What is the reality of corruption charges against the Afghan government?

By Syrializm Analytics

 

Charges of corruption and theft of Western support funds for Afghanistan have returned to pursue the Afghan government, headed by President Ashraf Ghani and some members of his government.

The United States accuses the Afghan government of failing to tolerate the fight against corruption and has announced a suspension of direct aid to Afghanistan worth more than $ 160 million ahead of the presidential election in September.

Of course, we cannot deny or confirm the US accusations against the Afghan government and President Ashraf Ghani, who remained in power after the elections in September, which is at least shows that the man is still working despite all these accusations.

How did he survive despite US accusations of corruption and, in fact of, weak public support due to corruption?

At first, it is quite natural that there is corruption in Afghanistan, a country that has been plagued by blood, devastation and war for decades, without forgetting the opium cultivation in this country.

With the same names that have been circulating since the Afghan wars of the 80s since the Soviet Union and post-civil war until the Taliban came to power and toppled later after the US intervention after September 11, 2001.

All these details have a role in shaping the reality of what is happening in this country, as still reeling under the pressure of fighting, insecurity and deteriorating economic situation.

The United States insists on imposing its vision in the country and its willingness to do things, although it has announced through the administrations of Barack Obama and current President Donald Trump that it is necessary to get out of the country and leave it to its destiny, without achieving anything tangible to stop the chaos in the country.

The fact, that on the ground, there is an elected government and authorities in the country facing the Taliban and ISIS.

Those who look at the map of Afghanistan realize that the United States in practice has only made matters worse in the country, which confirms that its intervention was essentially only to gain a foothold in a dangerous and important area for the United States in terms of proximity to countries that are considered the adversaries of the United States, represented by China and Russia, without forgetting Iran, which has long land borders with Afghanistan.

We may discover that one of the reasons that the United States is angry with the government of President Ghani, because he’s recently showed attention of dealing with Iran to discuss many topics that concern the future of Afghanistan and its economy.

Afghanistan is also on China’s trade route to the world, which is the American nightmare that the United States is actually trying to abort, and of course this line has a corridor from that country, and therefore the question of the stability of Afghanistan is a regional demand, and certainly the United States doesn’t want to.

Of course, if the US emerges from Afghanistan in a virtual defeat, it means that the Afghan government will naturally cooperate with China, Iran and even Russia in the country’s interest, as the United States has long sought a Qatari-sponsored Taliban deal, which stopped a while ago, with the return talk about the possibility of return to this talk, which already reached almost to agreement.

The problem here is that the United States is doing it without taking into account the future of the Afghan government and what future relationship will govern life in this country through the presence of the Taliban on the ground with the Afghan government, and therefore, talk about the corruption of the Afghan government, at this time is only a door Pressure.

Corruption in a country where the United States intervened militarily is everywhere the United States intervened militarily.

Iraq here is a clear and close example of Afghanistan, there are many rulers and officials accused of corruption and theft of public funds, which is the same in Afghanistan.

But the reality of what is going on in Afghanistan, US and Western accusations, in theory is nothing but a right word to be false.

Earlier, during the presidential election last September, US Ambassador to Afghanistan John Bass attacked President Ashraf Ghani for criticizing the work and style of the US aid agency Washington offered to his country, describing its work as incompetent.

The criticism of the US ambassador to the Afghan president took place one day before the presidential elections last September, which Ghani succeeded to remain President for a new term.

Ambassador Bass twitted “We’re angry that President Ashraf Ghani has overlooked the excellent work of the US Agency for International Development”.

The ambassador listed the agency’s series of projects, including helping Afghan women start their own businesses, training midwives and improving power plants in the country.

Foreign aid still accounts for more than half of Afghanistan’s budget, and donors are skeptical of its effectiveness, and most funding pledges are valid until 2020.

President Ghani seeks greater self-reliance and continues to criticize the United States and Pakistan.

Relations with the United States have been complicated by US President Donald Trump’s sudden decision to cancel talks with the Taliban aimed at ending the country’s 18-year war.

Last September, the United States said it would withdraw about $ 100 million for an energy infrastructure project in Afghanistan and withheld $ 60 million in aid, saying it was due to corruption and a lack of transparency in the country.

As a result of accusations against President Ghani about the theft of aid money, he and others are really in the government, where the name of former Afghan Finance Minister Eklil Hakimi, who studied in the United States and was the ambassador of Afghanistan to the United States from 2011 until he took the post of Minister of Finance in his country in 2015, which he left it last year.

Eklil Hakimi, was in the middle of several cases such as the one that was the reason he resigned.

He tried and defame former telecommunications minister Abdul Razzaq Wahidi in public due to the case of big embezzlement was a 10 percent tax on cell phone credits.

Correspondence for the collection of phone credits has been exchanged via emails between him and the head of one of the telecommunications companies.

These e-mails came from a former telecommunications minister, whose disclosure reveals facts and a mafia circulation.

Although the court didn’t provide complete information on the content of the emails, the court found that the confusion in collecting 10 percent of mobile credits in the country would be resolved by disclosing emails.

People have long complained about why President Ghani ordered 10 percent of mobile credits to be taxed, but it has always been a question of where this huge money is spent and why it has not been put into the government budget?

It should be noted that former telecommunications Minister Abdul Razzaq Wahidi had been brought to the prosecution on charges of embezzlement in mobile credits, but was acquitted after being indicted in the prosecution and Mr. Abdullah’s chief executive apologized at the time.

The irony that US accusations that came before the elections as if they were to influence the results.

However, we find that the position of the government of President Ghani on the US talks with the Taliban, where the government has repeatedly expressed doubts about the usefulness of US talks with the Taliban, without taking into account the fate of the government and the Afghans fate and the country as a whole, at the time the United States negotiated, those who have been calling them terrorists!

The US argument for sanctions and withdrawal of aid from the Afghan government, under the name of corruption and theft of funds, is not logical.

The country has been the same since even President Hamid Karzai.

Nothing changed, war, robbery, corruption, insecurity, opium cultivation and drugs still exist.

What did the United States and the West do to resolve all these issues?

Let’s face the facts, the United States has been in Afghanistan since 2001, almost approaching 19 years.

What are America’s achievements in Afghanistan after 19 years?

Today we see Trump negotiating the Taliban and accusing the government of corruption!

Of course, we don’t deny that Afghanistan is a country of transparency.

The country is one of the most corrupt countries on earth, occupies a very low level of corruption in the list of Transparency International, and has been occupying this low status for decades.

Today, the United States woke up suddenly one morning on charges of corruption and theft to the government of Afghanistan.

Here we go back to the $ 100 million story that the United States has provided to the Afghan government to set up power plants in the country, and today it wants to recover that money for it to do so directly.

Here we have to wonder why the United States is punishing the Afghan president, and why the campaign against him has stepped up ahead of Ghani’s September elections.

President Ghani, he has remarks about US negotiations with the Taliban.

The United States has a problem with the behavior of President Ghani, who in practice opposes the agreement between the United States and the Taliban, before securing the interests of peace in the country and maintaining the cohesion of the country’s government.

What the United States is actually doing is handing over the Afghan narrative to the Taliban – leaving the future of the country and its government under uncertainty, after 19 years of US intervention, to overthrow the rule of a “terrorist group”, the Taliban, that it is negotiating with them today.

How come?

Yes, the answer is easy.

The United States obviously wants to keep and empower obstacles in the way of China, which is seeking to win its neighbors, which wouldn’t be the case if the rule of Afghanistan is with Taliban.

The same is true with Iran, as well as Russia.

The Taliban have stated their position that they refuse to negotiate with the Afghan government before the agreement with the United States is concluded, which has not yet done.

The Taliban calls the government of Ghani, a puppet of the United States, and the United States accuses the government of Ghani with corruption and theft, and is negotiating with the Taliban!

What is going on in this strange world?

The Taliban don’t recognize the legitimacy of the Afghan government and don’t recognize the elections, and therefore after reaching an agreement with the United States, which will lead to its withdrawal from the country after 19 years to leave the Afghan government alone in confronting the Taliban.

We recall here that 19 years later, since the controversial attacks of September 11th, when the United States decided to intervene in Afghanistan to uproot terrorism in Al Qaeda, the perpetrators of the attacks on 9/11 and its allies.

Who are those allies?

It is the Taliban they are negotiating with them today.

The United States During 19 years in Afghanistan, lost more than 2500 dead and tens of thousands of wounded and maimed, and more than a thousand billion dollars in material losses, and we find ourselves today watching the United States negotiate the Taliban!

The equation today, if the United States reached a full agreement with the Taliban, would make the government of Afghanistan, which controls about 60 percent of the country in the face of the Taliban, which controls 20 percent of the country with the other 20 percent remain the sites of conflict between the fighting sides, with a shy presence of ISIS, even Al Qaeda.

The truth is that the Taliban are continuing to fight to impose their conditions on the Afghan government once the agreement with the Americans has been finalized, so the apparent purpose of raising corruption charges against the government is only part of an American scheme not to eliminate corruption, but to ensure that This could be achieved by taming the Taliban and turning it into a tool to destabilize the region, where more than three enemies of the United States are involved.

China Russia and Iran, which of course their governments won’t be happy to see the Taliban in power again in Afghanistan.