Daniel J. Pipes

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Reader comment on item: Karzai's Brother and Washington's Kept Politicians

Submitted by Bif Bifman (United States), Oct 29, 2009 at 11:18

Yes, it could be that the brother is on the CIA payroll. But he is a longtime opium dealer - anyone just finding this out should do a news search on his name and see just how long this has been common knowledge. And he is one of the most corrupt people in a regime that is not lacking corruption in any way - and that Washington needs to get un-corrupt really fast if they want this whole Afghanistan thing to work out (and again, his corruption has been common knowledge for a long time).

So you need to get rid of this guy, but you can't just send in the black bag team like in the old days. You can't even get your local guys to have him meet with an unfortunate accident after that whole Guatemala incident went Titanic in the 1990s. Or maybe you could just say that the guy is in your stable, right? That will make him a traitor to nationalists, make him distrusted among the narco-traffickers, and a target for the opposition (in a country where "target" is usually taken in the firearms sense of the word). Why shoot him when there are dozens of armed groups in the country that will do it for you, willingly, if you give them the right reason. And he can't keep a bunch of Blackwater guys around him providing protection now that he's been so publicly unmasked as a drug dealer.

The CIA can leak a lot, but most of these leaks are ones that they want to leak, i.e. psyops, not leaks. I'm betting that this is no different.


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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

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