An overwhleming sense of discouragement characterized October in Afghanistan. The US lost 59 soldiers last month — more than any other since the start of the war. October 2009 displaces August 2009, which does not say much for American progress in the region after eight years of occupation. While President Obama contemplates a troop surge in light of General McChrystal’s request for some forty thousand, Obama must also deal with the embarrassing excuse for democracy that was the Afghan presidential election.

In an attempt to cultivate some semblance of legitimate government in Afghanistan, US negotiators got incumbent President Karzai to agree to a runoff election only to have his opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, drop out over the weekend. The runoff was organized by the same commission responsible for the original shambolic vote in August. The electoral system is so corrupt that Abdullah did not want dignify the runoff by putting his name on the ballot. His withdrawal leaves Karzai’s administration in power for the foreseeable future, about which the US government rightly (though perhaps unwisely) expressed its concerns.

Adding to the anxiety, The New York Times broke a story at the end of October about President Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, enjoying US taxpayer money by being on the CIA payroll. This is repulsive for three important reasons:

• Ahmed Wali Karzai is widely considered to be heavily involved in Afghanistan’s pesky opium trade – a major reason for the corruption allegations leveled against President Karzai’s government.
• Ten Americans were killed last Monday after raiding “a compound believed to harbor drug traffickers.”
• The CIA reportedly pays Ahmen Wali to recruit paramilitary forces in southern Afghanistan, which also happens to house the country’s most robust Taliban settlement.

I know funding extra-governmental organizations is historically what the CIA does as a means of accomplishing US aims abroad, but then why risk American lives by having a considerable presence in a purposefully destabilized region? If the US finances a person who contributes to the source of the military and political failures in Afghanistan, I don’t see what more America can expect to achieve than shooting itself in the leg (in which case, mission accomplished).

Photo from Flickr user The U.S. Army under the Creative Commons License.