Paying Afghan warlords as allies restored heroin trade and brutal oppression

Evidence

The Afghan feuding warlords regained control over their fiefdoms. Some resumed the lucrative international heroin trade, and others even restored the medieval tyranny, especially toward women, that was the Taliban so brutally practiced. Generous payments to the warlords, allies of convenience, to fight the war and to hunt al Qaeda and its Taliban patrons nourished a state of anarchy. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2416

Categorization

• XREF: A concrete case of the broader principal-agent problem and the perverse incentives of funding local proxies documented in analyses of the drug trade and counterinsurgency.