[HN Gopher] Afghan Pres. Secured His Brother Lucrative Mining De...
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Afghan Pres. Secured His Brother Lucrative Mining Deals w/ US
Defense Contractor
Author : pizza
Score : 25 points
Date : 2021-05-15 20:14 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.occrp.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.occrp.org)
| farseer wrote:
| When the Taliban took over Kabul a few years after Soviet
| withdrawal, the first thing they did was to hang Najibullah, the
| Soviet installed president of Afghanistan. The hanging was
| prominent because of the way it was carried out, instead of his
| neck, they hung the president by his testicles until death.
| aliswe wrote:
| This is not true, which is apparent from the images.
| justicezyx wrote:
| What you want to say?
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| I'd be much more likely to read it if it said "Afghanistan's
| President Doesn't Help His Brother Secure Lucrative Mining Deals
| with a U.S. Contractor".
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| IKR? Don't get why people are surprised about this when even in
| Germany/Europe it's _that_ common for government contracts
| going to friends and family members of the ruling class
| (through some very complex schemes to hide the blatant
| corruption of course).
| vlovich123 wrote:
| To me the article is more interesting as it details a shadow
| military-industrial effort (the article talks about links to
| Patreus) that's been pushing an agenda to mine minerals perhaps
| valuable to the military but even more valuable to them
| personally. And of course the entire mining operation was
| abandoned under Obama because it financed militants, used
| children for the mining operation, and was extremely hazardous
| to the environment. Of course the Trump administration greenlit
| this scheme and the Afghan President's family, which personally
| benefited from this arrangement (despite being banned by law)
| supported this arrangement (because hey, it's not the American
| government, just well-connected private businesses).
|
| The scale of corruption and self-dealing here enabled under the
| Trump administration is actually quite fascinating. No wonder
| he enjoys support from his constituents when he's enriching
| them in this way. It's how a lot of people choose to wield
| power unfortunately.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Afghanistan is a very corrupt place. During the first
| conversation I ever had with a high-ish ranking man in the Afghan
| National Army, he asked me if I'd be willing to smuggle American
| goods off our forward operating base for him to sell on the black
| market. I was shocked that he would have the nerve to ask, and
| that he wouldn't blush to do so in an introductory conversation.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| A good article about it from 2015, and how the corruption helps
| the insurgency (e.g. the locals would be thinking "Why should I
| warn the corrupt idiots about that IED targetting their shiny
| black SUVs?"):
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-rev...
|
| It's a book review of "Thieves of State", which is also a good
| read.
|
| Hah I just scrolled through that article again, and it ends
| with: In September [2014], the former World Bank official and
| good-governance expert Ashraf Ghani was sworn in as the new
| President of Afghanistan, amid widespread allegations of vote-
| tampering. He has promised to tackle corruption.
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(page generated 2021-05-15 23:01 UTC)