$52 Billion of American Aid and Still Afghans are Dying of Starvation
December 13th, 2010Failure? Someone wound up with a whole lot of opium and heroin, and a bunch of corporations made a killing from a gusher of absurd and lucrative contracts.
That sounds more like just another day at the office than failure to me—considering the criminal organizations involved and their blood soaked gravy train.
—Top U.S. Commander for Afghan War: More Forces or ‘Mission Failure’
Via: Independent:
The most extraordinary failure of the US-led coalition in Afghanistan is that the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars has had so little impact on the misery in which 30 million Afghans live. As President Barack Obama prepares this week to present a review of America’s strategy in Afghanistan which is likely to focus on military progress, US officials, Afghan administrators, businessmen and aid workers insist that corruption is the greatest threat to the country’s future.
In a series of interviews, they paint a picture of a country where $52bn (£33bn) in US aid since 2001 has made almost no impression on devastating poverty made worse by spreading violence and an economy dislocated by war. That enormous aid budget, two-thirds for security and one-third for economic, social and political development, has made little impact on 9 million living in absolute poverty, and another 5 million trying to survive on $43 (£27) a month. The remainder of the population often barely scrapes a living, having to choose between buying wood to keep warm and buying food.
Afghans see a racketeering élite as the main beneficiaries of international support and few of them are optimistic about anything changing.
