Local villagers receive humanitarian aid from the Bagram Provincial Reconstruction Team in the village of Nijrab in the Kapisa Province of Afghanistan Jan. 14, 2008. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Tyffani L. Davis)
With Aid To Afghanistan, Past Performance Is A Predictor Of Future Returns -- Dan Murphy, Christian Science Monitor
A lot of aid to Afghanistan has been squandered. The latest project indicates that the US still doesn't seem to understand the country's basic needs.
In Afghanistan, it's not so much that the US is failing to learn from history. It's that it also seems to be failing to learn from the present.
During the past decade of war there, billions of dollars of US spending have been stolen, squandered, or have simply disappeared into well-intentioned projects that were inappropriate for Afghan needs.
So what is the US up to now? Planning more spending, even after US troops depart at the end of next year when it will have even less ability to monitor and account for spending than it does now.
This year the US is planning to spend $10 billion on Afghan "reconstruction" alone. While US plans for the country may begin to get some attention given the fight in Washington over slashing spending, raising taxes, or doing both, US plans for Afghanistan seem to be on auto-pilot. And some, frankly, seem utopian given its experiences there.
Read more ....
My Comment: Over the years I have been criticized (more than once) by a few individuals who work for aid agencies and who always felt that my analysis was too critical and pessimistic on the work that they were doing. OK .... I am not on the ground in Afghanistan .... so my analysis is limited .... but I keep on reading stories like the one above, and the money keeps on flowing into that country. Do I see any light at the end of the tunnel .... no .... and as the above Christian Science Monitor analysis clearly reveals .... do not expect any changes in the future.
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