Scott Horton weighs the advantages and disadvantages of the CIA having members of the Afghan government on its payroll. He finds few, if any, advantages.
The disadvantages are far more concrete. The policy of making systematic payments for small favors creates the widespread impression that the United States is prepared to pay generously for anything it wants. One of the lessons that Britain learned from its repeated Afghan misadventures was that these expectations of payment, once established, could rarely be shaken off; moreover, they escalate, as expectations spin out of control. But the payments also convince the native Afghans that the government in Kabul is not “their” government–that it marches to the tune played by a foreign power. And that undermines the legitimacy of the government in their eyes. Much of the “crazy” conduct of Hamid Karzai, derided unthinkingly in the American media, is actually an effort to offset this; Karzai is trying desperately to show that he’s his own man, independent of the United States, and working for the interests of his people. He’s not having much success in this effort, by all accounts.
Right now, in the view of many analysts, the key crisis faced by America and her allies in Afghanistan is one of legitimacy. The Afghan people do not accept the legitimacy of the government in Kabul. Instead, they view it as an American puppet. (By contrast, much as they dislike and fear the Taliban, they see it as essentially homegrown.) This week’s disclosures from the CIA’s paymaster desk show us that on this score the Afghan people understand the situation much better than the Americans.
