Bush’s ‘new’ Afghanistan’s vice presidential torture, sexual abuse scandal

This video says about itself:

The Shady Afghan Warlords Whom the US Pays to Fight the Taliban

Afghan Warlords (2009): Despite shady pasts, powerful warlords are given recognition from Washington in return for their support fighting drug traffickers and the Taliban. We take a look at America’s new pragmatic approach.

One such character is Gul Agha Sherzai, aka The Bulldozer and Governor of Nangarhar for the last five years. After striking a political deal with President Karzai, he became a power broker to be reckoned with.

Ruling from his Jalalabad palace, Sherzai shows off his power: The Taliban is no danger. I have defeated them. By Afghan standards, security in his region has drastically improved along with an impressive fall in drugs production. Its hard to argue that he’s been anything but a success to enthuse US counter-narcotics officials. However, his past is less than pristine.

An expert on the region says: To be an effective leader there, at some point you had to have been involved in the commission of atrocities, together with the accumulation of enormous wealth and that means opium.’ Sherzai allegedly got wealthy during his time as governor of Kandahar taking a cut from the opium profits from the area. While his former associate has been serving a life sentence in the US, he’s been enjoying a high-profile collaboration with Washington. Why? Theres a perception [in] the West that he’s somebody who can be rehabilitated. He was simply deemed more useful.

From the BBC:

Afghan Vice-President Dostum flies to Turkey amid torture claims

Afghanistan’s Vice-President, Abdul Rashid Dostum, has left the country amid claims that he ordered his men to kidnap, beat and rape a political rival last year.

Afghan officials confirmed he had left Kabul for Turkey on Friday night.

General Dostum has not been charged with any offence, and the incident is under government investigation. …

The vice-president is a former [?] warlord with decades of experience in Afghanistan’s turbulent political arena.

He is blamed for some of the worst atrocities in the country’s long-running civil war, but joined its national unity government in 2014.

The allegations against him come from Ahmad Eshchi, a former ally, who says he suffered days of severe beatings and sexual abuse at Gen Dostum’s command.

He said the vice-president and 10 other men assaulted him while he was forcibly kept at Gen Dostum’s residence in November 2016.

The ex-warlord denies the claims and has said that Mr Eshchi was detained by the country’s intelligence service. …

In 2008 Gen Dostum went to Turkey amid similar allegations that his personal militia had abducted, beaten and sexually assaulted a political rival in Kabul, then fired on police who responded to the incident.