Members of President Hamid Karzai's family, his government and his supporters have been given multimillion-dollar loans for the purchase of luxury villas in Dubai by Kabul Bank, a five-year-old private bank set up by Sherkhan Farnood, the country's only world-class poker player. The Washington Post reports that the insider loans reflect a defining feature of the shaky post-Taliban order in which Washington has invested more than $40 billion and the lives of more than 900 U.S. service members.
