=86

      A FEMINIST CASE FOR WAR ?

      To a large degree, the answer depends on whether one believes that the American military can be a force for humanitarianism. After the last eight years, that's a hard faith to sustain. Staying in Afghanistan seems indefensible. The trouble is, so does leaving.

      "Women for Afghan Women deeply regrets having a position in favor of maintaining, even increasing troops," it said in a recent statement. "We are not advocates for war, and conditions did not have to reach this dire point, but we believe that withdrawing troops means abandoning 15 million women and children to madmen who will sacrifice them to their lust for power."
      http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=a_feminist_case_for_war

      'Code Pink' rethinks its call for Afghanistan pullout
      In Afghanistan, the US women's activist group finds that their Afghan counterparts want US troop presence – as well as more reconstruction. http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1006/p06s10-wosc.html

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • Rachel nails it with Tim Weiner about Karzai's brother, stolen elections, the CIA and U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

      Books by Wiener
      Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
      http://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/legacyofashes/index.htm

      Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget
      http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/pentagons-black-budget-grows-to-more-tha...

      The more things change ;)

      "The plutocrats believe there are some things worse than war: the confiscation of special privileges; the abolition of unearned income; the overthrow of the economic parasitism; the establishment of industrial democracy. The plutocrats would welcome a war that promised salvation from any such calamities; they would also welcome a war that promised greater foreign markets, the destruction of foreign competition, more security for property rights and a longer lease on life for plutocratic despotism." - Scott Nearing — 1917

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • vesher
  • vladbox
    • 0
      vladbox  

    • What baffles me is that people in the US still believes this is a war on terror "for freedom and democracy" Theses soldiers are nothing but private guards for the heroin and opium trades, which profits may be financing another underwar. May be for oil. I'd say watch Colombia.

    • 2 years ago
  • RaceBannon
  • WhiteNoise
  • FoosMaster
  • Kay_Bee
  • Prijedor
    • 0
      Prijedor  

    • actually most of their gov. officials work for us, why is this a surprise to anyone?
      afghanistan is also not the only country we own and we do it all for the corporations

    • 2 years ago
  • J_Jammer
  • JeremyTG77
  • Progresshiv
    • 0
      Progresshiv  

    • The U.S. economy is buoyed by liars, cheats, and killers worldwide. We don't have tile-roofed suburbs because God likes us better.

      No, I don't want to live somewhere else, and I don't hate America. I am simply a product of what was once a first-rate public school system which taught me to respect the truth.

    • 2 years ago
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