Blogs and Stories
Karzai’s Paranoid World
)
Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP Photo
As Afghanistan’s president is inaugurated for his second term, author Christina Lamb, his former neighbor, on his transformation from an affable bon vivant to a paranoid shut-in.
When Hamid Karzai is re-inaugurated as president today after one of the world’s dodgiest elections, everyone from Washington to Whitehall will be watching for some sign that he will clean up his act. If he doesn’t, many—including U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry—believe it will be well nigh impossible to defeat the Taliban, however many troops President Obama might ultimately decide to send.
Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown has described the Karzai government as a “byword for corruption” and warned he will “forfeit” international support if he doesn’t improve. The Obama administration has given the same message and suggested a list of clean names they would like to see in the cabinet.
But while the international community increasingly sees Karzai as the problem, the Afghan president says he believes he is doing nothing different than he has since they put him there in December 2001 and it is they who are trying to undermine him.
“The application of standards here by the international community has been hypocritical,” he complained to me when I asked about this. “That’s the problem with the international community. They want us to behave like robots. Well, we’re not like that.”
If Hamid Karzai is divorced from reality, it’s hardly surprising. The last time I went to see him in the presidential palace in August, I had to pass through seven layers of security. By the end, I had been stripped of all belongings including a pen, the chocolates I had brought as a present and even my lipstick, all of which could apparently have been used as deadly weapons.
Perhaps such precautions are necessary; Afghanistan’s president has survived three assassination attempts and one of his aides once took me on a grisly tour of the Arg, as the sprawling palace complex is known, to show the spots where most of Karzai’s predecessors met horrible ends. The last, Dr. Najibullah, was castrated in his bedroom by Taliban, tied to a Taliban Toyota Land Cruiser and dragged round and round the grounds then hung from a traffic post outside for all to see.
But even inside these seven rings of security, Karzai is flanked by 10 gunmen and monitored by snipers just to walk the 100 yards between his office and home. A keen walker, his exercise is now confined to pacing around his small walled garden with its two baby deer. All his food first goes through a team of personal tasters. In other words, this is a man who is totally cut off and increasingly paranoid.
I’ve known Karzai since 1987, when for two years I lived a few blocks away from him in Peshawar. In those days, he was unknown, the spokesman for the Afghan National Liberation Front, which was the smallest of the seven resistance groups fighting the Russians.
Hardly any journalists went to visit him back then, so he was delighted to talk, particularly as he had gone to school in the old Indian hill-station of Simla and was a real Anglophile. He loved Cadburys chocolate, Somerset Maugham stories, and English movies. He dressed in a battered leather jacket and jeans and had a big belly laugh.
• Gerald Posner: Karzai’s Brothers Fight BackHe was also an extremely proud member of the Popalzai tribe, one of the Durrani tribes of Kandahar descended from Afghanistan’s first king. His house was always crowded with tribal elders for whom he was expected to provide vast cauldrons of rice and mutton, as well as lodging and money to get them home again. I was fascinated by their stories, most of which involved feuds and revenge and an honor code that meant protecting guests even if they had committed a crime.
Karzai’s dream was to be a diplomat or maybe foreign minister. He lived in awe of his father, chief of the Popalzai tribe, and it was because of him the tribesmen came to visit.
The only time Karzai went inside Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, I accompanied him. We traveled around Kandahar on motorbikes with a group called the Mullahs Front (who went on to be the Taliban), lived on dry bread and okra, taking part in an ill-advised attack on Kandahar Airport.
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
Justice Clinton?
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
mfkpadrefan
Good post...I learned a lot I didn't know about the man. He sounds, well, weak. Not the leader needed...another example of Bush incompetence but also a flash from the past...In the 50's we handpicked Diem and trained his administration (at Michigan State no less!) to take over the new entity of South Vietnam. Great...a French loving Catholic for a Buddhist nation, a collaborator in a revolutionary era...how'd that work out?
AlwaysOptimistic
Yet another example of the West putting in leaders in countries, where they don't fully understand how things work in those countries, and then wonder why the leader is not respected by the locals. Just crazy....
Remember Sadaam....The guy "we" put in power and supported with billions of American dollars for decades....And then spent billions and thousands of lives to remove.....
When are we going to learn?
whipmawhopma
AlwaysOptimistic - We didn't put Saddam in power. We've helped put other dictators in power, and helped them stay in power. But not Saddam. And I have some doubts about supporting him with billions of dollars for decades.
We did help Saddam in dealing with his self-created problem with Iran in the 1990's, because we loathed Iran's regime even more than we loathed Saddam, but truth be told we wanted both Iraq and Iran to lose that one.
Saddam was largely a self-made man.
Chuckv
A recent survey by Oxfam showed that 48% of Afghans are worried about government corruption. This was by their own admission not a scientific survey. I doubt the number is that low.
In any case, it shows that the government has dangerously low legitimacy among the people. If the government cannot be improved, then the cause is lost. You can't win a counterinsurgency if the people do not support the government.
Somehow Karzai needs to learn that a politician cannot afford any friends. His only loyalty can be to the state of Afghanistan. Can this be done? Can he be worked around?
Follower-of-Basho
Very interesting article. You paint Karzai as an incredibly loyal person who has a troubling perspective on right and wrong.
The mistreatment of woman is rampant in Middle Eastern countries, Karzai's Afghanistan is not unique (though still repugnant- Hopefully Hillary can teach him some lessons.)
Corruption is the daily news in the United States- from Vice President Cheney's no bid contract to Haliburton -to ex Congressman William Jefferson and his freezer full of cash- so it's hard for the US with a straight face to ask him to be more accountable. Chicago under the first Mayor Daley ran well ,as a well oiled ( politically controlled ) machine, during very tough times,
The big problem is the Warlords. The US use and support of them is shameful. It would make Karzai's job easier if the Warlords would be strategically removed.
The Taliban is part of their culture and really can only be `beaten' by changing the culture - and not by war `activities'. Our `war activities' now are making the Taliban more entrenched. We need to stop with the stick approach and move towards the carrot approach- and stop giving them `fish' ( cash) and teach them how to fish.(participate legally in the global economy).
On a note of hope - Newsweek reports that Wheat has replaced Poppies as top crop in Afghanistan. That is progress.
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/wealthofnations/archive/2009/11/19/wheat -replaces-poppies-as-top-crop-in-afghanistan.aspx
-paul
melpol
The patriotism of Karzai can only be proven if he jumps on a camel and leads his armies to a glorious victory over ferocious tribes. Sitting in a cushioned chair munching on mutton will only make him fat.
dbro0009
i understand and agreed with most of karzai's moves. he obviously cannot control an area he does not have a monopoly of violence over. The tribes in afghanistan are too strong.
what i do not understand is why he treats women's rights the way he does... that is the one thing that threw me off about him and that is a big "thing."
whipmawhopma
The title "Karzai's Paranoid World" suggests the problem is with Karzai. But it's not. It's the world that he lives in.
I agree with mfkpadrefan's assessment of Karzai as being 'weak', at least for his current role, yet it's important to remember he's the one we picked to put in power, and then 'legitimized' via an actual election with Afghanis voting to keep him in power.
As for his paranoia, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda both want Karzai super-dead and have a good number of recruits willing to sacrifice themselves to make that happen.
Both groups have a history of smuggling explosive devices in innocuous forms in to places they want to set them off. I am not surprised that lipstick and chocolates might be consider capable of concealing explosives or poisons or who knows what else.
Ahmad Shah Massoud, the military leader of note for the Northern Alliance was assassinated by Taliban\Al-Qaida operatives with a bomb in a television camera.
A search on Yahoo with the phrase "afghan assassination" shows 6,100,000 results. 1,040,000 results for "Karzai afghan assassination". "Silvio Berlusconi assassination" only get 232,000 results. Maybe Karzai should be overly careful by western standards.
I find this line from the article very telling -> "But with no forces of his own, he needed Western backing to take them on. Instead the U.S. forces hunting for Osama bin Laden started working with the warlords, seeing them as the best way to get local information and paying them handsomely."
Hmmm...who is it that created this problem with the warlords staying in power and Karzai being forced to deal with them? And now that he's made deals in a place where breaking a deal can mean death, we expect him to do what? Run Afghanistan like it was New Jersey? What a farce.
I think Karzai is part of the problem, but only a small part of it.
I find this line telling as well -> "If Hamid Karzai is divorced from reality, it's hardly surprising."
I don't think it's Karzai who's divorced from reality. I think it's us.
larry278
Your last paragraph is true. No foreign nation or force has made Afghanistan into anything resembling a nation. W, et al failed big time. If Obama keeps US troops in Afghanistan &, JMFC, raises the ante, we'll get the corpses back @ $288,000.00 each for each one. Most of the corpses will include a head & a skeliton(sic?). Neither the skull or the bones will match. The guys at the lab on one of Hawawii's(sic?) islands will assemble complete corpse with a matching skull & complete set of bones. It will take time.
Captive GI's-you don't want to know of their conditions when they reach our troops- can be ransomed for more than $288,000.00 ea. Hint it will be much more than $288,000.00. Don't be surprised if Prez Obama doesn't run for a 2d term.
Between the money from selling dope & Uncle Sugar's ransom payments, it will be platinum AK 47's, thorough bred(sic?) camels & other necessities of Afghan life.
finderj
Well, with hundreds of dedicated jihadists out to murder him and his family, it is hardly surprising that he has developed a bit of paranoia. And with external governments telling him he can't do exactly what they are doing in dealing with criminals operating in his country, it is bound to get a little confusing.
Truthfully, I am not certain what ought to be done in Afghanistan. Historically, there has been no workable solution for that poor country for hundreds of years. Outsiders who have tried to impose rule have failed miserably.
So where does that leave the US today?
goldgoose
"the Afghan president says he believes he is doing nothing different than he has since they put him there in December 2001"
He is right! The "they" that put him there was George W. Bush and America; he is also maintained by Bush's right hand, Blackwater if my memory serves me right, paid for by all American taxpayers. Karzai is "we", Americans.
Whether America likes it or not, Karzai is what American troops are fighting and dying for; bin Laden has not been ion lAfghanistan for more than 8 years. America is in denial and it is wake up time. Afghanistan had nothing to do with 911, it was bin Laden, stupid! America can get out of Afghanistan the same way that America exited from Viet Nam, remember? The freaking show is OVER!
misha1000
I read an interview with Karzai, in the Washington Post, just before he left for Afghanistan. He mused to the reporter "I sometimes wonder if I would be better off working in my brother's restaurant in Baltimore."
Yes, he would have. Karzai cannot do anything about corruption, and he has to maintain detente with the warlords. It's hopeless like Vietnam. Americans are dying and being maimed for nothing. Except for a 30-year period, the place has been Hobbesian.
evlievinekoylukoyune
yes, in THis Second Term of Presidency, after Elections, He has the Approved and Trusted Identity in THis Country.
(the key word is "para-no-id")
evlievinekoylukoyune
in THis Second Term of Presidency, after Elections, He has the Approved and Trusted Identity in THis Country. (keyword is after-no-id)
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.