It can't have come as much of a surprise to people in Afghanistan to learn their country has been rated the second most corrupt in the world. They have a lot more to worry about, anyway.

And I hope Canadians aren't gloating that the gnomes of Transparency International in Berlin have rated Canada eighth on their annual corruption perceptions index with a mark of 8.7 out of 10 for squeaky cleanliness.

To be sure, we might feel a little smug that we've been found the least corrupt nation in the G7, if that gang of seven still means anything. And it'll please some of us that the U.S., which has seized so much of the globe's high moral ground, got a mark of only 7.5, placing it 19th.

But I wonder what this CPI is supposed to tell us. I wonder if it's any more meaningful than other lists issued annually by self-appointed monitors -- lists like those claiming to identify the best universities, the best hamburger joints or the best places to kiss or walk the dog.

This CPI is no more than its title says: Perceptions.

Lots of things, like political or regional prejudices, like national or local tastes, contribute a great deal to perceptions about a country.

Transparency International says that its findings are based on surveys by "13 independent institutions" based on "the opinions of business people and country analysts."

Far from a statistics-laden report of a United Nations agency, this is more a list of impressions by a few chamber-of-commerce types who read other impressions in newspapers and see them on TV.

Not all countries received 13 surveys. It took eight of them to rocket Canada to No. 8; it took only two to relegate Somalia to No. 180.

It's pretty clear, too, that those countries found most corrupt are torn about by conflicts and have governments of questionable legitimacy or governing ability.

Those found more pristine have time to concern themselves with global warming or the continuing profitability of global banking and corporate enterprise -- which seem, so often to so many, to amount to the same thing.

Business types, because they are always looking for opportunities, must recognize that some countries, like China, that rate poorly on this CPI are relatively prosperous economically.

And how many tycoons in rich countries are keen on doing business in Russia where the president has declared corruption is "society's Public Enemy No. 1?"

The point that I'm trying to make is that there are other things in so many countries that need fixing besides government or corporate corruption.

It would be a shame -- no, criminal -- if the nations of the world who have taken up whatever challenge they've perceived in Afghanistan, should throw up their hands and quit the place now simply because it's judged corrupt.

The U.S. official overseer of Afghan reconstruction reported last month that corruption is putting at risk American "investment" in the country.

Once gung-ho generals are citing corrupt "allies" as an excuse for failures on the ground.

How often have pristine western powers tried to impose western values like democracy, the rule of law and their peculiar brand of morality on countries to which these values are alien?

And how often have they failed?

Transparency International is perfectly justified in focusing on corruption as people in positions of power improperly or unlawfully enriching themselves, or those close to them, by the misuse of that power.

In what's been called the "bazaar economy" of Afghanistan, where everything and everyone can be bought for a price, this type of corruption fits, certainly.

But the roots of the word itself can reveal a wider appreciation of its meaning: It's a rupture of morality, and it goes beyond laws, regulations and cautiously drafted codes of ethics. Legally sanctioned corruption is still corruption.

So Switzerland is No. 5 on the CPI even though it thrives on secret bank accounts full of dirty money.

So the corporations of ordered, squeaky-clean countries -- and their national economies -- prosper from dealings with enterprises and governments of chaotic, corrupt ones.

Where, I wonder, would Canada rank on a real corruption index?

cruachan@shaw.ca