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Desperate for a fresh pod over the holidays? We're tiding you over the Christmas-New Year gap with some shows you might have missed from the wider Podmasters universe. Today, enjoy this edition of our geopolitics weekly This Is Not A Drill. On this edition… Corruption, bribery and cronyism aren't just criminal matters. International alliances of corrupt states and their enablers are undermining democracies and international law, creating a world without rules where everything and anyone can be bought. From Putin's gangster state to COVID corruption and favouritism in the UK, the West's response has been feeble. How big is Kleptocracy's threat to global stability? Regular TINAD presenter Emma Beals explores an existential danger with anti-corruption writer Sarah Chayes – author of Everybody Knows: Corruption in America – and Guardian investigations correspondent and author of Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth Tom Burgis. NB This edition recorded before Trump's victory in the US election. • Subscribe to This Is Not A Drill on your favourite app. • When you buy books through our affiliate bookshop you're helping fund our podcasts by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org's fees help support independent bookshops too. Written and presented by Emma Beals. Audio production by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Corruption, bribery and cronyism aren't just criminal matters. International alliances of corrupt states and their enablers are undermining democracies and international law, creating a world without rules where everything and anyone can be bought. From Putin's gangster state to COVID corruption and favouritism in the UK, the West's response has been feeble. Is Kleptocracy the real threat to global stability? Emma Beals explores an existential danger with anti-corruption writer Sarah Chayes – author of Everybody Knows: Corruption in America – and Guardian investigations correspondent and author of Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth Tom Burgis. • “If Trump wins, more than ever US policy will be up for sale.” – Sarah Chayes • Support This Is Not Drill on Patreon to continue by backing us on Patreon. You'll get early, ad-free editions, merchandise and more. • When you buy books through our affiliate bookshop you're helping fund This Is Not A Drill by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org's fees help support independent bookshops too. Written and presented by Emma Beals. Audio production by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Author of the book "On Corruption in America: And What is at Stake" and former NPR correspondent Sarah Chayes discusses embedded corruption networks in Afghanistan, particularly under U.S. and allied occupation, and other countries plagued by endemic corruption. She argues that the very institutions— primarily Western— seeking to tackle corruption in these countries end up propping up corrupt financial and military institutions by supporting networks of elite capital interests and a conglomeration of private contractors.
The False Equivalence of Hunter Biden on Trial While His Father is Running Against the Head of the Trump Crime Family | The Grey Area Between What is Illegal and What is Corrupt | The Looming Strike by the UAW Against the Big Three Automakers backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia facebook.com/ianmastersmedia
It's summertime in Sweden and Canada, and that means it's time for Pushback Talks - Summer Series! And we're doing things a little differently this year. For the next six weeks, we'll revisit some of our favorite episodes from across all six seasons, giving you updates on the guests and topics at the top of each episode. The Filmmaker and the Advocate are taking a break, but the podcast isn't. No matter where you are - we hope you enjoy this year's Summer Series!The Filmmaker and the Advocate take listeners of this episode of PUSHBACK Talks into the real world – one where $$ money $$ is the principle value and corruption and kleptocracy the means of acquisition. Few are better placed to expose the workings of corruption than Sarah Chayes – former NPR reporter, and senior adviser to government officials in the US Department of Defence, and author of three books including her most recent, On Corruption in America and What is at Stake. Drawing on her experiences in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Honduras, Lebanon and beyond, Chayes reveals that contrary to media reporting, corruption is not about individuals or single acts. Rather, it operates through sophisticated networks that link together people from very different sectors of society, spanning governments and the private sector. These networks are flexible and exist through time, over decades, losing members along the way as protests and civil unrest require, and then gaining more members after each sacrifice. Network members bend and repurpose the institutions and agencies of government to make them serve the objectives of the network, rather than the public interest. The pivotal role of real estate in all of this is not lost on Chayes who notes a universal feature of these networks of corruption is the use of real estate as a vehicle. So what's at stake when kleptocracy and corruption are left unchallenged? Nothing less than democracy.Produced by WG Film Recorded & Edited by Mikey JonesMusic by Florencia Di ConcilioSocial Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna LeanderSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/pushbacktalks)Support the showSupport the show
Sarah Chayes is one courageous person. She spent nine years running a small community business in the heart of Kandahar, Afghanistan: the center of Taliban resistance, drug lords and deep-rooted criminal corruption. She speaks about the parallels between the corruption she witnessed there and the corruption taking place in the United States.
Sarah Chayes is a former NPR foreign correspondent and an internationally recognized expert on corruption. She will visit Iowa this week.
Sarah Chayes is a former NPR foreign correspondent and an internationally recognized expert on corruption. She will visit Iowa this month.
Oliver Bullough, Tom Burgis and Sarah Chayes, authors of three of the best books on global corruption, gather for a panel at the Annapolis Book Festival for a fascinating discussion about how the corrupt operate, often with impunity, and what can be done to slow the pace of looting.
This is the second and last episode of my interview with Sarah Chayes, award-winning international journalist, author and former advisor to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. Our discussion revolved around a core question: Is corruption the most important issue of our time? Can anyone hope to tackle any other global problem – be it climate change, migration, security, wealth inequality – without addressing grand fraud and corruption first? Sarah's article mentioned in this episode can be found here: · https://aeon.co/essays/corruption-has-shaped-history-why-do-we-still-ignore-it Sarah's books mentioned in this episode can be found here: · Thieves of State (2015): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25622863-thieves-of-state · On Corruption in America (2020): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/585789/on-corruption-in-america-by-sarah-chayes/ Direct support for this podcast comes from Nemexis GmbH, a corporate crime investigations company based in Berlin, Germany (nemexis.de). Your host is Paul Milata, CFE, PhD. You can reach him at grandfraud@nemexis.de Views expressed by podcast guests are their own and not the view of The Grand Fraud Podcast, Paul Milata or Nemexis GmbH.
Is corruption the most important issue of our time? Can anyone hope to tackle any other global problem – be it climate change, migration, security, wealth inequality – without addressing grand fraud and corruption? This is the first in a series of episodes where I discuss this question with Sarah Chayes, an award-winning international journalist, author and former advisor to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. Sarah's article mentioned in this episode can be found here: https://aeon.co/essays/corruption-has-shaped-history-why-do-we-still-ignore-it Sarah's books mentioned in this episode can be found here: Thieves of State (2015): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25622863-thieves-of-state On Corruption in America (2020): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/585789/on-corruption-in-america-by-sarah-chayes/ Direct support for this podcast comes from Nemexis GmbH, a corporate crime investigations company based in Berlin, Germany (nemexis.de). Your host is Paul Milata, CFE, PhD. You can reach him at grandfraud@nemexis.de Views expressed by podcast guests are their own and not the view of The Grand Fraud Podcast, Paul Milata or Nemexis GmbH.
Oligarchs and kleptocrats extend beyond Russia and, according to investigate reporter Tom Burgis, "The thieves are uniting." Is the ideological battle in the 21st century democracy vs. kleptocracy? And what role does the West play in supporting global kleptocrats? Tom Burgis, along with Oliver Bullough and Sarah Chayes, discuss the rise of global kleptocracy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Historian and journalist Sarah Chayes, argues that we can't fix our floundering democracy until we face — and fix — our current levels of corruption. In her view, we are in a “pandemic of corruption,” fostered by a network of corrupt businesses and political leaders worldwide. Before we can begin to set things right, however, we first have to grasp what modern-day corruption really is. Behind this evolving crisis, says Chayes, is a shift in the very definition of power. Where society's leaders once at least paid lip service to the concept of public service, today the only measure of social status, she contends, is money: The pursuit of power has turned into a no-holds-barred scramble for more and more wealth. Chayes, the author of On Corruption in America, explains how we got here, and how we must build a coalition of integrity that transcends ideology, one that has its roots in equity and the public interest. My WhoWhatWhy conversation with Sarah Chayes:
With Eastern Europe looking at another conflict region opening up between Russia and Ukraine, we're looking back to a conversation with a person who's been a journalist, an author, and a special adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sarah Chayes offers us some still-timely insight into the inner workings of international politics. In this discussion, guest host Jack Segal of the TCIAF leads the conversation about Sarah's book Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security. Chayes' book connects the dots from Syria to Ukraine to Nigeria to Afghanistan, showing how kleptocratic regimes – tolerated or even facilitated by the United States – can drive fed-up citizens into the arms of extreme fundamentalist groups. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nationalwritersseries/message
Investigative journalist Sarah Chayes discusses her new book on corruption in America
Investigative journalist Sarah Chayes discusses her new book on corruption in America
New Tully Show! Author and journalist Sarah Chayes discusses "On Corruption in America: And What Is At Stake" (newly available in paperback), her time in Afghanistan, and more. Listen wherever you pod!
This week's episode is fantastic! I am joined by Sarah Chayes, who was recommended to me during my episode with Sebastian Junger. Sarah Chayes is an author and a journalist, and has worked as a political advisor. She writes primarily about the nature of corruption. Her books include Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security, and most recently: On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake which is coming out in paperback in the US next week. This is a fascinating conversation with someone who possesses incredible experience. Sarah talks about her time in Afghanistan, her stint as a political advisor to the military, and her understanding of corruption that exists at every level of power. We get deep and philosophical about how this affects us as humans, and how we can fight corruption. In the UK Sarah's book On Corruption in America is titled Everybody Knows: Corruption in America if you're looking to buy a copy.More Info: Get Sarah's books here: https://www.sarahchayes.org/books Come see me live; check out upcoming dates: https://www.russellbrand.com/live-dates/ My meditation podcast, Above the Noise, is out now, only on Luminary. I will be releasing guided meditations every Wednesday. Please check it out: http://luminary.link/meditate Elites are taking over! Our only hope is to form our own. To learn more join my cartel here https://www.russellbrand.com/join and get weekly bulletins too incendiary for anything but your private inbox. (*not a euphemism) Subscribe to my YouTube channel, I post four videos a week including video clips from these episodes! https://www.youtube.com/russellbrand Subscribe to my YouTube side-channel for more wellness and spirituality: https://www.youtube.com/c/AwakeningWithRussell Instagram: http://instagram.com/russellbrand/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/rustyrockets
Former NPR journalist Sarah Chayes covered the fall of the Taliban in 2001, then spent a decade trying to help the economy through a cooperative she established, and became an advisor to the Pentagon and Chairman Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sarah Chayes talks with In Focus host Carolyn Hutcheson about the Taliban's roots in Pakistan and how the group took hold in Afghanistan.
Haven't received your online shopping on time? Fareed talks to David Lynch, global economics correspondent for the Washington Post, about why the post-pandemic economy is seeing supply shortages and high prices for goods. What is causing these glitches in the global supply chain? One piece of the puzzle is the shake-up in the labor market, Heather Long, an economics correspondent for the Washington Post, tells Fareed about the great re-assessment of work in America and how the puzzling data might foreshadow a positive future for productivity and growth in the global economy. Then, Anne Applebaum, staff writer for the Atlantic, explains Poland's democratic downturn and why events in Poland may sound familiar to Americans. The Pandora Papers offered another glimpse at how and where the rich hide their wealth. Sarah Chayes, author of the book “On Corruption,” explains why South Dakota has become a global tax haven, right in the U.S. heartland. Plus, Fareed takes a look at the future of German politics as Angela Merkel departs from the spotlight after her 16-year tenure as Chancellor. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy
One of America's weaknesses is a tendency to move off a topic as soon as it becomes uncomfortable. We're not known as a nation for deep reflection, often failing to learn the deeper lessons an experience affords and thus dooming ourselves to repeat it.We've all heard a million times that we have “the most powerful military in the world.” We certainly have the largest. And the most expensive. But do we have the most powerful one, really? It's painful but important to remind ourselves that we've now lost three wars in a row.The war in Vietnam? It should never have been fought. The war in Iraq? It should never have been fought. The war in Afghanistan? A different story, because given 9/11 there was a reason to go in there originally. But the 20-year war we waged in Afghanistan turned out to be a spectacular failure, with the Taliban back in power within days of our departure. We are making a terrible mistake if we don't at least try to understand what went wrong.After the deaths of almost 2,500 American soldiers, thousands of coalition forces dead, thousands more Americans whose lives will forever be painfully affected, the deaths of tens of thousands of Afghans, and a cost of 2.3 trillion dollars (2 trillion of which went directly to defense contractors), surely we must ask, “What happened here?”Yet who, exactly, is going to ask that? We shouldn't leave the analysis of the war to the same people who did such a terrible job waging it. Yet that's currently what's happening. Congress is calling the military brass to Capitol Hill to explain what happened, but it's largely the same performative exercise with which they provided so-called Congressional oversight of the war for the last 20 years.On September 28th, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told Congress this about Afghanistan: “We built a state but we could not forge a nation.” That very sentence - so false, and so full of arrogance - encapsulates the ugliness of American hubris. No, we did not “build a state” in Afghanistan; we built and enabled a corrupt, undemocratic government there. And no, we didn't need to “forge a nation;” Afghanistan has been a nation for thousands of years! Whatever clever wordsmith over at the Defense Department came up with that line for the Secretary's speech should be ashamed.So to expect any deep reflection, radical truth-telling or meaningful analysis from our war planners - military, Congressional or executive - is naive. If they even knew what really went wrong, they might have done things differently to begin with.And if Congress was really interested in getting to the bottom of it? They would be calling George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump to come in and answer a few questions as well. But they won't, of course, because to do so would disrupt the illusion that our government has control over our war machine. Sadly, it's the other way around. Even after all the death, and all the horror, it's essentially business as usual in Washington.Routing the Taliban from Afghanistan originally was an exercise in brute force at which we succeeded. But keeping them out - and helping the Afghans keep them out - was something that required skills not currently in America's tool box. If anything, we proved the ultimate futility of endless violence. We waged war, but we failed miserably at providing the conditions for a sustainable post-war state of peace. In the end, that means we failed completely.Today's podcast is called THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN: An Effort to More Deeply Understand. It is compiled from interviews I conducted over the last few weeks, with various voices providing meaningful reflections on the war.On Afghanistan, as on so many issues, it's imperative that we push against the grain of shallow and ultimately meaningless narrative that dominates our politics. I hope you'll take the time to listen very carefully to this important podcast, produced brilliantly by Jon Ehrens. I'm grateful to Sarah Chayes, Laura Jedeed, Zainab Salbi, Tom Freston, Joe Cirincione, and Obaidullah Baheer for sharing their experiences and insights.Let's join in an effort to more deeply understand this American, and Afghan, tragedy. My greatest hope is that out of something truly terrible there will arise something truly wise. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.transformarticles.com/subscribe
Afghanistan: The lives of Afghans in Britain today and the role of corruption in the return of the Taliban. Laurie Taylor talks to Nichola Khan, Reader in Anthropology and Psychology at the University of Brighton, about her monumental study of Afghan migrants in Sussex, England, at a time when we are seeing a fresh wave of migration from their home country. Also, Sarah Chayes, former Senior Associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, explores the role of political corruption in the renewed ascendency of the Taliban. Producer: Jayne Egerton
Afghanistan: The lives of Afghans in Britain today and the role of corruption in the return of the Taliban. Laurie Taylor talks to Nichola Khan, Reader in Anthropology and Psychology at the University of Brighton, about her monumental study of Afghan migrants in Sussex, England, at a time when we are seeing a fresh wave of migration from their home country. Also, Sarah Chayes, former Senior Associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, explores the role of political corruption in the renewed ascendency of the Taliban. Producer: Jayne Egerton
Afghanistan: The lives of Afghans in Britain today and the role of corruption in the return of the Taliban. Laurie Taylor talks to Nichola Khan, Reader in Anthropology and Psychology at the University of Brighton, about her monumental study of Afghan migrants in Sussex, England, at a time when we are seeing a fresh wave of migration from their home country. Also, Sarah Chayes, former Senior Associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, explores the role of political corruption in the renewed ascendency of the Taliban. Producer: Jayne Egerton
Former NPR correspondent Sarah Chayes covered the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, then stayed to establish a soap factory in Kandahar as a way to employ local workers to help the economy. She talks with In Focus host Carolyn Hutcheson about witnessing the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and reconnecting today with friends who are experiencing the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.
A logistical success, but a strategic failure.That's how top US generals described the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, in the second day of hearings on Wednesday on Capitol Hill, this time before the House Armed Services Committee.A lot of the most intense questioning dealt with intelligence failures and how the US could have missed signs pointing to the rapid collapse of the Afghan government. Related: Gen. David Petraeus: The US has a 'moral obligation' to help those left behind in AfghanistanUS Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin tried to answer for these failures in his opening statement: "We need to consider some uncomfortable truths; that we did not fully comprehend the depth of corruption and poor leadership in their senior ranks; that we did not grasp the damaging effect of frequent and unexplained rotations by President [Ashraf] Ghani of his commanders; that we did not anticipate the snowball effect caused by the deals that the Taliban commanders struck with local leaders in the wake of the Doha agreement." Related: Afghan UN employees worry about their safetyAuthor Sarah Chayes, who served as a special adviser to the US military in Afghanistan and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after a decade on the ground in Kandahar, has been watching the hearings closely. Her most recent book is called "On Corruption in America and What is at Stake." Chayes joined The World's host Marco Werman to share her reaction to these military testimonies and to fill in the blanks on who else may need to testify on US failures in Afghanistan. Marco Werman: What do you make of that explanation for the lack of military intelligence?Sarah Chayes: It's just stunning to me, but in a way, not surprising. So much US intelligence was focused on who we should kill instead of being focused on the degree of corruption, not just in the ranks of the Afghan military, but throughout the government, and the effect that that would have on the willingness of Afghan citizens to take mortal risks for their own government, you know? I mean, that information was being hammered on successive US administrations for years. I was one of the hammerers and not at all alone. And so, I find that very distressing. And then — this snowball effect of the local deals. I think this is another really significant failing on the intelligence and military side — is misunderstanding how Afghans wage war. Afghans rarely fight as units to the death. Fighting is much more a kind of psychological exercise. That's why it's often quite violent. So, you have the combination of the Taliban, who were making battlefield victories, a Doha agreement that essentially conferred sovereignty on them, and then they went to work on the ground, as you said. How could the United States government have missed that context?Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley tried to provide an answer for how the US failed to predict the Afghan government's collapse: "We can count the trucks and the guns and the units and all that. We can watch that from different techniques, but we can't measure a human heart from a machine. You've got to be there to do that. And I think that was probably one of the most significant contributing factors to missing the deterioration in the morale of the Afghan army." What do you make of Gen. Milley's comments? We were there for 20 years. We were on the ground for 20 years, and we still missed that type of psychological and social intelligence. We never got close enough to ordinary people.Related: How the Taliban might finance their new Afghan government Well, you spoke earlier about the lack of understanding of how Afghans wage war. I mean, Gen. Milley at one point questioned why the US had tried to build an Afghan army in our own image. What was he getting at? He put his finger on what you really can hang around the military's neck, is why would you create, in an environment of very difficult terrain, where wars are constantly being won by ill-armed, ill-equipped insurgents, why would you create a conventional army that looks like ours, that requires highly technical equipment that people need to maintain, that seems to require air support (although the Taliban never seem to need air support). And that, again, was going on for 20 years. And I think we really have to ask ourselves as a country, why? What was the incentive structure behind building that type of top-heavy, equipment-heavy military? And were economic interests not involved here? I mean, is this not the type of equipment and contractor support that is delivered by very high-end military contractors whose executives have been building fancy mansions around Washington, DC, for the last decade?So, the starting point for the hearings this week seems to be that the problems with the US project in Afghanistan were fundamentally military. And that's why generals were brought before lawmakers today and called to task. But weren't a lot of the fundamental problems also civilian?Well, exactly. Thank you, Marco. And I hope that civilian officials will be called soon. And first and foremost, for me, it would be Zal Khalilzad, [special envoy for Afghanistan], who is responsible for the actual terms of the Doha agreement. ... He's an Afghan American who conducted these negotiations at President [Donald] Trump's behest in Doha. Those negotiations, as far as I know, were conducted in Pashto without any member of the US government who spoke the language present — other than the ambassador — and they essentially conferred sovereignty on the Taliban. How would we expect an Afghan government not to be demoralized under those conditions?This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Routing the Taliban from Afghanistan was a successful exercise in brute force. But keeping them out - and helping the Afghans keep them out - was something that required skills not currently in America's tool box. If anything, we proved the ultimate futility of endless violence. We succeeded at waging war, but we failed miserably at providing the conditions of a sustainable post-war state of peace. THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN: An Effort to More Deeply Understand, is compiled from interviews that provide meaningful reflections on the war. The individual interviews can be found here: https://mariannewilliamson.substack.com/s/reflections-on-afghanistan On Afghanistan, as on so many issues, it's imperative that we push against the grain of shallow and ultimately meaningless narrative that dominates our politics. This podcast was produced by Jon Ehrens, with interviews from Sarah Chayes, Laura Jedeed, Zainab Salbi, Tom Freston, Joe Cirincione, and Obaidullah Baheer. Subscribe to Marianne's Substack, TRANSFORM: MarianneWilliamson.Substack.com
We welcome Kate Bateman, @katebatemandc), senior expert in the Afghanistan program of the United States Institute of Peace (https://www.usip.org/regions/asia/afghanistan), formerly in the Lessons Learned Program at Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (www.sigar.mil) Quarterly report by SIGAR: https://www.sigar.mil/quarterlyreports/index.aspx?SSR=6 Corruption lessons learned report : https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-16-58-LL.pdf Building the ANDSF lessons learned report: https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-17-62-LL.pdf most recent Lesson Learned report “What We Need to Learn,” distilling the insights of previous reports: https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-21-46-LL.pdf Books by Sarah Chayes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Chayes#Books_and_other_works Previous Kickback Episode on the role of Corruption in Afghanistan: https://soundcloud.com/kickback-gap/59-jodi-vittori-on-corruption-and-the-us-military-operation-in-afghanistan Recommended Podcast from Kate: https://www.cna.org/news/podcast Episodes 96 and 97.
Did corruption lose the war in Afghanistan? In the aftermath of the humiliating collapse of the Afghan government, I wanted to find out for this week's #BritainDebrief for the Atlantic Council why that government collapsed like a house of cards. I interviewed Sarah Chayes, who served for a decade in Afghanistan including as special assistant on corruption to Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as having advised David McKiernan and Stanley McChrystal, commanders of the International Security Assistant Force. Was the Afghan government a vertically integrated criminal enterprise? Why did Washington turn a blind eye to corruption? What could the US and the UK have been done differently? And is America in danger of succumbing to its own corruption?
Now that the last American soldier has left Afghanistan and the evacuation is complete, the news media is dropping its focus on Afghanistan. But we ourselves must not look away. We must learn everything we can about what happened - and why. We must learn what we need to know to avoid such a catastrophe ever happening again.As it is, even now, the House Armed Services committee just endorsed a Republican plan for a $24B amendment to the defense budget. So no one should delude themselves that our exit from Afghanistan has slowed down the pace of the US war machine. For the citizens of Afghanistan, everything changed in an instant. For the military industrial complex, very little has changed at all.It is incumbent on us, as citizens, to ask how our war councils operate - both our military and our civilian leadership. Clearly, given the last twenty years of ultimately futile war in Afghanistan, we have every good reason to ask that question. In fact, it is irresponsible for us not to ask. There should be an official Commission established to determine why it is we failed so miserably in Afghanistan, at the cost of so much blood and treasure. Yet you and I know that there will not be.That's why we, as citizens, must do the work that our government will probably refuse to do: look back, and try to understand.I understand why we went into Afghanistan, and I also understand why we initially remained. You can't just topple a government and say, “OK guys, now we're leaving.” We did have a responsibility to the Afghan people at that point. Reasonable people could have seen a short, strictly limited mission in which we seriously tried to help the country rebuild before we left.But that is not what happened, as we're all now glaringly aware. We stayed for twenty years to fight a war in which it appears we did far more harm than good, laying bare the ugliest shadows of American militarism, hubris and hypocrisy. We neither understood the people of Afghanistan nor showed respect to their culture, installing and enabling a government that was almost as abusive to them as had been the Taliban. We did not export democracy to Afghanistan. While we waged war, we made no effort to wage peace - displaying a tragically obsolete mindset that exalts the use of brute force over every other problem-solving option.It's not okay to say “Well it's over now. That's good!” and then just wash our hands of it. We owe it to every American and every Afghan who died in that war to make sure they did not die in vain. We must learn from this - we must understand what happened - or we will repeat this tragedy in the years ahead just like Afghanistan was in far too many ways a repeat of Vietnam.I will be posting several interviews with people who can illuminate our understanding. Some of what you hear will infuriate you, and some of it will bring tears to your eyes. But I'm committed to understanding as much as possible so as to be a conscious citizen going forward. And I'm sure you are as well.The series of interviews is called Reflections on Afghanistan, and this first one is my interview with Sarah Chayes, a former NPR reporter and special advisor to former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen. Sarah wrote the article The Ides of August, and I suggest you read the article before watching the interview. It will make it even more edifying.The war is over but the pain is not. My deepest prayer is that it be a pain that changes us.Excerpts from the interview:Marianne Williamson:Sarah, thank you so much. I am so grateful to you for being here.Sarah Chayes:I am delighted to be with you for this conversation, Marianne.Marianne Williamson:Thank you. I want to read to you a little bit from your article:"Americans like to think of ourselves as having valiantly tried to bring democracy to Afghanistan. Afghans, so the narrative goes, just weren't ready for it, or didn't care enough about democracy to bother defending it. Or, we'll repeat the cliché that Afghans have always rejected foreign intervention. We're just the latest in a long line. I was there. Afghans did not reject us. They looked to us as exemplars of democracy and the rule of law. They thought that's what we stood for."And what did we stand for? What flourished on our watch? Cronyism, rampant corruption, a Ponzi scheme disguised as a banking system, designed by US finance specialists during the very years that other US finance specialists were incubating the crash of 2008, a government system where billionaires get to write the rules. Is that American democracy? Well..?"According to you, when we went into Afghanistan, it was not necessarily seen as an invasion. We got rid of the Taliban, and the Afghani people were open to what might happen. But what happened after that?Sarah Chayes:Like, there was a window of opportunity to help build something that could hold, and that could be responsive to the aspirations of the Afghan people. And we were not doing that, so when I hear, "We shouldn't have done nation-building," I kind of say, "Well, what nation-building did we actually do?"The second thing I'd like to say is you can't just topple a government and then walk away. I mean, you know, even when we go to buy something, right? Fragile and breakable. You know the expression, "You broke it, you own it"? Well, I mean, I just don't quite understand what that would have meant, to walk into Afghanistan, topple the government, and then dust our hands off and walk away. What do we suppose would have happened?Marianne Williamson:What you make clear is that the corruption of the Afghan government was an abuse that was almost as bad in the lives of the Afghan people as was the abuse that they suffered at the hands of the Taliban. Please explain that to us.Sarah Chayes:Well exactly, and what I really appreciate in what you just said, Marianne, is that you're making a distinction between a sort of reductive, on-off idea of what a decision is. "Do we go or do we stay?" You, in your question, just got below that, and you said, "If we stay, how do we stay?" And that really matters. How do you stay, if you choose to stay? How do you go, once you've decided to leave? And in both cases, I think we did the how very, very badly. And I started seeing, early on-in the summer of 2002 - I remember getting a group of young people together, because we wanted to launch this radio station, and the idea was, you know, "What do people want to listen to?" This was going to be certainly the first independent post-Taliban radio station, maybe the first independent radio station ever in Afghanistan. And the kids were... They kept talking about security, but they didn't mean security against the Taliban. They meant security for people against the militias, who were roaming around, that we, the United States, had armed, that we had dressed in US Army uniforms, that were loyal to a man who had imposed himself as governor, in fact against President Karzai's wishes at the time, and were, you know, treating people very badly.And I had half a dozen specific stories like that, and these people were dressed in US Army uniforms. So what were Afghans to think, other than this must have been how we wanted things to go?And very quickly, I was started making this point, that what is really going to matter here is how the Afghan government treats its own people. And unfortunately, you mentioned the CIA, and what they had done was kind of connect with the warlords, whom the Taliban had kicked out of the country back in 1994. These were people who were responsible for a kind of chaotic, violent, extortionate mayhem during the late... I would say during the very early 1990s, after the Soviet Union pulled out.The one thing that Afghans were grateful to the Taliban for was kicking these people out of the country. Everyone I talked to said that. They detested the Taliban, but at least they got rid of the warlord. So what did we do? We allied with those very same warlords, and brought them back into the country, and put them in position as governors of the major provinces. It was almost as though you had a cancer patient, and you had gotten the patient into remission, and then you take a syringe full of cancer cells, and you inject them back into the body of the patient.Marianne Williamson:Did the CIA, did intelligence, so-called intelligence, not know what you were just saying, that the warlords were actually as bad, in some cases worse, to people than the Taliban were, and that we were putting our trust and giving our support to people who were negative, abusive, corrupt influences in the lives of people? Did we not know that? You make it clear, in things that you've written and other interviews that you've done, that during the Obama administration, you certainly tried to tell them.You say that among the high-level Obama administration people, you argued, what's the point of doing all this military action if the government is so corrupt that people will hate its own government, and how do you expect them to want to stand up against the Taliban? You have said in other interviews that Mike Mullen heard that, but that Mike Mullen, because he was joint chiefs of staff, he was the military, this was really not under his control. This had more to do with State and presidential decision-making, which of course means Hillary Clinton.Marianne Williamson:Now let's talk about Karzai. He was our guy. That's why the US backed up, but you yourself were gobsmacked when you first realized that Karzai - who was America's chosen guy to run this government, which in fact was a corrupt government anyway - had actually been one of the people who brought the Taliban to Afghanistan originally. According to your reporting, the Taliban did not emerge almost spontaneously from Kandahar the way we have been told, but they were actually a product of Pakistani military intelligence working with Karzai. And that during the 1990s, Karzai was actually representing the Taliban or was going to represent them at the United Nations. Certainly, the United States knew we were in a war with the Taliban, but that the person we had chosen to head things for us in Afghanistan had helped create the Taliban.I don't think the American people knew this. It is very obvious that the corporate mainstream media was doing nothing other than parroting whatever the White House was saying. I think we are looking to people like yourself right now, because we have to do the investigation ourselves.Sarah Chayes:(There were some very good reporters on the ground, but they often had trouble getting their stories even printed. Also, more people get their news from television today. )And I'd also like to say, military officers on the ground ... I mean, I have a lot of respect for the ones that I met. The people I really hold to account here are the senior leaders on the civilian side for the failure to address the two major political and diplomatic issues, which were, as you pointed out, Pakistan and corruption, and senior military leaders for this. What were we doing creating a conventional army in Afghanistan with people who knew how to fight a guerrilla war and were fighting against guerrillas? Why did we turn them into a conventional army that was bound to be completely dependent on expensive material and American trainers and maintenance, people, and things like that? And there we get to the corporate point that you made, which is to say ...Marianne Williamson:And you pointed out that there was so much money to be made doing it that way, because of all the material that would have to be bought from American defense contractors. If they really wanted to be preparing an army, they would have been preparing an Afghan army, not an army that's merely an extension of our own. The hubris of the Americans. The arrogance of trying to remake Afghanistan in our image. So we made it as corrupt as we are at this point.Sarah Chayes:I would say we tried to remake Afghanistan in, frankly, the image of what we thought Afghan society was, which is violent warlords, that kind of thing. We never really made an effort to bring our ideals of democracy and rule of law to Afghanistan. There was never any effort to bring that. And as you beautifully said, what we did was kind of unwittingly or almost-we exported the version of the American government system that we are currently experiencing. And that is where I see Afghanistan as a very sobering mirror that is being held up to us today. If we don't understand how Afghanistan is a reflection of us, we might be in for scenes like the ones we've been seeing in Kabul airport. That's my concern.Marianne Williamson:Robert McNamara famously said, "We didn't understand the Vietnamese people. We didn't know their religion. We didn't know their history. We didn't know their culture and we didn't have anyone to teach us." It seems to me that to be the same disconnection between the war planners in the Afghan war. As in Vietnam, you don't know anything about these people and you're not even trying to find out.Sarah Chayes:And instead of trying to find out, what we did was presume certain stereotypes. So I received recently a comment to my post, The Ides of August from a retired military person who said, "Well, here's what I used to tell my soldiers, 'Check your American values at the door. Corruption is just part of Afghan culture. Don't even think about corruption." So what I wrote back to him was, "Could you please tell me where you got that information? Which Afghans informed you that they enjoy being shaken down abusively and contemptuously by their own government officials?" That's all I wrote.Marianne Williamson:Tell me more about Pakistan.Sarah Chayes:The Pakistani government was arming and training the resurgent band and the United States government was providing the Pakistani government with a billion dollars a year in military assistance.We kept saying, Pakistan has to "do more to stop the Taliban." And I said, what are you talking about? They're actually constituting them. They aren't retraining them. They're equipping them. And indeed, they are providing them with plans.Marianne Williamson:There's no way the CIA didn't know this, isn't that correct?Sarah Chayes:That is my personal view. Because they could see it. They could see what Pakistan was up to, in particular officers who were stationed up on the borders, the Eastern border, because they were being shot at. And they could see not only what country it was coming from, but when it was coming from Pakistani military bases, that they were being shot at from inside the perimeter, the bases on the border. And so, that is why the military began slowly to come around on Pakistan.Marianne Williamson:You felt that Biden understood that as well.Sarah Chayes:Not from direct interaction with him, but there was a story that went back, I think to 2009, which is... or late 2008, but he traveled to Kabul and had dinner with President Karzai and was so displeased by what he was hearing, that he actually stood up and walked out of that dinner. And he was the only person raising the issue of corruption within the Obama administration.That being said, my impression is that he was also somewhat reductive in what he thought the answer then was. And it was, we got to get out of there. And again, back to how you began this conversation, it's the how as well as the what, and my sense was that his office was not particularly concerned with the how. Argued strongly against a troop buildup, which I think was a perfectly fair position.I just wished that we had had a governance buildup. I wish that we had thought we had realized that maybe it's at least as difficult, if not more difficult to run an Afghan city than it is to command a company or a platoon of Afghan soldiers. Why did we not have mentors with civilian officials? And so in 2009, in January of 2009, I actually wrote up a sort of comprehensive action plan for Afghanistan. It's about eight pages long. It's also on my site, Sarahchaise.org. And at that time, I was in contact with incoming members of the Obama administration. I provided that plan to Richard Holbrooke, who was going to be tapped to be the Special Envoy and to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself, because I was invited to her first dinner at the State Department with a number of Afghanistan and Pakistan folks.And I also provided it to senior military officers. So what I'm trying to say here, I'm not saying that my plan was the be all and end all of what we ought to have done, but it was a significantly different approach that was possible to implement and that we did not implement. And so again, if then Vice President Biden had been concerned about corruption, did he have thoughts about how we might address that? I didn't see any evidence of Vice President Biden wading in to say in that case, alongside the troops that we're sending in, we need to do this, that, and the other thing to address the problem of corruption. That I never saw coming out of his office.Marianne Williamson:Even if he had complained, who knows what difference that might have made. And he said in one of his speeches recently, he's been to Afghanistan four times. He knows how corrupt it was.But in any relationship, it is as important how you leave as how you stay. Talk to me about the exit. In your opinion, did it have to be this disastrous? Many people say, “Look, losing a war is messy, getting out is messy.” I appreciated it when I heard you say there's something very unseemly about just writing it off as “messy,” given how many thousands of people's lives are so horribly affected by it. Could this have been done in a way that would have been much better? I would assume that you'd say it was done the same way we did everything else regarding Afghanistan: with very little concern for the people who were living there.Sarah Chayes:That's exactly how I feel about it.Marianne Williamson:I had heard you say in another interview that it seemed to you that President Biden basically just had a on off switch about Afghanistan.Sarah Chayes:That is my feeling. And what I would say is that the Doha negotiations that took place, particularly in President Trump's administration were absolutely devastating to the Afghan government. Concession after concession was wrung out of the Afghan government in order to make it possible for us to say that we were withdrawing with a peace treaty with the Taliban. I mean, it was just when the Afghan government was not even at the negotiating table. Yeah?Marianne Williamson:Not only that, but then Biden keeps saying, oh, I just inherited this bad deal. He could have changed that deal.Sarah Chayes:That's exactly where I was going with that. Marianne, thank you for saying that. In other words, why President Biden's say, wow, among the other messes I inherited from my predecessor and I basically... He reversed the departure from the Paris Climate Accord. This wasn't a treaty and he could have said, you know what? This person, my predecessor negotiated a settlement that was completely unfair to our allies in the Afghan government, our nominal allies, whatever. And he could have removed the individual who negotiated that deal, that was so beneficial to the Taliban and so detrimental to the Afghan government.Marianne:I appreciate that we didn't belong there, but the way we exited…Sarah Chayes:Right. Or we didn't belong there the way we were there is what I would say.Marianne Williamson:And what now?Sarah Chayes:This is not the Afghanistan of 2001, that there's a whole new generation of Afghans. We've been hearing that a lot. The same thing goes for the Taliban. This is not the same Taliban as the 1990s. This is a Taliban that has been watching from the sideline as people they know have been getting fabulously rich on the kind of international development Mana and not to mention also the drug trade. Right? And so, the Taliban are very interested in tapping into some of that.And that helps explain why we've been hearing these mollifying statements and pronouncements from Taliban officials, because those ones are anxious to gain some kind of international credibility and recognition and whatnot so that they can tap into luxurious meetings in Doha and then Europe and in the United States and development money and whatnot. There is a faction that is much more hard-line and the fighters, I think the field commanders who didn't enjoy that type of diplomatic luxury, they from what I am hearing are not so wild about these outward facing pronouncements. And that may explain why we don't see a new president of Afghanistan yet.Marianne Williamson:I'd like to ask you about the women.Sarah Chayes:I think that the women who might be in a position to resist a "return" to those conditions will be women. I do not foresee a mass slaughter of women. I wouldn't put it past the Taliban to commit some exemplary, gruesome assassinations of women who have been in the public eye, but they're not going to go door-to-door and drag women out of the houses. They can't afford... Religiously, they can't do that.The situation for women is going to be grim. And all I can say is that I hope this generation of women that has, in some of these major cities, been able to step forward, I hope that they take a deep breath, connect with each other, and start thinking about what kind of Afghanistan they live in, and begin slowly planning for how to bring that Afghanistan into existence with each other, and with men that they trust, because I'm already hearing these Taliban begging civil servants to stay in their positions.In the last two days, I've heard those two publicly calling for Afghans to stay in their positions in government, and for the international community to stay engaged with the Taliban government, because you know what? These Taliban are not capable of governing.And I think that Afghans need to take a breath and think about how to birth the Afghanistan they always wanted.And let's pull back from the specifics of Afghanistan for a moment, and just return to what I was saying about Afghanistan being a mirror of us.Let's take a look at the mushrooming growths of McMansions that now encircle Washington, DC. Let's take a look at the portfolios, the offshore bank accounts, the assets, the pay packages of top executives in, for example, defense contracting firms, pharmaceutical firms, financial investment firms, real estate giants, and the lawyers and brokers that serviced them. Now, let's take a look at the policies that many of these executives have either influenced because of their connections with top government officials, or have promulgated because many of them have actually rotated in and out of government themselves. Those policies include two lost wars, a financial meltdown that almost brought down the world economy, a global pandemic, and an opioid crisis that both have killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. And I'm sure we could come up with a few others. What I want to know is, first of all, have any of those individuals been held accountable for the abject failure of their policies? And secondly, does this not resemble the developing world fragile and failing states that I'm talking about? There is a network of top business executives and government officials, who often trade places, that really has been in charge in the United States for the last number of decades. And they have promulgated a lot of spectacularly unsuccessful policies. I mean, embarrassingly disastrous policies, while they have been extraordinarily successful in enriching themselves.This is the mirror that we need to look in. And that's what I wish more Americans were doing right now.Marianne Williamson:Well, I think more Americans are saying exactly what you're saying. And of course, this refers to your book, On Corruption in America.And you're making such an excellent point, that the Afghan war is just an example of the way America operates these days, where money to be made for small group of people takes precedence over the health, and safety, and the welfare, and the security of the American people, other people in the world, and the planet on which we live. I think more and more people are waking up to this. The week before, this debacle in Afghanistan exploded the way it did. We had the UN climate report.Sarah Chayes:For sure. And thank you for bringing up the environment because that was the main group that I left out.I frankly think we have overblown the danger of terrorism from the beginning. I'm not saying that 9/11 was not horrific, but I just think that in comparison with the damage that has been caused by, as you said, by these money-maximizers, compared to the damage done to our health, to the health of the planet, and to our lives, as many people committed suicide in the wake of the crash of 2008, as were killed in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I actually think that terrorism has been a distraction from the real issues that we need to be focusing on as a nation and as people.Marianne Williamson:Thank you, Sarah Chayes. Thank you for putting it out there. And I hope that we will have more opportunities in the future to talk, about things that all of us need to hear. Thank you so much.Sarah Chayes:I really appreciate you for having me and for the depth and thoughtfulness of your questions.Marianne Williamson:Thank you. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.transformarticles.com/subscribe
Former journalist and U.S. military advisor Sarah Chayes joins Christiane Amanpour to discuss the ties that bind U.S. and Afghan societies. Former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. and the UN Maleeha Lodhi says Pakistan would like to see the international community engage with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then turning to the coronavirus pandemic, top epidemiologist Larry Brilliant discusses the potential for the Delta variant spread among children as many more schools are set to open in America. And then former marine and best-selling author Elliot Ackerman, who helped hundreds of Afghans escape in the last few weeks, talks about U.S. foreign policy going forward and Biden's legacy. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy
Williamson and Chayes discuss Chayes' article “The Ides of August,” about her experiences working as a reporter and special counsellor to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war in Afghanistan. Subscribe to Marianne's Substack, TRANSFORM: MarianneWilliamson.Substack.com Subscribe to Marianne's TRANSFORM Podcast: https://spoti.fi/3mMKauu Watch the full interview: https://youtu.be/6rPjZBNBPrY Learn more about Sarah: https://www.sarahchayes.org/ Read "The Ides of August" https://www.sarahchayes.org/post/the-ides-of-august
Sarah Chayes, a writer and former journalist who worked as a special adviser to the US military leadership in Afghanistan, talks to Martin Sandbu about what will be the legacy of America's 20-year involvement.Clips: White House; ITV News; ABC 7 Chicago See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
More than a decade. That's how long Sarah Chayes worked in Afghanistan. With the Taliban back in power, we talk with Chayes about how Afghanistan really changed, and how it changed her. Sarah Chayes joins Meghna Chakrabarti.
As the Taliban faces protests and dissent across Afghanistan, William Brangham explores the collapse of the country's government -- built and supported by the U.S. and allies for 20 years. For a deeper perspective, Brangham speaks with Sarah Chayes, who covered the fall of the Taliban after 9/11 for NPR and served as advisor to several senior U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
The United States, she argues, has fallen into a trap frighteningly similar to what we see in places like Afghanistan or Nigeria. And getting rid of Donald Trump will not save us.
Corruption: Laurie Taylor talks to Sarah Chayes, writer and former Senior Fellow in the Democracy and Rule of Law programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about the ways in which vested interests have corrupted America - from unjust Supreme Court rulings to revolving doors between the private and state sector - and challenges the notion that this phenomenon is principally caused by wicked individuals lining their own pockets. Instead she reveals a many headed hydra of sophisticated networks spanning political and national boundaries. They’re joined by Dan Hough, Director of the Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex, who provides a British & global perspective on a phenomenon which is threatening democracy. How can it be tackled at a personal, political and collective level? Producer: Jayne Egerton
The United States is showing signs similar to some of the most corrupt countries in the world, and this corruption is determining the shape of our government and affecting all levels of society. This is a topic of a brand-new book by prizewinning journalist Sarah Chayes titled On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake.
In this bonus episode of The Impact: Coronavirus and Organized Crime, Jack sits down with author and former NPR foreign correspondent, https://www.sarahchayes.org/ (Sarah Chayes). In this extended version of the interview which was part of the COVID and Corruption episode, Sarah talks about her experience of studying corruption around the world and how kleptocratic networks capture state institutions, even in the United States. https://twitter.com/Sarah_Chayes?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor (Sarah Chayes) is the author of Thieves of State and the upcoming book On Corruption in America. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Missy Robertson, formerly of Duck Dynasty, talks about her new PureFlix series Restored, which highlights the stories of women who found restoration through God's grace. Journalist and corruption specialist Sarah Chayes offers ways to identify and combat public corruption.
Bible and Business's Bill English looks at the workplace loneliness and friendships, and the importance to a balanced view of workplace relationships. Sarah Chayes, author of Thieves of State, talks about being honest about government corruption and how it harms others the average person.
Bible and Business's Bill English looks at the workplace loneliness and friendships, and the importance to a balanced view of workplace relationships. Sarah Chayes, author of Thieves of State, talks about being honest about government corruption and how it harms others the average person.
With the release of Disney+ and how it's disrupting the entertainment industry, Bill English of Bible and Business looks how Christians can both respond and instigate positive disruption. Sarah Chayes, author of "Thieves of State," reviews the negative impact of corruption both overseas and in the US.
With the release of Disney+ and how it's disrupting the entertainment industry, Bill English of Bible and Business looks how Christians can both respond and instigate positive disruption. Sarah Chayes, author of "Thieves of State," reviews the negative impact of corruption both overseas and in the US.
Daniel Bennett of the Center for Faith and Flourishing at John Brown University looks at the latest the impeachment front, as well as his recent address at the Presidential Politics Conference in Iowa on Trump's judicial picks. Sarah Chayes, author of "Thieves of State," talks about the reality of political corruption.
Daniel Bennett of the Center for Faith and Flourishing at John Brown University looks at the latest the impeachment front, as well as his recent address at the Presidential Politics Conference in Iowa on Trump's judicial picks. Sarah Chayes, author of "Thieves of State," talks about the reality of political corruption.
How does corruption impact development? In this first episode of the 2019 season, Patrick Fine speaks with Sarah Chayes, author of "Thieves of State." In 2019, A Deeper Look explores the darker side of development, with episodes that focus on the paradoxes and unintended consequences of development efforts. FHI 360's Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Fine, hosts conversations with creative thinkers, respected leaders and local actors who are at the forefront of human development and who bring diverse perspectives to timely, high-stakes and sometimes controversial issues affecting people around the world.
Sarah Chayes, a senior fellow in Carnegie's Democracy and Rule of Law program, discusses how cultural and technological shifts have fueled corruption -- and some explosive reactions to it. She will chart these trends from countries as diverse as Russia, Nigeria and the U.S. Photo by Kaveh Sardari
On Oct 11th, Hudson Institute�s Kleptocracy Initiative held a discussion of Ilya Zaslavskiy�s report, How Non-State Actors Export Kleptocratic Norms to the West.