Ghost money from MI6 and CIA may fuel Afghan corruption, say diplomats Failure of peace initiatives raises questions over whether British eagerness for political settlement may have been exploitedThe CIA and MI6 have regularly given large cash payments to Hamid Karzai's office with the aim of maintaining access to the Afghan leader and his top allies and officials, but the attempt to buy influence has largely failed and may have backfired, former diplomats and policy analysts say.The Guardian understands that the payments by British intelligence were on a smaller scale than the CIA's handouts, reported in the New York Times to have been in the tens of millions, and much of the British money has gone towards attempts to finance peace initiatives, which have so far proved abortive.That failure has raised questions among some British officials over whether eagerness to promote a political settlement may have been exploited by Afghan officials and self-styled intermediaries for the Taliban.Responding to the allegations while on a visit to Helsinki on Monday,
Afghanistan's web of intrigue is a poor basis on which to rebuild a nation The corruption and brutality associated with Hamid Karzai's government has become a major driver of the insurgencySpies are meant to do things in secret. Their job is to deal with characters too unsavoury for governments to do business with openly, in the search for life-saving information. By the nature of their business, spies pay for such services in untraceable cash rather than numbered bank accounts.What is alleged to exist in Afghanistan is something else, however – a shadow nation built up over more than a decade based on under-the-counter payments to unacknowledged partners, warlords and narco-traffickers.Those connections were first formed in 2001 with the aim of destroying al-Qaida, by ousting its hosts, the Taliban, and then by tracking down its leadership.The same aim drives a host of militias the CIA partners and manages across the country, such as the Kandahar Strike Force, formerly led by the Afghan president's late brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, and the Counterterrorism
Hamid Karzai orders ban on 'un-Islamic' shows on Afghan TV President issues vague decree after clerics complain that many stations air programmes that are 'counter to Islamic values'The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has heeded a call from a conservative clerical group to halt the broadcast of "un-Islamic" films and serials, issuing a vague decree that some see as a move to stifle debate before presidential elections next year or even to placate the Taliban.The Ulema Council complained to Karzai that there were "many TV stations that turn to vulgarisms and broadcast immoral programmes, which are counter to national interests and Islamic values".Karzai said in a statement: "The ministry of information and culture must prevent [television channels] from broadcasting programmes which are vulgar, obscene and un-Islamic and are counter to social morality."Over the past decade Afghanistan has experienced a boom in communications, after television was banned during the Taliban's five years of rule. Encouraged and sometimes funded by western governme
Karzai's CIA cash has long precedent in Afghanistan – and a simple solution | Nushin Arbabzadah Afghans would have to back their own state in order to change foreign powers' century-old system of buying leaders' loyaltyNews that President Karzai has admitted to his palace receiving regular payments from the CIA led to the usual reactions on social media. There was lethal anger as a deeply disappointed patriot declared:"Karzai should be hanged for this act of treason!"There was lighthearted comedy as another poster, referring to the phrase "the CIA dropped the money", drew the following conclusion: "anything that comes from the top must be a gift of god."In between these extreme reactions of anger and jest, there was the usual Afghan apathy smugly summed up: "As if we didn't know!"Many Afghans did probably suspect that such transactions were taking place between the CIA and the palace. After all, accusing all sorts of people of being in the pay of the CIA is a favorite national pastime and a key ingredient of the Afghans' favorite conspiracy theory – that in Afghanistan, after G
