Health & Fitness
United States Foreign Policy - Revelations About the Bizarre, Misguided Effort to Bribe the Afghan Leader
Ara the American People Willing to Accept that the Central Intelligence Agency Delivers Bags of Cash Totaling Millions of Dollars to a "Leader" Who Delights in Sticking His Thumb in Our Eye?
Among all of the bizarre actions which have constituted United States foreign policy throughout our history, one stands out today as particularly bizarre and counter-productive.
The New York Times has reported, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai has confirmed, that over the past ten years, he has directly received aid, often in the form of shopping bags full of money, from the Central Intelligence Agency, his take totaling tens of millions of dollars to this point. The purpose of the payoff has been a misguided effort to maintain influence over the man who is in office thanks to the monumental sacrifices of our soldiers and those of us that will someday pay the bill for the occupation, which was financed with hundreds of billions of dollars that have been borrowed.
Since details of the Central Intelligence Agency budget are classified information, the American citizen not only has no input into how money is spent, but has no way of knowing, at least until after the fact, how our valuable resources are being sqaundered.
I would first note that the Karzai governmen, our "ally", has been widely accused of corruption. How likely is it that our money, which Karzai says was devoted to "various purposes" has been used legitimately?
If our purpose in bribing Karzai was to keep him firmly implnated within the American sphere of influence, it has failed miserably. Karzai has enthusiastically stuck his thumb in the eye of his benefactor, most recently having made the vile accusation that we are in league with the Taliban, delighting in terrorist acts within his nation so that our troops will be seen as being needed there indefinitely.
Reports indicate that Karzai has also been accepting money from our arch-enemy, world terrorist threat Iran, playing both sides of the street.
If Hamid Karzai feels free to denigrate the United States at a time that we continue to maintain a large troop presence to protect him and his countrymen and women and to bribe him, imagine the extent to which he will turn against us as troops are drawn down and payments dry up.
Like most Americans, I supported our entry into Afghanistan to address those that declared war on us on 11 September 2001. The Afghan war and its aftermath, however, have turned into calamity, a condition which is no stranger to the United States.
