Who will really miss Ahmed Wali Karzai?
By Joshua Foust, July 12, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - 11:21 AM
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A trusted family associate shot Ahmed Wali Karzai, Afghan president Hamid Karzai's half-brother, multiple times this morning in one of Wali's five Kandahar mansions. While the Taliban have claimed responsibility for his death, there's no reason -- yet -- to think Sardar Mohammed, who was quickly gunned down by Wali Karzai's bodyguards, had any connection to the insurgency.
In a way, AWK, as he was known, was the penultimate Afghan leader: Deeply popular to his followers, hated and feared by everyone else, involved in a number of questionable activities, but utterly essential to the American presence. Rumors abound that he was on the payroll of the CIA, that he ran his own private army, that he was a vital node in monitoring and attacking the insurgency in the country's south. Like Afghanistan itself, AWK was fascinating, dangerous, and tightly controlled Western access to his domain.
While everyone ponders the big questions about AWK's death -- especially those related to his place as a regional security broker -- it's worth considering how the contradictions of his rule in Kandahar played out. He was elected to Kandahar's provincial council in 2005, in one of the few actually democratic and fair elections in the country. AWK zealously defended his people, and among direct recipients of his patronage and support he inspired fierce loyalty.
Whatever his influence as a political stabilizer, though, Ahmed Wali was also an economic and political nightmare. He would, in essence, hold court at his many offices and mansions around Kandahar city, circumventing the "legitimate" government and doling out to his supplicants handfuls of cash everyone whispered were gained through smuggling opium. From a business perspective, AWK was a mafia don, controlling his own business interests with an iron fist and, the rumors go, violently attacking anyone who posed too much competition.
When you combine his violent business activities with his close association with his brother Hamid, it is unsurprising that AWK had a list of enemies as large as the Hindu Kush Mountains. Even if his killer turns out to have very little real association with the Taliban, AWK's death is, in many ways, just the latest in a string of violent acts against Kandahar's prominent leaders.
From the perspective of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), this throws things into disarray. Much like the 32-year old Gen. Abdul Raziq, AWK was beloved of the Americans in particular because of his penchant for getting things done. The Western preference for working through strongmen and thugs probably won't abate even now, which is a real shame.
Ever since the 2007 death of anti-Taliban tribal leader Mullah Naqib, in the Arghandab Valley just north of Kandahar City, the province's leaders have been under the constant threat of death-often from the Taliban, but sometimes from their local rivals. Four years ago, ISAF had the opportunity to start developing the fundamentals of the institutions of government in the area, a system of rule based not on personality or thuggery, but laws, regulations, and structure. They chose, instead, to go through Ahmed Wali Karzai.
When your entire modus operandi is based on friendly local strongmen,you rise and fall on their backs. AWK reaped what he sowed in Kandahar: A vicious rule by thug, gently papered over with the veneer of respectability and Western-friendliness. Among the Americans, his loss is devastating; among the Afghans, he will barely be missed.
Joshua Foust is a fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. He blogs about Central Asia at www.registan.net.
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There was considerable ambivalence among US leadership on AWK. I'd hardly qualify his relationship as beloved. There was no small amount of cheerleading going on in certain circles when the senior Afghan Army officer in Kandahar accused AWK of rigging real estate transactions, and a great deal of dissappointment when he dropped the charges. Trust me, there are quite a few folks involved in COIN strategy who saw AWK as the largest impediment in Kandahar to gaining support of the populace. They may never vocalize it, but I am sure deep down there are many senior US officials and officers who are relieved the AWK problem has gone away.
We really scraped the bottom of the barrel here
If AWK and Hamid Karzai are the best the USA can find to lead the Afghan people as we exit the stage, that sounds a very negative note about our ability to choose leaders who are both statesmen and patriots for their country. Of course it fits with the record wherever we have interfered in another country's affairs: Chiang in China, Marcos in the Phillipines, Diem, Thieu and Ky (Vietnam), Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Iran), Batista (Cuba), Noriega (Panama) al Maliki (Iraq), and many others we supported - in many cases before we had them deposed or exiled. Earlier in the year, we were treating Qaddafi like an ally, now he's a despot.
Yesterday, AWK was a key player in the US effort to staunch the rise of the Taliban in AfPak; now he's just another corrrupt, thuggish, drug-dealing "mafia don" character. We ll, we still have his brother, who won a bitterly contested and disputed election. We may be sunk!
We always seem to get exactly the puppets we deserve.
...what?
"...a system of rule based not on personality or thuggery, but laws, regulations, and structure." Maybe if ISAF were operating in Minnesota instead of Afghanistan. And maybe if we'd started the project of remaking the country as soon as we got there in 2001-02.
But Foust, thought by some to be an expert on Afghanistan, knows that other things being equal the Afghan alternative to rule by personality and thuggery is rule by different personalities and thuggery with somewhat different characteristics. That's the country. Maybe -- just maybe -- there was a chance to remake it along barely civilized lines during the period when NATO was filling the vacuum left by the collapse of the Taliban regime. That water passed under the bridge years ago.
Another take on this assassination and what it means, from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/ahmed-wali-karzai-had-rebuilt-relationship-with-us/2011/07/12/gIQAs4KoAI_story.html?hpid=z1
Oh never mind me or my own observations. I just happened to be the guy who was actually briefing senior officers last year on what was happening on the ground in Kandahar. I'm sure my observations than two and three star officers were visibly cheering for AWK's demise were purely in my imagination. As for recommendations as to whom could fill the void, I guess Governor Mangal is a total lark. Sorry, I'll refrain from further comment as surely journalists are far more knowledgeable than the people actually tasked with figuring out this sorry mess.
Having been in Kandahar in 2007, I have to respectfully disagree with Joshua's contention that ISAF missed an opportunity then to "start developing the fundamentals of the institutions of government in the area, a system of rule based not on personality or thuggery, but laws, regulations, and structure." ISAF in 2007 did not have the resources, the will, nor, most importantly, the knowledge to play an influential role in the opaque and ruthless Kandahar politics. I would argue that we still don't know enough to play an effective role in the politics. And I think it reflects a Western conceit to believe that we can bend Afghan politicians to do our bidding.
What does history tell us. As soon as you let Afghanistan alone, the Pashtun Tsunami takes over. No Northern Alliance, no NATO/ISAF backed good Taliban no created warlords or barons. It,s the Pashtun tribes and Afghanis with whom we should seek to settle future contours.
Who will really miss Ahmed Wali Karzai?
Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on clerics to speak out against a recent wave of turban bombs Wednesday.
The call comes after attackers carried out two high-profile suicide bombings last month by hiding explosives in their turbans, traditionally worn by many Afghan men as a symbol of Islamic belief.
The first turban bomb attack killed several people at a memorial service for Karzai's assassinated brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, and the second the mayor of Kandahar, the biggest city in southern Afghanistan.
Following the attacks, Karzai met members of an influential clerical council, the Ulema Shura, to urge them to speak out against this means of attack saying it was contrary to Islamic values.
Best regards gianna michaels
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