America’s new main man in Afghanistan

Weeks after Richard Holbrooke got appointed as the “special” envoy for Afghanistan, US got themselves a new leader in Afghanistan.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai, a semiliterate former warlord, has an autocratic style, a reputation for doling out government contracts to family and friends, and a personal fortune allegedly amassed via corruption and the opium trade.

Shirzai, which means son of a lion, is seen as a “useful partner” for the US even though Shirzai has a track record of “of violence, corruption and a disdain for the rule of law”.

Like Washington, Afghani’s love Shirzai and have voted him as the “Person of the Year” during a national radio call-in show.

“Every politician in Afghanistan is a thief, but our governor doesn’t take all the money for himself,” Shirzais is described by the Aghanis.

Some years ago Shirzai was removed by the US as governor of Kandahar because of “allowing his personal gunmen to get into shootouts with the city’s police force”.

Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai

Shirzai also shows a profound acumen for diplomacy.

“We don’t have to rely only on fighting and bombing and jet planes. That we use only for those people who won’t talk,” says Shirzai.

Additional biographical gems are:

- He has three wives and 18 children. He smokes and tells dirty jokes. His favorite food is steak, a taste he picked up on visits to America (so, he’s been courted for a while now, eh!).

- After U.S. Special Forces installed him a governor, Shirzai “amassed a fortune, estimated at $300 million, through corrupt business dealings and the opium trade”.

- Shirzai says that he lives off his government salary of about $36,000 a year but was able to personally contribute “millions of dollars on reconstruction projects”.

- In a remarkable compassion for Afghani women, Shirzais built a “park Mr. Shirzai built for women.”

Back in 1999, Holbrooke found similar allies when he visited the headquarters of Kosovo Albanian separatist gunmen and, mindful of Islamic customs, Holbrooke took his shoes off and made a barefoot alliance, a symbol that tells the host “I’m with you”. These gunmen, today, are lords of Europe’s underworld.