Afghanistan’s Other Front

Allegations of ballot-stuffing in the presidential election in Afghanistan last month are now so widespread that a recount is necessary, and perhaps even a runoff. Yet this electoral chicanery pales in comparison to the systemic, day-to-day corruption within the administration of President Hamid Karzai, who has claimed victory in the election. Without a concerted campaign to fight this pervasive venality, all our efforts there, including the sending of additional troops, will be in vain.

I have just returned from Afghanistan, where I spent seven months as a special adviser to NATO’s director of communications. On listening tours across the country, we left behind the official procession of armored S.U.V.’s, bristling guns and imposing flak jackets that too often encumber coalition forces when they arrive in local villages. Dressed in civilian clothes and driven in ordinary cars, we were able to move around in a manner less likely to intimidate and more likely to elicit candor.

The recurring complaint I heard from Afghans centered on the untenable encroachment of government corruption into their daily lives — the homeowner who has to pay a bribe to get connected to the sewage system, the defendant who tenders payment to a judge for a favorable verdict. People were so incensed with the current government’s misdeeds that I often heard the disturbing refrain: “If Karzai is re-elected, then I am going to join the Taliban.”

If there is any entity more reviled in Afghanistan than the Karzai government and coalition forces, it is the Taliban, so I never took these desperate exclamations to be literally true. But these outbursts reveal a disgust with the current government so pronounced it cannot be dismissed. And the international community’s reluctance to fight corruption head-on has inextricably linked it with the despised administration. As we continue to give unequivocal support to a crooked government, our credibility is greatly diminished and the difficulty of our mission greatly increased.

Forcing a change in the endemic culture of corruption cannot be an afterthought. It must be the priority of the international forces, oversight agencies and countries that have invested so much blood and treasure in Afghanistan. How, then, do we go about it?

First, a document clearly outlining both a code of government conduct and a plan to combat corruption must be signed by all significant actors in the region. The Afghan government’s reluctance to make such a commitment in a meaningful manner must be overcome by relentless pressure from the international community. The government must be made to understand that this is an essential condition for continued support — as fundamental as its help in hunting down the enemy.

There also need to be viable mechanisms for the population to report corruption. They could take a number of forms: ombudsmen committees that would travel throughout the countryside, or phone lines and drop boxes that could collect complaints while protecting the whistleblowers.

Even the Taliban understand the need for an outlet to expose government misconduct: according to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, in an article he wrote for Joint Force Quarterly, the Taliban, despite their astonishing brutality, have begun to “allow people to file formal complaints against local Talib leaders.”

We must ensure that credible complaints are reported up the chain of command, both Afghan and international, and investigated thoroughly instead of vanishing thanks to some political or personal favor. Ultimately this process should be monitored by an anti-corruption unit of the Afghan national police and prosecuted by the Afghan attorney general’s office; but just as international forces provide direction, training and oversight to local military operations, so too the international community must be closely involved with, even leading as necessary, anti-corruption efforts until Afghan bodies are able to do so alone.

Of course, there must also be consequences for inaction: we must withhold reconstruction dollars and financial support from those districts or government agencies that do not meet the agreed-upon goals for transparency and accountability.

Finally, when judging the success of efforts to combat corruption we must do so from the point of view of ordinary Afghans. For instance, how many times is a truck driver transporting cargo from Herat to Kabul forced to stop and hand over a bribe at police “checkpoints”? Or how many palms must a local businessman grease to win a government reconstruction contract? By simply observing daily tasks that have thus far been obstacle courses of graft we can begin to see how the battle against corruption is progressing.

Afghans’ lack of faith in their government is as damaging as the armed insurgency. Indeed, our failure to combat corruption not only undermines our efforts to build governmental institutions deserving of the confidence and support of the Afghan people, but also threatens all our labors in their country.

Joseph Kearns Goodwin, a captain in the Army and served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.