Notes From Afghanistan Part IV: Politics is Broken in Afghanistan

Edward Kenney
Afghanistan Study Group Blogger

Hamed, an Afghan journalist and good friend put it to me bluntly over dinner: “the government has lost the confidence of the Afghan people.”   Time and again Afghans, NGOs, and researchers have echoed Hamed’s sentiment.  What went wrong with the Afghan State and how can the U.S. rectify the situations?  The answer to these questions depends on where you sit.

Two NGOs working in Kabul the principal problem is one of government capacity.  The government, they say, simply does not have the ability to deliver the necessary services to its citizens.  The ministries have yet to appropriate funding towards projects such as building schools, digging wells and other development projects and even if the Afghan government were to succeed in freeing up more money, it is unclear that they have the technical expertise to complete these projects.   Exacerbating the problem is uncertainty over donor funding.  A vicious cycle occurs when the finance ministry under-budgets because he is unsure of development funds.  When donors, (read U.S. government) see that resources are unspent, funding is cut back creating more uncertainty for the ministry.

When government can’t attract the top talent, the results are poor, so in one sense, the disappointing results in governance are to be expected. One Afghan NGO worker said that he would make one-tenth what he earned if he were working for the government. This phenomenon filters down to two important state institutions, police and teachers.  In an earlier post I called the police “reviled”.  Perhaps a better term would be disrespected.  The ANP are viewed by most Afghans as the dregs of society—people who have few other options but to serve in the police.

For Afghan teachers, the quality of talent is similarly low.  Only students who score poorest on the university entrance exam become teachers. We discussed the teacher problem with Michael Blundell, who runs the Higher Education Project in Kabul. After confusing the Higher Education Project with a private school down the block labeled “institute for higher education”, we finally sat down with Blundell.  Our confusion over the “institute for higher education” was representative of the problem in education.  As Mr. Blundell pointed out, the proliferation of these unregulated institutes have further drained the regulated public schools of resources and trained teachers.

The capacity problem is real, but as an explanation for our currently security woes…something didn’t add up.  For one thing, it’s not like the Taliban are rushing out to build schools and dig wells.  Quite the contrary; the Taliban view economic development in government-controlled areas as a threat to their mission.  If the government controlled areas look stable, peaceful, and developed the government looks good—and that’s bad for the Taliban.  For this reason (among others) NGO’s are targeted by the insurgency.  But if services weren’t the problem, then how was bad governance driving the insurgency?  The answer to this question could only be answered by talking with Afghans who had lived through Afghanistan’s turbulent past.

Over the last week we have been staying with a pair of Afghan professionals and an Iranian exchange student, who graciously allowed us to set up a tent in their back yard.  One night, one of our hosts, a civil engineering student at Kabul University described the American mentality towards Afghan history—a mentality which has blinded us to potential governance problems:  When Americans talk about Afghanistan’s recent history, they know about the Communist period and Taliban period, but no one ever talks about the Mujaheddin period in between these two regimes from the fall of Najibullah in 1992 to 1996.

This five-year “mujahidin nights” period is viewed universally as the worst period in Afghan history.  Factions in Kabul lobbed mortars from hills utterly destroying the city.  In Kandahar armed warlords and militias ruled the countryside.  Many of these warlords are back.  Gul Agha Sherzai who was governor of Kandahar during “mujahidin nights” period is governor of Nangarhar, and there are strong rumors he is headed back to Kandahar.  Tajik Muhammad Atta Noor and Uzbek Rashid Dostum, warlords from the Northern Afghanistan hold important positions within the government (governor of Balkh and chief of the army, respectively—as does Abdul Malek Palahwan the rival Uzbek warlord, who invited the Taliban into Mazar-e-Sharif (a revenge against Dostum who had killed Malek’s brother).

These warlords represent the tip of the iceberg.  Almost all have private militias that could threaten the state.  Karzai, when confronted by potential rivals has repeatedly backed down.  As an example, some Afghans we talked to were shocked that Noor remained governor of Balkh province (a position appointed by Karzai) after he openly backed Karzai’s rival Dr Abdullah in the election.  Whether he intended to or not, Karzai’s decision projected weakness.

Added into this warlord mix are U.S. backed armed local militias from the Afghan Local Police (ALP) program.  Unsurprisingly, there are already reports of huge ALP abuses.  Even less surprising, it has proven utterly impossible to distinguish between the ALP (good militias!) and warlord (bad militias).  The NGO community may be in a position to monitor these forces, but for obvious security reasons have chosen not to step in.  As a result, there has been no accountability.

The Taliban have also profited from a rotten judiciary system, which the warlords have established.  The very people whose job it is to uphold the law, continue to steal property and go unpunished.  The one government service the Taliban have been able to establish in the countryside is law and order.  According to Martine van Bijlert of the Afghan Analyst Network, the laws and rules established by the insurgency are brutal, but at least there is in order to what they do.  In contrast, the government has presided over increasing anarchy—where the strong take what they can and the weak suffer what they must—a system of governance in other words, reminiscent of the Mujahidin period.

The Taliban have cemented this reformist message with clever propaganda, utilizing Afghans strong Islamic beliefs.  The government, according to a reporter from Wardak, is viewed as un-Islamic due to their corruption, lifestyle of extravagant parties, not to mention their ties to American occupying forces.  To the extent that the Taliban’s message has filtered down to the Afghan people and is now accepted by even non-Talibs, this is monumental failure of both the Afghan government and the U.S government.

What can be done about the problem of Afghan governance?  This subject will be covered in a later post, but let me just conclude by saying that for all the effort put into building Afghan capacity to deliver services, the most important government function—the establishment of law and order remains lacking.

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