Letter #11 to friends and family: The Politics of Murder

Life returns to normal – that is to say: back to sunny surrealism – after a bloody incident like the “complex” attack that occurred two nights ago in the heart of Kunduz City (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-attack-20100703,0,2973351.story). Life on the plateau, on which we rest complacently, appears to be relatively immune to reality. Five of the six murdered belonged, in some capacity, to one of USAID’s largest “implementing partners”, Development Alternatives International (DAI).

Many of the eighteen wounded, however, had nothing to do with the incident. Again, they were pure innocents falling victim to the local police peppering the stricken building with rocket-propelled grenades. Beat cops with R.P.G.s? Not good for community policing. The attack that hammered DAI was complex in that it represented a tightly planned sequence of attacks.

Had DAI’s security people followed the spurned advice of the local police, the car-bomb would have killed one DAI guard – Afghan, I am sure – instantly at the front gate. The remaining five insurgents should have had to face a second, strongly fortified perimeter ten feet behind the gate and meet a rather quick demise. Such “simplistification”, however, misses the larger question: why was DAI itself attacked? The obvious answer, and the one that ends most analyses, is that DAI is a large USAID contractor. American NGOs are fair game; end of story.

Well, not quite. Several USAID implementing partners work in Kunduz, not to mention about half a dozen others from Europe working on Germany’s far larger program. So, why DAI in particular? Because DAI’s dormitory was in a residential area and neighbors were none-too-pleased with its presence. Now why would that be? After all, this house populated in large part by highly paid foreigners would normally be pumping money into the neighborhood economy.

True; nevertheless, local inhabitants suspect that large American non-governmental organizations (NGOs) pose as front organizations for intelligence organizations and, worse (from the Afghan view), the special forces. The ‘black ops’ mode of selective elimination of key enemy figures has significantly reduced collateral damage, a definite “PLUS” ethically. On the other hand, many Afghans rightly or wrongly view these midnight rangers as assassins or terrorists in uniform.

All very interesting but where does DAI figure in all of this? DAI is implementing a program to aid the counter-insurgency by investing in small local projects in contested areas. This 'window-dressing' program confers “quick-impacts” on hostile communities by employing local workers. All just fine; that is counter-insurgency. To do that, however, DAI likely works with intelligence resources to target particular villages for these non-lethal activities aimed at winning hearts and minds.

The villagers see through the manipulation as easily as we can see through overt and often insincere efforts of someone trying to ‘buy’ our liking. Taliban sympathizers may take -- and even like -- the money. Yet they continue to detest the ulterior motives imputed to the DAIs of the world. Buying allegiances will not work. Furthermore, companies like DAI should fail developmental smell-tests.

DAI is a for-profit organization dedicated (apparently) to development or capacity-building, the flip-side of ‘sovereign’ loans extended by international money-center banks. Admittedly, I once made the argument that international banks should take the lead in lending to poorer countries because the money-centers would differentiate third-world countries – those with the ability to grow and pay off loans to the banker’s profit – from fourth world countries (i.e., today's the bottom billion). All very logical on my part...when I was a twenty-two year old trying to get a job in banking in the late 1970s.

We know the reality of global finance by now, with periodic 'sovereign debt' write-offs in exchange for (supposedly) coerced votes in the U.N., and the like. (Not original to me, but to a self-indulgent former ‘development professional’ in a book titled “Confessions of an Economic Hit-Man”; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man.) In the contemporary economics of U.S. development aid, much of the money designated as "pledged" to a poor country, barely trickles down to the intended beneficiaries. The bulk of this 'foreign aid' funds white-collar make-work consulting jobs that enrich Americans and U.S. companies like DAI.

Large non-profit implementing (what?) partners often are little better. The good news is that most NGOs, including American and those contracting out to USAID, do not fit the profile of “beltway bandits”. They do good work. Their best work comes through working with start-up NGOs in Afghanistan and elsewhere that engage local populations to take back their futures to the extent they can, little-by-little.

Thus, DAI was attacked more for being perceived as a corporate bag-man doing the bidding of the U.S. government. Sadly, two nights ago, theocratic thugs murdered six people most of whom had no axe to grind with insurgents, criminals, freedom-fighters, corporate welfare chiselers or anyone else. Every bit as sad will be the continuing “battle rhythm” of many large USAID implementing partners: high-profiles, fast bucks and fleeting, if any, results.