Afghanistan, Iraq-Nam Among World's Most Corrupt Nations

Transparency International is a non-governmental international body dedicated to stamping out corruption around the world. One of its tools in the fight is shining a spot light on the behaviors in 180 different countries in its annual report, the Corrupt Perceptions Index. There appears to be a correlation between development and transparency, or if one prefers between backwardness and corruption. What is rather disturbing for American readers is the very poor showings of Afghanistan (second worst) and Iraq-Nam (tied with Sudan for fourth worst). All that American blood and treasure has gone for naught.

At the top of the table are countries like New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland. These are hardly surprises. One can scarcely remember a time when it was necessary to bribe a New Zealand official. That is less true of the nations in the middle like Poland (49th), Italy (63rd, largely thanks to President Berlusconi all by his twisted self), and Brazil (75th).

However, the real basket cases from a political-economy perspective are those where government is nothing more than a protection racket on a scale Tony Soprano would admire. The most corrupt nation in the world is Somalia, according to the TI report. Since there is no real government there, and hasn't been for about two decades, is it any wonder pirates use it as a base? Sudan is third worst, and it largely has the same kind of problems. Myanmar, a military society that would be as bad as North Korea if the local military wasn't so superstitious (the generals there have a fear of all sorts of supernatural nonsense) is third worst

That said, the fact that Afghanistan is actually worse by this measure than Sudan should make every American wonder just what the heck has gone on there for the last 8 years. There have been two presidential elections there, the US has pumped in more than Afghanistan's GDP in aid (in $100 bills no less), and it can't outdo Sudan on the transparency front? Iraq-Nam, after all the Busheviks did to convert the place into a bourgeois liberal democracy, isn't as well off as Chad, one of Africa's worst basket cases.

The political chattering classes have said that democracy and freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq-Nam are the keys to American security from terrorism in the future. If that is true, this report suggests that the nation is only a whisker away from another terrorist disaster. One must ask what has worked in these countries, because so little really has. The policy failures are clear if the measures are transparency and the end of corruption. And if those aren't the measures, by what standard does one measure progress in these sad countries?

© Copyright 2009 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

Kensington Review Home