Skip to main content

Corruption (2)

A different "element" of corruption and influence to that in the post Corruption (1) - as reported by The New York Times in "Afghan Leaders Try to Halt Exodus, but Pleas Ring Hollow".....

"President Ashraf Ghani took a stage here last week and urged the crowd of young people before him not to join a huge exodus from Afghanistan, despite rising insecurity and economic hardship.

The gates of Western nations are closed on us, Mr. Ghani said. “Our dignity, our respect is in Afghanistan.”

To many Afghans, though, that rang hollow.

That is not only because Mr. Ghani’s path to power and prominence was paved abroad, as he lived and worked in the United States for much of his adult life. The addresses of the families of a majority of his government’s senior officials read like an atlas of world capitals, near and far — just not Kabul.

“How will they understand our pain?” said Mohamed Abas, 19, a roadside mechanic in Kabul, as he took a break from his lunch of fries and bread. Having entered Iran, Mr. Abas was turned back from the border with Turkey last month as he tried to make his way to Norway, where he had heard there were jobs.

“Their own children study, live and are having fun in Europe and America,” Mr. Abas said. “They cruise in their armored Lexus in front of us and they don’t even slow down — we eat their dirt. And if we complain, they smash us in the mouth.”

The reality of such a government, amid an exodus that seems only to be growing, has made it difficult for Afghanistan’s citizens to accept entreaties to stay home.

It has also created a dilemma for international donors, particularly the European countries where a majority of Afghan migrants are headed, despite those nations’ pouring of billions of dollars in aid over the past decade to stabilize Afghanistan. About 146,000 Afghans have arrived in Europe this year, the government says.

One question some European countries are grappling with: How can they confidently continue to invest in the stability of a country where top government officials lack the confidence to let their children live there? And another: How can they justify accepting the droves of migrants at their gates to their domestic constituencies after sending billions of dollars’ worth of aid to Afghanistan over the years?"

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?

Intelligence agencies just can't help themselves

It is insidious and becoming increasingly widespread. Intelligence agencies in countries around the world, in effect, snooping on private exchanges between people not accussed of anything - other than simply using the internet or their mobile phone. The Age newspaper, in Australia, reports on how that country's intelligence operatives now want to widen their powers. It's all a slippery and dangerous slope! The telephone and internet data of every Australian would be retained for up to two years and intelligence agencies would be given increased access to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter under new proposals from Australia's intelligence community. Revealed in a discussion paper released by the Attorney-General's Department, the more than 40 proposals form a massive ambit claim from the intelligence agencies. If passed, they would be the most significant expansion of the Australian intelligence community's powers since the Howard-era reform...