The sad state of infrastructure in Afghanistan

juan cole has a detailed rundown on the dismal state of afghanistan reconstruction and development...

when i first arrived in afghanistan a year ago march, i was stunned at the state of the infrastructure... after all, my country had been there nearly seven years at the time and had spent many billions of dollars... perhaps naively, i expected to see at least some tangible evidence of it even though i know full well how much money goes back to the u.s. in the pockets of ex-pats, mine included... professor cole's article snippets present a mildly hopeful picture but nothing even close to where it should be...

from professor cole's post...

[B]etween one-third and 40% of all foreign aid to Afghanistan is returned to the donor countries because much of it is given on the condition that it must be used to buy goods or services from the donor nation.

that pretty well sums it up...

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