In the comments section of the above mentioned cable, it is noted, "Given the fluidity of developments on the ground (e.g., rumors of Ahmed Wali Karzai's appointment as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia or Oman, and Abdul Razziq's initiative to form an anti-corruption task force in Spin Boldak), the time is right to determine an appropriate policy for dealing with such officials."
According to Mazzetti, Clarridge has really worked to prove that President Hamid Karzai is a heroin addict.
Mr. Clarridge pushed a plan to prove that the president was a heroin addict, and then confront him with the evidence to ensure that he became a more pliable ally. Mr. Clarridge proposed various ideas, according to several associates, from using his team to track couriers between the presidential palace in Kabul and Ahmed Wali Karzai's home in Kandahar, to even finding a way to collect Hamid Karzai's beard clippings and run DNA tests. He eventually dropped his ideas when the Obama administration signaled it was committed to bolstering the Karzai government.
There are no WikiLeaks cables on Clarridge trying to collect "beard clippings" or "run DNA tests" (there are, however, cables detailing how diplomats were asked to collect biometric data on United Nations diplomats).
Mazzetti notes, "American law prohibits private citizens from actively undermining a foreign government, but prosecutions under the so-called Neutrality Act have historically been limited to people raising private armies against foreign powers." Was Clarridge undermining a foreign government? Yes. But, isn't that what occupying forces do? The military undermines foreign government to, to an extent, and that's why Hamid Karzai has so much difficulty with governance.
Appropriately concluded is the fact that Clarridge's story is "a startling demonstration of how private citizens can exploit the chaos
of combat zones and rivalries inside the American government to carry
out their own agenda." Clarridge exploited the inability and failure of the CIA to provide information military officials could consider credible. Clarridge expanded the possibility that in the future the military would depend on private individuals to provide information that could be used.
Unless WikiLeaks has released all the cables from the embassy in Kabul, more cables will likely be released mentioning Ahmed Wali Karzai and Hamid Karzai (at this point only 2% of the 250,000 cables have been released). Those cables would provide context to this story that--in an age where everything is being made into a movie--is ripe for a Hollywood translation.
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