Thursday, August 26, 2010

Um, Do Over, Please?

So, we have yet another corrupt guy on the CIA payroll... just like Ahmed Wali Karzai, the President's brother and big kahuna of Kandahar.   Very bad optics, but I guess we can only rent politicians that are easy to rent, which means that we are not the only ones renting this particular guys.  Right?

Or, as one of my interviewees said it today, scale has advantages and disadvantages.  US is big so it can do a lot but is hardly coordinated.  CIA apparently not aboard the anti-corruption train.  Of course, anti-corruption is a new priority for the US (if it is, indeed, priortized, as in coming in ahead of other interests), so perhaps the CIA does not like to cut loose old rentals.  Anyway you cut it, this just is bad policy.  And it shows that making progress on the governance side is just very, very, very hard, even when we are semi-trying.

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