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Africa Subsaharan
Intractable Afghan Graft Hampering U.S...... Strategy
2012-03-08
Strategy? What strategy?
Posted by:Besoeker

#10  The electorate was NEVER willing to do this,..

Actually, the ruling caste would never allow it. Can't have the electorate see real effective and efficient government in action orchestrated by others that could be used as an example to compare to their own inept and self serving behaviors.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2012-03-08 17:24  

#9  This should have been prepared for from the very start. The first government should have been all American military. The electorate was NEVER willing to do this, but in its profound ignorance of what Afghanistan is all about, just followed the leader.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2012-03-08 15:10  

#8  Besoeker: That's why they don't like it, because it is the one time when a nanny state works.

Typically, a nanny state in peacetime is created by an inefficient government as a way to appear that it is doing something, when it ignores the big issues. East Germany, for example, was utterly transfixed by minutiae while the country was falling down around them.

But an example of an efficient nanny state that worked was the MacArthur(PBUH) administration of Japan.

His intent was to replace what *didn't* work in Japanese society and culture with what did. And the systems He replaced it with *worked* like nothing the Japanese had ever seen. It rebuilt and restored Japan in short order, and their constitution, written by Him, was almost sacred to them long after he left.

In the case of Iraq, our military should have replaced every system they had, given photo ID cards, with encrypted information on the back to every Iraqi, etc. It would have sped their recovery immensely.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2012-03-08 14:51  

#7  The reason pols adore Nation Building so phueching much is because it so delightfully mirrors the ultimate NANNY STATE!

Plus it means jobs, expense accounts and White Toyota Land Cruisers for their kids and friends...
Posted by: Steve White   2012-03-08 14:46  

#6  Settle down, settle down. The reason pols adore Nation Building so phueching much is because it so delightfully mirrors the ultimate NANNY STATE!
Posted by: Besoeker   2012-03-08 13:52  

#5  WE have helped create Mexico redux in the near east: graft, corruption, drugs, and an ineffectual central government.

borgie me boy, don't be so bloody arrogant. WE didn't create this at all. This has been the modus operandi of that part of the world since before Alexander the Great.

I'll give you that we didn't stop it but we haven't stopped the tide from coming in and out either. Graft, corruption, drugs and bad government is the normal condition of the whole world. Any times or places that are different are outliers and probably short lived.
Posted by: AlanC   2012-03-08 13:49  

#4  "We don't need no stinkin' strategy!" WE have helped create Mexico redux in the near east: graft, corruption, drugs, and an ineffectual central government.
Posted by: borgboy   2012-03-08 13:09  

#3  Obviously the Afghan's problem is with the nuances of 'graft'. Just scroll down the 'Rant to "Despite $885m from Feds, D.C. has no count of jobs from stimulus".
Posted by: Procopius2k   2012-03-08 12:55  

#2  This should have been prepared for from the very start. The first government should have been all American military.

While it was running things efficiently, every orphan in the country would be brought to Kabul and put in a secure boarding school, where they would have been intensively trained to become the new Afghan government and military leadership.

The second tier would have been taught business to modern international standards. Eventually any and all international funding would go directly to both groups.

The next stage would be to spread this program out to all large cities, in which by law, all children would attend public boarding school taught by western teachers. All secular, and completely segregated from their countrymen.

Third, only public school educated children would be eligible for any public service job.

While this was going on, the US could have easily afforded enormous public works projects at the standard Afghan wage, tent and board, for every Afghan who otherwise would be idle. For every male in half the country, it would have amounted to about $1b a year.

Any Afghan male not in school or gainfully employed, would be detained, then put in school or gainfully employed. Or arrested for outstanding offenses.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2012-03-08 12:22  

#1  We have to re-elect Obama to find out what the strategy is.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2012-03-08 12:03  

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