Article

2009-09-01 Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Time to Stop Nation-Building

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2009-09-01 11:46|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 You can't grow alternative crops in places that for the most part don't even have electricity. If you were to manage to get the province to grow wheat, where would you put it and how would you get it there?

People have no idea how primative most of Afghanistan is. There are no "gas stations", no rural electrification, no hard surface roads. It is like the US at the turn of the 20th century except with satellite phones and radios. Most energy production in Afghanistan comes from wood burning. More energy is produced from wood than from coal, oil, and gas combined. I don't believe there is even an oil refinery in Afghanistan.

We are going to have to "clear and hold" for a couple of generations. Our country developed pretty quickly between 1900 and 1950 ... but it took 50 years to do it. First you need to teach the population to read. That is going to take several years just doing that.

Posted by crosspatch 2009-09-01 13:50|| 2009-09-01 13:50|| Front Page Top

#2 According to Wikipedia, Afghanistan used to supply natural gas to the Soviet Union, and the wells are still there, capped when the Soviets left. And cereal production, as I just noted in the in-lines above (not written when crosspatch posted -- sorry about that) has just about double since we got there. And while the unemployment number bandied about is a horrid 40%, Afghanistan has absorbed 4 million returning refugees in the last few years. Granted that some were thrown out recently by Pakistan, most returned willingly, meaning they are willing to bet their lives and the lives of their children that things will continue to improve.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2009-09-01 15:01|| 2009-09-01 15:01|| Front Page Top

#3 There is Afghanistan and there is Afghanistan.

The oil/gas and most of the wheat, and most of the modernization and progress, seem to be in the north of the country in the majority Tajik and Turkomen regions, the former stronghiolds of the Northern Alliance. Lets call them Afghanistans Kurds.

Posted by buwaya 2009-09-01 15:29|| 2009-09-01 15:29|| Front Page Top

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