What I would do in Afghanistan if I had a magic wand

a friend asked me to comment on yesterday's news that obama is raising troop strength in afghanistan by 17,000...

OK - you're there and can see what's going on. What's your opinion? Obviously Bush and company really, really screwed things up over there. Do you think this will help if they start getting the contractors in line and take the graft out of the US companies doing business there?

i guess i had too much time on my hands because i offered up this rather lengthy response...

just because i'm here doesn't mean i'm any smarter than the average bear... however, here's what i think needs to happen...

- stop the civilian deaths and, if, despite all precautions, they happen anyway, eat humble pie, apologize all over the place, and make reparations, even IF you think they might have been hostile elements...

- lower the boom on the afghan government and force them to stop funneling money to their cronies... the afghan people ain't stupid... they can see what's happening and are sick and tired of it...

- stop awarding massive amounts of money to u.s. contractors who either pocket most of it or waste it on showcase projects that do nothing except make somebody in d.c. feel good...

- refocus development efforts (such as i'm involved in) to actually build the capacity of the afghans to do for themselves instead of allowing the ex-pats to huff and puff and pretend we know it all and that the afghans are nothing but a bunch of dirtballs...

- if the u.s. is going to support someone for afghan president in the upcoming election, pick someone who is squeaky clean and can command the respect of the afghan people as well as hold his own in the world community... the average afghan desperately needs someone they think is looking after THEIR interests AND the good of the country as a whole...

- the troops, existing and incremental, need to be focused almost 100% on helping the folks in the countryside get re-established in being able to make a living... the farmers, goat and sheep herders have been devastated over 30 years of chaos, so that DOESN'T mean popping in out of the blue in choppers killing their poppy fields with herbicide and wiping out their only means of support... it means getting down in the dirt with them, helping them make a living out of raising and selling legitimate crops that will help feed the nation and reducing its dependence on imported foodstuffs from pakistan which is where most of the afghan food currently comes from...

- control the borders... besides insurgents coming in from pakistan, there are so many goods coming in uninspected and duty-free, it ain't funny... afghanistan could damn near become self-supporting just from customs duty enforcement alone, but because there are so many palms being greased up to and including those at the ministerial level in charge of customs duty enforcement, everyone just turns a blind eye...

- get cracking on developing cross-border trade and, yes, you idiots, this means with iran on the western side of the country... there are only two remotely accessible ports, karachi in pakistan and bandar abbas in iran... everything's now coming through karachi... also, build a railway spur from herat up to turkmenistan to open up access to the larger railway and road network through central asia east to china and west to the urals, eastern europe and beyond... build a decent relationship with uzbekistan so that the bridge across the river from mazar e sharif can be more than just decoration...

- go full-tilt boogie on infrastructure... kabul is a ruined city, almost more so than when the u.s. took over in late 2001/early 2002, and the rest of the country (with a few exceptions such as cities like jalalabad, herat and mazar e sharif) have never had infrastructure to begin with... i'm talking water, sanitation, electricity, roads, health care, schools, etc...

- get prices under control... the americans (in kabul, at least) have grossly distorted rents, wages, and prices of everything... when the project i work for is paying $15K a month, 3 months in advance, for ONE up-armored toyota suv, and $35K a month for one house that's used as the project office, you know things are out of control... i know an afghan woman who runs her own consulting company who had to hire someone from india to manage her office because she can't afford to hire an afghan... what's wrong with this picture...?

- the obama administration should plan to conduct monthly visits to afghanistan by administration higher-ups... that means the secdef, the sec'y of state, the special envoy, the vp and the prez hisself... message: we're paying attention, we care, we want to see what's happening on the ground, we're not afraid to come there...

you asked...

now, hell, i don't know if any of that makes sense or is even remotely possible but, hey, if i had a magic wand, that's what i'd do... whether it would make any difference or not is a whole 'nother question...

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