Instead of committing additional resources to the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. government should seriously consider a timely withdrawal from the country, according to Peter Galbraith, former U.S. ambassador to Croatia and United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan. Due to widespread corruption that plagues the Afghani government and hinders U.S. reform efforts, the war has become too costly to sustain, Galbraith said in his lecture, "The Afghanistan Quagmire," on Wednesday morning in Spaulding Auditorium.
"I think it is actually immoral to send young men and women to a mission where they cannot succeed," he said.
Galbraith added that the war's costs are no longer justifiable.
"We are dealing with an issue that is of such enormous importance because the war in Afghanistan is consuming $100 billion a year, as well as 100,000 American troops," he said.
Although Galbraith did not rule out the possibility of success in Afghanistan, he said that the military's current objective to defeat the Taliban insurgency is not achievable.
"The war in Afghanistan is one that we cannot win and it is one that we cannot lose," he said.
Political leaders should also question whether the United States can justify such a large commitment of resources, given the Afghani government's lack of credibility amongst its own citizens, Galbraith said.
"The question we need to ask is if we do have a credible local partner in the government of Karzai," he said.
According to Transparency International, a corruption-fighting non-governmental organization, Afghanistan is the second most corrupt country in the world, Galbraith said.
"[Hamid Karzai] has a very clear record over eight years of corruption and ineffectiveness," Galbraith said. "He is commonly described as the mayor of Kabul, meaning that he doesn't actually exercise authority in the North of Afghanistan and he doesn't exercise authority in Afghanistan's South."
The "massively fraudulent" 2009 presidential election in Afghanistan has also handicapped U.S. efforts by further delegitimizing Karzai's government, Galbraith said.
"The fraud was carried out by the very people who were running the election the independent election committee which had all seven members appointed by Karzai," Galbraith said.
Galbraith said he knew immediately that the results were fraudulent because provinces that typically experience a 10 percent voter turnout reported turnouts of "30, 60 and even 200 percent," he said.
Galbraith said Karzai accused him other foreigners of fraud.
"I thought it was an April Fool's joke but Karzai and I just aren't that good friends that we pull these jokes on each other," he said. "I can also guarantee if I were going to steal an election, it wasn't going to be for Karzai."
The corruption has spread far beyond the central government, Galbraith said.
Much of Afghanistan's Pashtun region operates as a "mafia state," and private security firms skim off U.S. government contracts, he said.
The U.S.-trained Afghani army is the one of the few "bright spots in this picture," Galbraith said.
The lecture was the third installment of the seven part summer lecture series "Perilous Triangle: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran," sponsored by the Institute for Lifelong Education at Dartmouth.
