Afghanistan collapsed because corruption had hollowed out the state
The Afghan state was held together by theft, extortion and nepotism – at the highest levels
By Zack Kopplin: Zack Kopplin is an investigator at the Government Accountability Project
When the Taliban swept into Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, the militant group faced almost no resistance. The country’s now former president, Ashraf Ghani, fled to the United Arab Emirates, accused by one of his own ambassadors of stealing $169m (£123m) on his way out – and the Afghan military melted away without a fight. President Joe Biden blamed the Afghan people for the Taliban’s conquest. “We gave them every chance,” he said. “We couldn’t provide them the will to fight for their future.”
But blaming Afghan citizens, some of whom may be tortured or killed in the near future, for their country’s collapse is wrong and immoral. The Taliban victory is the product of the corruption and cronyism of elites – especially senior US military personnel and Afghan politicians.
Corruption in Afghanistan has long been an open secret among international observers and its own citizens. In 2020, Transparency International ranked Afghanistan among the top 20 most corrupt countries in the world. Reports of US government funds flowing into the pockets of warlords and criminal syndicates were common, while nepotism marred public trust in successive administrations. If the Afghan people – and its military – refused to fight for the state, it was, in part, because they had no faith in it.
One reason the Afghan military collapsed so quickly was because, in part, it did not actually exist. In July, President Biden claimed that the Afghan army had 300,000 troops, but the Pentagon knew those numbers were inflated. Afghan military commanders had been pocketing extra money allocated for fake soldiers. “The number of ghost personnel may go into the tens of thousands,” said John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction, in a 2017 speech. A West Point report, released in January, estimated the Afghan government had a real fighting force of only 96,000. And by the time Kabul fell, these soldiers were reportedly no longer receiving a salary, or even food.
Not only did the Afghan military exist largely on paper, but through US military contractors, the Pentagon was inadvertently financing the Taliban. A 2009 report in the Nation cited US military officials who estimated that between 10% and 20% of the money from Pentagon logistics contracts in Afghanistan – hundreds of millions of dollars – went to the Taliban. “Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, had alerted the American military to the problem,” reported the Nation. But 10 years later, the payments were allegedly still happening. In 2019, a group of families who had lost loved ones to the Taliban sued a different set of military contractors for allegedly paying off the Taliban. (The case is ongoing.)
Another stream of Taliban financing, facilitated by the Pentagon and Afghan elites, was the exploitation of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth.
In April, I co-authored an investigation for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) that implicated the Afghan president and his family in mining corruption, along with well-connected US military contractors.
Who’s to blame for the Afghanistan chaos? Remember the war’s cheerleaders George Monbiot
An estimated $1tn worth of minerals lies buried under the country’s surface. Before the Taliban takeover, Afghan law prohibited companies from buying minerals from small unregistered mines. One reason for this is because many of these mines were controlled by the Taliban, other terrorist groups, or local warlords. Buying from these mines meant financing the enemy. But our reporting found that there was one company that managed to get an exception to this rule, apparently with the approval of the office of President Ghani.
His office signed off on extralegal rights for the Afghan subsidiary of a US military contractor, SOS International (SOSi), to acquire chromite, a valuable component in stainless steel, from unlicensed mines in six Afghan provinces. The company built a factory outside Kabul and planned to crush and export the chromite.
SOSi is deeply tied to the American military and intelligence services. The company recruited heavily from the office of the former CIA director and top American commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, securing significant political heft in the process. “It’s an open secret that SOSi is essentially a front for the [US Department of Defense],” one high-ranking Afghan official told us.
But SOSi had an even more important connection. Our OCCRP investigation revealed that the president’s brother, Hashmat Ghani, owned 20% of SOSi’s subsidiary, according to confidential documents leaked from an Emirati secrecy haven.
Beyond any mineral money flowing to the Taliban, this deal reflects the broader reasons Afghanistan collapsed. Corruption hollowed out state institutions and left Afghan citizens unwilling to fight for a government that, just like the Taliban, abused its own people, although in this case through theft, extortion and nepotism rather than outright violence and repression.
But the SOSi deal does not just implicate the highest levels of the country’s government, but powerful Americans and US companies too.
The Afghan state and army was in large part a facade, held up only by the American occupation, and it’s no surprise that Afghans were unwilling to fight and die for it any longer. But its failure isn’t on them. Afghanistan fell because after looting all they could from the country, American and Afghan elites gave up and fled, leaving the Afghan people behind. Who would fight for a broken system?
全文译文, google translate, 稍加调整, 在我自己的回帖,
Afghanistan collapsed because corruption had hollowed out the state
The Afghan state was held together by theft, extortion and nepotism – at the highest levels
By Zack Kopplin: Zack Kopplin is an investigator at the Government Accountability Project
When the Taliban swept into Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, the militant group faced almost no resistance. The country’s now former president, Ashraf Ghani, fled to the United Arab Emirates, accused by one of his own ambassadors of stealing $169m (£123m) on his way out – and the Afghan military melted away without a fight. President Joe Biden blamed the Afghan people for the Taliban’s conquest. “We gave them every chance,” he said. “We couldn’t provide them the will to fight for their future.”
But blaming Afghan citizens, some of whom may be tortured or killed in the near future, for their country’s collapse is wrong and immoral. The Taliban victory is the product of the corruption and cronyism of elites – especially senior US military personnel and Afghan politicians.
Corruption in Afghanistan has long been an open secret among international observers and its own citizens. In 2020, Transparency International ranked Afghanistan among the top 20 most corrupt countries in the world. Reports of US government funds flowing into the pockets of warlords and criminal syndicates were common, while nepotism marred public trust in successive administrations. If the Afghan people – and its military – refused to fight for the state, it was, in part, because they had no faith in it.
One reason the Afghan military collapsed so quickly was because, in part, it did not actually exist. In July, President Biden claimed that the Afghan army had 300,000 troops, but the Pentagon knew those numbers were inflated. Afghan military commanders had been pocketing extra money allocated for fake soldiers. “The number of ghost personnel may go into the tens of thousands,” said John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction, in a 2017 speech. A West Point report, released in January, estimated the Afghan government had a real fighting force of only 96,000. And by the time Kabul fell, these soldiers were reportedly no longer receiving a salary, or even food.
Not only did the Afghan military exist largely on paper, but through US military contractors, the Pentagon was inadvertently financing the Taliban. A 2009 report in the Nation cited US military officials who estimated that between 10% and 20% of the money from Pentagon logistics contracts in Afghanistan – hundreds of millions of dollars – went to the Taliban. “Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, had alerted the American military to the problem,” reported the Nation. But 10 years later, the payments were allegedly still happening. In 2019, a group of families who had lost loved ones to the Taliban sued a different set of military contractors for allegedly paying off the Taliban. (The case is ongoing.)
Another stream of Taliban financing, facilitated by the Pentagon and Afghan elites, was the exploitation of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth.
In April, I co-authored an investigation for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) that implicated the Afghan president and his family in mining corruption, along with well-connected US military contractors.
Who’s to blame for the Afghanistan chaos? Remember the war’s cheerleaders George Monbiot
An estimated $1tn worth of minerals lies buried under the country’s surface. Before the Taliban takeover, Afghan law prohibited companies from buying minerals from small unregistered mines. One reason for this is because many of these mines were controlled by the Taliban, other terrorist groups, or local warlords. Buying from these mines meant financing the enemy. But our reporting found that there was one company that managed to get an exception to this rule, apparently with the approval of the office of President Ghani.
His office signed off on extralegal rights for the Afghan subsidiary of a US military contractor, SOS International (SOSi), to acquire chromite, a valuable component in stainless steel, from unlicensed mines in six Afghan provinces. The company built a factory outside Kabul and planned to crush and export the chromite.
SOSi is deeply tied to the American military and intelligence services. The company recruited heavily from the office of the former CIA director and top American commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, securing significant political heft in the process. “It’s an open secret that SOSi is essentially a front for the [US Department of Defense],” one high-ranking Afghan official told us.
But SOSi had an even more important connection. Our OCCRP investigation revealed that the president’s brother, Hashmat Ghani, owned 20% of SOSi’s subsidiary, according to confidential documents leaked from an Emirati secrecy haven.
Beyond any mineral money flowing to the Taliban, this deal reflects the broader reasons Afghanistan collapsed. Corruption hollowed out state institutions and left Afghan citizens unwilling to fight for a government that, just like the Taliban, abused its own people, although in this case through theft, extortion and nepotism rather than outright violence and repression.
But the SOSi deal does not just implicate the highest levels of the country’s government, but powerful Americans and US companies too.
The Afghan state and army was in large part a facade, held up only by the American occupation, and it’s no surprise that Afghans were unwilling to fight and die for it any longer. But its failure isn’t on them. Afghanistan fell because after looting all they could from the country, American and Afghan elites gave up and fled, leaving the Afghan people behind. Who would fight for a broken system?
我试试用google tralation翻译全文, 需要稍加修改, 相当通顺, 比阿菇的聪聪明明容易理解
原文链接在此: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/30/afghanistan-us-corruption-taliban
阿富汗因腐败掏空国家而崩溃,
作者: Zack Kopplin
Zack Kopplin 是政府问责项目的调查员
最高级别的盗窃、勒索和裙带关系使阿富汗国家团结在一起
当塔利班席卷阿富汗首都喀布尔时，该激进组织几乎没有遇到任何抵抗。该国现任前总统阿什拉夫·加尼逃往阿拉伯联合酋长国，他自己的一位大使指责他在出境时偷走了 1.69 亿美元（1.23 亿英镑）——阿富汗军队不战而散。乔拜登总统将塔利班的征服归咎于阿富汗人民。 “我们给了他们一切机会，”他说。 “我们无法为他们提供为未来而战的意愿。” 但是，将国家的崩溃归咎于阿富汗公民，其中一些人可能在不久的将来遭受酷刑或杀害，这是错误和不道德的。塔利班的胜利是精英腐败和任人唯亲的产物——尤其是美国高级军事人员和阿富汗政界人士。
阿富汗的腐败长期以来一直是国际观察员及其本国公民的公开秘密。 2020 年，透明国际将阿富汗列为世界上最腐败的 20 个国家之一。有关美国政府资金流入军阀和犯罪集团口袋的报道屡见不鲜，而裙带关系则损害了公众对历届政府的信任。如果阿富汗人民及其军队拒绝为国家而战，部分原因是他们对国家没有信心。
阿富汗军队如此迅速崩溃的一个原因是，部分原因是它实际上并不存在。 7 月，拜登总统声称阿富汗军队有 30 万人，但五角大楼知道这些数字被夸大了。阿富汗军事指挥官一直在为假冒士兵分配额外的钱。阿富汗重建特别监察长约翰索普科在 2017 年的一次演讲中说：“幽灵人员的数量可能会达到数万人。”一月份发布的西点军校报告估计，阿富汗政府的实际战斗力只有 96,000 人。到喀布尔沦陷时，据报道，这些士兵不再领取薪水，甚至食物。
不仅阿富汗军队主要存在于纸面上，而且通过美国军事承包商，五角大楼无意中资助了塔利班。 《国家》杂志 2009 年的一份报告援引美国军方官员的话估计，五角大楼在阿富汗的后勤合同中有 10% 到 20% 的资金——数亿美元——流向了塔利班。 “阿富汗的情报部门，国家安全局，已就这个问题向美国军方发出警告，”该国报道。但 10 年后，据称付款仍在发生。 2019 年，一群因塔利班失去亲人的家庭起诉另一组军事承包商，指控他们向塔利班付款。 （案件正在审理中。）
在五角大楼和阿富汗精英的推动下，塔利班的另一轮融资是开采阿富汗的矿产财富。 4 月，我与有组织的犯罪和腐败报告项目 (OCCRP) 合着了一项调查，该项目将阿富汗总统及其家人与关系密切的美国军事承包商牵涉到矿业腐败案。 谁应该为阿富汗的混乱负责？记住战争的啦啦队乔治·蒙比奥, 据估计，该国地表下埋藏着价值 1 万亿美元的矿产。在塔利班接管之前，阿富汗法律禁止公司从未注册的小型矿山购买矿物。原因之一是因为这些矿产中有许多是由塔利班、其他恐怖组织或当地军阀控制的。从这些矿山购买意味着资助敌人。但我们的报告发现，有一家公司设法获得了这条规则的例外，显然是得到了加尼总统办公室的批准。
他的办公室签署了美国军事承包商 SOS International (SOSi) 的阿富汗子公司从阿富汗六个省的无牌矿山获取铬铁矿的法外权利，铬铁矿是不锈钢的一种重要成分。该公司在喀布尔郊外建了一家工厂，并计划粉碎和出口铬铁矿。 SOSi 与美国军事和情报部门密切相关。该公司从前中央情报局局长和美国驻阿富汗最高指挥官大卫彼得雷乌斯将军的办公室大量招聘，在此过程中确保了重要的政治影响力。 “SOSi 本质上是 [美国国防部] 的前线，这是一个公开的秘密，”一位阿富汗高级官员告诉我们。 但 SOSi 有一个更重要的联系。根据从阿联酋保密港泄露的机密文件，我们的 OCCRP 调查显示，总统的兄弟 Hashmat Ghani 拥有 SOSi 子公司 20% 的股份。 除了流入塔利班的任何矿产资金外，这笔交易还反映了阿富汗崩溃的更广泛原因。腐败掏空了国家机构，让阿富汗公民不愿为一个像塔利班一样虐待本国人民的政府而战，尽管在这种情况下是通过盗窃、勒索和裙带关系，而不是彻底的暴力和镇压。
但 SOSi 交易不仅涉及该国政府的最高级别，还涉及强大的美国人和美国公司。 阿富汗国家和军队在很大程度上只是一个门面，只有美国占领才支持，因此阿富汗人不再愿意为之战斗和牺牲也就不足为奇了。但它的失败不在他们身上。阿富汗沦陷是因为美国和阿富汗的精英们在从该国掠夺了他们所能做的一切之后放弃并逃离，将阿富汗人民抛在后面。谁会为一个破碎的系统而战？