Cardin is on Fire Posted by Patrick Barry

My senator, Ben Cardin, gets tough on Deputy Secretary Jack Lew on just how exactly the U.S. will hold the Afghan government accountable on corruption, asking whether anything short of threatening to "pull the troops out" would have the desired effect.

Lew responded by focusing on the money channeled to Afghan ministries, saying that if they underperform, or continue to be corrupt, then that money will be re-directed to other channels. 

Frankly, I don't see how that gets to the issue of the kinds of corruption encountered by average Afghans on a daily basis, something Andrew Wilder has written about extensively. Re-directing money might do something to reduce corrupt behavior by ministers charged with disbursing it, but that money still flows downstream, where it can still have a pernicious effect. 

Comments

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http://media.transparency.org/imaps/cpi2009/

Oh, and by the way:

"Nearly $6 million in stimulus money was paid to two firms run by Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s pollster in 2008. Federal records show that $5.97 million from the $787 billion stimulus helped preserve three jobs at Burson-Marsteller, the global public-relations and communications firm headed by Penn."

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/71459-mark-penns-firms-received-stimulus-money-for-dtv-switch-pr-campaign

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