excerpts.

As I was getting ready for work today, I had the Kindle read to me the top article in today's WSJ, "U.S. Courts Former Warlords in Its Bid for Afghan Stability". I had also been contemplating also writing another "Six Degrees of Bin Laden" with the Haqqanni movement as that's making some news and it's a game I invented but then I heard Kindle robot TTS voice read this quote* and it struck me.

"Every politician in Afghanistan is a thief, but our governor doesn't take all the money for himself. He is building our city," says Shafeeq Azizi, a 37-year-old shop owner in Jalalabad. "Why does it trouble me if he gets rich?"

Mr. Azizi was lounging with friends in one of the Jalalabad parks restored by Mr. Shirzai's administration. Across the street is a park Mr. Shirzai built for women. A few miles away stands Shirzai Stadium. There's a new mall, new stoplights and refurbished mosques in many neighborhoods.

Critics say the governor's strengths and weaknesses are often one and the same. "He wants something and he says, 'Build it.' There is no plan," said Haji Wahid, who owns a construction company. He says he sees no long-term vision behind Mr. Shirzai's rebuilding efforts.

Parts of the US Government are tribal.

And not in any good connotation. Particularly our government's IT divisions. They're not just protected, entitled fiefdoms, an analogy whose European roots softens the devastation and criticism that it should bring, but actual tribal land grabs by people who have no idea what effective IT means but think they do because they can use a Blackberry like Obama or love their iPhone.

Here's how it should run. And by "it" I mean the Afghan situation and not our government IT's situation, since that's well in hand by people who think they know what they're doing, puls Web 2.0 ftw, data transparency and Vivek Kundra's back on the job. (Petty "warlords" watch out.)

When analysing situations like this a review of history's always helpful. Here's one slice of history that looks like it might be applicable: The aftermath of the British Raj and the subsequent upheaval in India and Pakistan eventually leading to an India where large wealthy families (Tata, etc) control multiple industries in a monopoly grip. The latter half of that statement resembles the US with our monopoly-families, too, which should give some indication where I'm going here. Granted, in both Iraq and Afghanistan (and most elsewhere), we - America - are not colonialists like the Brits, French, Germans, Dutch, etc and I'd argue our methods are less damaging, but that's another debate and another post.

The process at hand is this:

Tribal succession -> Tribally appointed, Elections -> Elections where Tribal relationships may still have sway -> "Free and Fair" Elections.

In the western world we may think we're so far advanced that we don't deal with fiefdoms anymore - we're beyond that process and that management style is retrograde or deprecated. It's not, we (westerners) just don't do it any more nor do we do it well. They (middleasternerners) do. There may be a value judgment in saying one style is better than another and I'll leave that up to someone's masters/phd thesis, but one fact is true: "Democracy" and "tribal consensus rule" don't interface well at an economic point. It's much better to have two democracies (or political structures loosely framed around democratic principles) interacting than disparate political systems (china-us, etc.). To this point, if we or for that matter Afghanistan, themselves, want to get to a more "democratic" style of political system, they'll have to go through the above transitional phases and we'll have to honor and recognize that those phases will happen. Whining (from western governments and western NGO "democracy watch dogs") does not and will not help phase transitioning, it'll just be annoying.

Currently tribal succession is in play. We'll have to let it happen. For example, the Jamal Baba Construction Co., part owned by Mr. Shirzai's son, Jaan Agh mentioned in the article will have to undergo economic pressure and engagement to become a company that has influence in the region. That'll allow external democratic organizations (whether external to Kandahar and Nangahar provinces or external to Afghanistan) exert some influence. The influence could be democratic-leaning or possibly Talib-leaning. That pressure, if properly exercised, will lead to another political round wherein the region'll be able to assess the benefits of a more open economic and political model and then continue down the tribal-democratic spectrum. Note India's example - Tata, Mittal, etc are all still in place, mostly unregulated from a monopoly stance - India's still not at "free and fair." One could also argue that Japan's kiretsus haven't reached the fullness of the "democratic" spectrum yet, either, after their rebuilding. Some countries don't want to go all the way and we should recognize and accept that. Will we, though?

* Here's the quote (wav format) using my Say This app.