On the Dad front we have
This article is dead-on and very current:
Article raises some problematic issues that many in WB are perfectly aware of and struggle to find a way out of the box. - Nick Nichols
As a matter of record, at one of the Guest Houses of an attached World Bank agency, I did not have an attached bathroom. There was one off the hallway for three of us to share. But most rooms did have individual baths. - Nick Nichols
Vast sums of money are being lavished by Western aid agencies on their own officials in Afghanistan at a time when extreme poverty is driving young Afghans to fight for the Taliban. The going rate paid by the Taliban for an attack on a police checkpoint in the west of the country is $4, but foreign consultants in Kabul, who are paid out of overseas aids budgets, can command salaries of $250,000 to $500,000 a year.
The high expenditure on paying, protecting and accommodating Western aid officials in palatial style helps to explain why Afghanistan ranks 174th out of 178th on a UN ranking of countries' wealth. This is despite a vigorous international aid effort with the US alone spending $31bn since 2002 up to the end of last year.
The high degree of wastage of aid money in Afghanistan has long been an open secret. In 2006, Jean Mazurelle, the then country director of the World Bank, calculated that between 35 per cent and 40 per cent of aid was "badly spent". "The wastage of aid is sky-high," he said. "There is real looting going on, mainly by private enterprises. It is a scandal."
Which is extremely reassuring... to say the least...
If you haven't been following you can see more on my dads recent trip to Kabul.
To catch up you can read these earlier posts....
More from Dad in Afghanistan @nicknich3
He's back in the Philippines I just haven't had a chance to finish up from his posts re: the trip.
For a general round up more broadly I've pulled together some recent updates from the Pak/Afgan front. We are headed for a dead end I fear...
Karzai Enlists Former Warlord as Running Mate
President Hamid Karzai named a powerful former warlord as one of his two vice-presidential running mates on Monday, a day of scattered insurgent attacks that left as many as 23 people dead.
The vice-presidential candidate, Muhammad Qasim Fahim, was Mr. Karzai’s vice president in his early administration, but was pushed aside in 2004 as Mr. Karzai tried to move away from traditional power blocs and bring more technocrats into the government. The government in Kabul, however, remains weak and troubled, and Mr. Fahim’s return appears to be a sign that Mr. Karzai is reaching for strong partners with broad support among former mujahedeen parties.
Obama Set for 'Intense' Pakistan, Afghan Summit
US President Barack Obama meets Wednesday with the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan, hoping to shore up the fight against Islamic extremism as concerns about the region mount.
The summit visibly showcases the new strategy of Obama, who says the United States must consider the neighboring countries together -- rather than focus just on fighting Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in Afghanistan.........Amid fears for Zardari, some US policymakers have been looking to Pakistan's powerful military and to Zardari's rival Nawaz Sharif, a former premier with ties to Islamist groups, to ensure future strategy.
Obama gave a nod in his news conference to Pakistan's military, praising it for beginning to see Islamic militants -- not historic rival India -- as the country's main threat.
Pakistan's military recently launched an offensive against militants in the Buner region after coming under heavy US criticism for reaching truces that brought Islamic shariah law close to the capital Islamabad.
"The United States has a very dim view of what either the Pakistani or Karzai governments can achieve. Both of them are weak governments, albeit in different ways," said Kamran Bokhari, a senior analyst at the private intelligence firm Stratfor.
"The understanding is that if you have a trilateral summit or arrangement in which both sides are kept in the loop on what is going on, then the chances of making progress are far higher," Bokhari said.
Kabul has little authority in much of Afghanistan and Karzai's government has blamed Pakistan -- the chief backer of the Taliban until 2001 -- for the continued strength of extremists in border areas.
In turn, many Pakistanis charge that their country would not be suffering its current chaos if the United States had not intervened in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
But things aren't turning for the better via Juan Cole:
As President Obama prepares for Wednesday's tripartite summit between himself, the president of Pakistan (Asaf Ali Zardari) and the president of Afghanistan (Hamid Karzai), he has just gotten some bad news on the Afghan political front.
The Obama administration had clearly hoped to see Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai unseated in the August presidential elections. They view him as bunkered down in Kabul and out of touch with the majority of the country (he only controls about 30 percent of it), at best. At worse, it is possible that he and his family are involved in the debilitating poppies/ heroin trade.
But Obama's hopes for a change at the top have been dealt a heavy blow with the withdrawal from the presidential race of Gul Agha Sherzai, the governor of Nangarhar Province and an old time anti-Soviet Mujahid. Karzai appears to have induced Sherzai to stand down with a pledge to throw his support behind him in the next presidential election.
If the problems in Afghanistan really do have to do in some important way with presidential leadership, then the US is likely stuck with the problems for years to come, since it is unlikely that any of the other contenders can unseat Karzai.
The desperation over political gridlock in Kabul is so great that the UN representative has called for the Taliban to contest the elections. Most of them say they oppose Western-style polls, but some may be enticed into running.
Over at the Washington Independent Spencer Ackerman digs more into the Karazi angle
Karzai to U.S.: Well Take A Look At Me Now
Building on that last point about micromanaging Pakistan, take a look at Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai is looking like he’ll win reelection. Following on Erin Simpson’s concerns, I worried in March that the Obama administration was repeating a mistake of the Bush administration’s from the opposite perspective: while Bush overpersonalized Afghan policy by embracing Karzai wholeheartedly, the Obama team did the same thing by visibly disrespecting him. The Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon and Peter Spiegel get a pithy quote summing that up:
“We’ve not completely burnt that bridge, but it’s black, and timbers are out,” said a former senior U.S. military official who consults with the administration on Afghan strategy.
For more on that, see Phil Zabriskie at True/Slant. My understanding of this week’s U.S.-Afghan meetings in Washington is that they’re going to focus on deliverable paths to increasing Afghan governance and development around the country, rather than the top-level strategy concerns of the last round. Maybe that’s a way of depersonalizing bilateral relations. But you couldn’t blame Karzai if he rolls into Washington this week bumping Phil Collins.
Spencer then continues by asking When to Hit the Pakistani-Coup Panic Button
For more on the prospect or non-prospect of a Pakistani military coup, I asked a former U.S. official who’s deeply experienced with Pakistan whether such a thing seemed like it was in the offing. Here’s what I got back: The signal that something is about to happen would be a public statement from someone in uniform that the civilian government was obstructing military progress against the Taliban in Buner, the center of an anti-Taliban offensive about 60 miles from Islamabad. “If the military brass feels that they are not being allowed to succeed in Buner — not enough troops, not enough materiel, poor civilian leadership — they could begin preparations for a move against the government,” the ex-official said.
My interlocutor thought such a thing wasn’t imminent, but remained in the realm of possibility.
Finally we have sound advice from a Military Advisor who states the obvious...
Advisor: ‘US Needs to Call off Drone Strikes in Pak'
The top adviser to the US army chief in Afghanistan, David Kilcullen, has observed that the US drone strikes in Pakistan are creating more enemies than eliminating them, and hence, needed to be "called off."
Responding to a congressman on what the US government should do in Pakistan, he said: "We need to call off the drones."
The Daily Times quoted Kilcullen, as saying that he has no objection to killing "bad guys" in Pakistan.
However, he added that the strikes were creating more enemies than they eliminate.
Kilcullen said that the drone strikes, which were "highly unpopular", gave rise to a feeling of anger that unites the population with the Taliban and could lead to "loss of Pakistani government control over its own population".
He said that insurgents used the drone strikes to stir up anti-Western and anti-government sentiment.
Another problem, Kilcullen noted, was "using robots from the air looks both cowardly and weak".
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