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Karzai Family Secrets
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One is branded a druglord; the other a corrupt tycoon—critics say President Karzai's brothers undermine Afghanistan. Both respond exclusively for the first time.
“My friend, I am ready to take a polygraph. I am innocent. If anyone can find any money from my family hidden in any bank in the world, I am telling you that they can keep it.” Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, is excited, his voice rising as he talks. He is tired of six years of news reports casting him as the Afghan Pablo Escobar.
“Our character is being assassinated before the entire world,” says Mahmoud Karzai, the president’s older brother, and the subject of widespread reports questioning a purported fortune through favoritism and tainted deals. “I am sick and tired of people thinking that I have accomplished what I have only because I am the president’s brother.”
“I am the most wanted person by al Qaeda and the Taliban. That is because I have brought the tribes together. I have done so much work for the Americans, so much of it secret, it is incredible how much I have helped the Americans. And I am repaid with these press reports?”
Ahmed and Mahmoud are cited by Afghanistan watchers as serious political liabilities to the country’s fragile democracy and to Hamid Karzai’s claim that his government is making progress against the systemic corruption that is part of the nation’s DNA.
Neither has ever been charged with any crime. The duo recently came out swinging, providing The Daily Beast exclusive and feisty interviews regarding what Ahmed calls “the slanders, lies, and vicious attacks” swirling around them.
First, some background. Afghan and American officials have privately accused Ahmed, who heads the powerful provincial council in Kandahar, of being a heroin kingpin in the nation that supplies 90 percent of the world’s opium supply. They cite a few examples. In 2004, Afghan security forces stumbled on a cache of heroin hidden in tractor-trailer outside Kandahar. The local commander, Habibullah Jan, said Ahmed called him and demanded the drugs be released. Jan was ambushed and shot to death in 2007, with government officials blaming the Taliban. In 2006, a DEA informant, Hajji Aman Kheri, gave a tip about a truck near Kandahar carrying 110 pounds of pure heroin, allegedly under the watchful eye of one of Ahmed’s bodyguards. And last month, the German magazine Stern reported that British troops seized several tons of raw opium on one of Ahmed’s farms.
• Tina Brown: Let’s Not Abandon Afghan WomenAhmed spent a half hour debunking the details of the various charges. Jan was a well-known political opponent of his brother, he says, and went on to become an opposition member of parliament. So why would he have told a political foe to release seized drugs? “Anyone who understands our politics would know this is impossible it would be so stupid.”
As for the 2006 heroin seizure, “I am guilty by association. Can I be responsible for everyone who used to work for me?” And as for reports that British troops seized opium on his farm, he gets agitated. “Look, my friend, what land? What happened to the opium? The driver? What happened to those people who were taking the drugs somewhere? Every major foreign intelligence and drug agency is operating in Afghanistan. If I am a drug dealer why have they not produced a shred of real evidence, not just get somebody to print false rumors?”
Evidently Hamid Karzai heard the rumors often enough that he wanted to know if they were true. In 2006, he summoned to the presidential palace both the American ambassador, Ronald Neumann, and the embassy’s CIA station chief. Also present were the British ambassador and his MI6 spymaster.
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mcmchugh99
I have to hold my nose to continue supporting this war. It certainly is not because of any great affection for this regime we have set up there, which is about as honest, efficient and popular as the Saigon regime in South Vietnam--and will very likely end up the same way. It is no better or worse than the typical regimes in all of those "stan" countries. I know because I've seen a few of them firsthand, and it is difficult indeed to think of sacrificing American lives to prop up any of them.
The only reason I support the war is fear of the Taliban taking over large parts of the country again, and Al Qaeda and other Islamic Nazi types coming back in and using it as a base against the West.
Other than that, the less this regime in Afghanistan does, the better, since it is a total hindrance to anything we are trying to do there.
Fairminded
This is a result of USA's double standards. Americans should learn from all these intervention that it is pointless to support regimes just because they obey the USA because such regimes have no prinicples. If they can sell out their countries to the USA interest they will not fullfill USA's often hypocritical declaration of supporting freedom and democracy for their own selfish interest. So one cannot play both ends of the field. Either one support real democracy or support traitors who later will betray USA's course as they have betrayed their country for USA's interest.
Dolmance
He says he's the most wanted man by the al Qaeda and the Taliban. Sadly, those two brothers are considered by most members of these organizations as a great asset to their cause, as demonstrated so well in Newsweek's current article on the Taliban's oral history of the war.
America is in a war in Afghanistan and having to deal with a profoundly corrupt leader. The last time I remember such a situation was Premier Diem of Vietnam back in the early 60's. As I recall, President John Kennedy and Secretary John McNamara arranged for a violent coup in which he was assassinated.
I guess I'm simply reflecting on how times have changed.
hockeydog
Times have changed alright.
Another news-disclosure about the corruption "somewhere else".
Meanwhile, here in what is left of America, we have the biggest
gutting in the history of the world continuing.
A very brief recap: Goldman Sachs originally had the Cheney Administration stand their boy-Bush up and champion the Privatization of Social Security. This would have allowed those old boys to really gut the fish.
But, something happened along the way, and the oldsters left standing said "no way, Jose". So the Cheney boys said "Jose?" Why that guy is here illegally. Let's declare war against him and his family, and while everyone is watching that little drama, we and our buddies at Goldman can figure out a better way of looting America."
Someone said, "But you can't get into Fort Knox."
Goldman said, "Who cares about Fort Knox, we will just instruct Henry Paulson to issue blank checks, and print more paper money."
So, yeh, we should now be all worried about the corruption of the CIA's chosen boy for the Afghans. Afterall, one of these days, Americans will stop believing in Osama Bin Laden, just like they have lost their faith in Santy Claus. Gotta keep those American minds on something other than the ongoing looting of their piggy banks.
abschein
Hey Gerald,
Why not do a story on the Bruise Brothers, the real terrorists of the upper east side gyms back in the 80s.
Schein
Martyz42
If people were not being killed here it would be a joke. This X Gulf Oil executive is the so called leader of a so called nation. This Country is not nor ever will be a Nation led by anyone. The place is a hodge podge of tribal leaders with guns & poppies. The place will never be a Country in the Western way & instead of Obama thinking about plan A & plan B he should be thinking about plan C, "GET THE HELL OUT OF THE PLACE" & declare victory.....
As for the brothers three who are all the same except only one wears capes if we left on Monday they would leave on Tuesday & this Country as well as the bad lands there would all be better off for it.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
foysa1
Declare a victory, what you mean by that ?
I rather agree with you that the place will never be a Country in the Western way. That is the reality everyone should understand and deal with.
donnybrkgr
Why am I not surprised? Ho Hum- nothing new here.
amapola101
Lets just keep on sending all our millions to buy all the thugs off and all their warlords and their politicians, they get wealthier and more powerfull.These wars are a waste of everything ,and we have to be very ready and strong for the real problems that are heading our way.If I thought we were improving the lives,of Afghan people, Iraquians,Pakistanians,and helping the people of their country,It would be alright.All these leaders hoard the money among themselves,and charity starts at home.Wasted wars. !
democracyforall
Karzai is in a very difficult place. He will get killed without our protection. Yet, he tries to appease tribal areas. He did unite his people after 2003, but overall he has not done enough. Outside of Kabul, he has no control.
robwriter
Why didn't we just invade Mexico? It's got oil and endemic corruption and it's a lot closer.
sippewissett
Bush couldn't make a "case" that Mexicans participated in 9/11. Luck Mexicans.
Muguyaro
Mexico is too close. Some insurgents might just slip across the border & kabooooooom, 9-11 again. Besides there are too many mexicans in America for it to be viable to fight that country. You would have the enemy from within....not such a good plan.
Frenchmanaz
With very little AQ activity in Afghanistan, activities that could be handled by our elite and lethal special forces, this reminder that Karzai and his crew do not warrant further protection from our sons and daughters.
Afghanistan WAS ground zero in our war on terror but Bush blew it. Not only did he send the bulk of our might to a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 but he went and installed the Karzai mafia family. What Bush and Cheney didn't know about Karzai's brothers ? It is likely that Bush and Cheney actually saw these gangsters as a positive, thinking that they would order the hits we wanted locally. Problem is that, while in fantasy it is smart to want to hire henchman to run things in Afghanistan, the glaring ignorance came in believing that these goons would every have America's best interest at heart.
This is no different than asking lobbists to write a health care bill that actually benefits the people.
Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan now, bring both, our sons and daughters, and whatever investment we can recoup. Afghanistan will always be a tribal no mans land. The best we can hope is that it can be contained. The critical advances made on the ground, in the last 8 years, have been made by our Special Forces teams. Sending in more troops does nothing more than give the animals a bigger target to hit.
We extinguish a hundred, a thousand more come out of the wood work and when you are not fighting a nation. When we dropped the bombs on Japan, it was only because the Emperor could not stomach more of his people's pain. The same could not be said of his military leadership. This is the only reason we won.
Even if we get OBL or any of the new leaders, AQ and the rest of the pig terrorist groups are a case of you cut the head off and another grows back and as some public official said last week, 9/11 was planned in apartments in Germany and in Florida and Arizona.
The only way to fight the war on terror is through intelligence and rapid deployed armed cells meandering through the nooks and crannies of the entire globe. It's quiet, quick, efficient. The cost in lives, on our side, are minimized as is collateral damage.
I applaud Obama for thinking on the fly rather allowing all of these people who are ranting " well you said that you would...in Afghanistan....during the campaign " That was almost a year ago. Things change.
Critics of Obama will rant on about how he made campaign promises with regards to this war, but wars are fluid. They don't stand around waiting for America to make up it's mind and Afghanistan has now become an exercise in futility.
robjh1
And we expect things to get better in the region? With leaders like these how can they?
"and we are not saved..."
sippewissett
I am struck by the "bluster" of the Karzai brothers. Their protests are a great smoke screen for whatever IS going on that we here will never learn. An expression currently in use here by GOP strategists applies here too: " A good offense is the best defense." It deflects from examination of self and points elsewhere.
Nuld001
Wow what an exclusive interview! Who are you going to believe? It would have been interesting to hear from some of the business men who deal with the Krazai brothers what they think of them and how they operate (keeping in mind that they are enemies both in politics and business). Either way the Krazai brothers (all three) are setting themselves up to getting screwed. That they are a political liability to Hamid is an understatement. That they will not leave Afghanistan as has been strongly suggested by the U.S. and U.K. directly to Hamid leads one to suspect there are ulterior motives to their actions besides their undercurrent of patriotism. Who are the real beneficiaries of all this subterfuge? The Taliban and al-Qaeda. We in the free world will pay dearly if Afghanistan falls into their hands.
LutfiUSMC
Its a shame that our men and women are fighting for these 3 jokers, I think the Afghanistan people should have and received better leadership than this , but Karzai was the only one that was bought and paid for. we did not get our money's worth .
octavio
9/28/2009
The terrorists that hit the two towers ( on Sept/11/2001 ) were
Saudi Arabians.The USA never retaliated against Saudi Arabia.
Because George W Bush gave orders to allow the Saudis
leave the country.Saudi Arabia had been bribing the two
bushes ( George H.Bush and George W.Bush ) for years
that is why the bushes are extremely wealthy.The USA
( right now ) instead of prosecuting bush/cheney/sauidiarabia
are wasting lives,time,and money in Irak,Afghanistan et cetera.
Reform the military,reinstate the draft,do not allow lobbysts
near our politicians ----> lobbysts only corrupt our politicians.
e,g; Our stinky Health Care System is very corrupt because
lobbysts.We all know that our crooked republican senators are
easy prey;they can be bought any time!Reform the immigration
system and pass the Public Health Care Bill as soon as possible!
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PRoche
And how is the Karzai family different than most any powerful, political familiy in the United States?
Thank you.
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