ECONOMIC STIMULUS FOR AFGHANISTAN. WHY?

Editorial comment: Don't we have enough problems in our own country without giving millions of taxpayer dollars into rebuilding Afghanistan?

We haven't been able to plug the hole in the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and yet we are pouring millions of dollars into Afghanistan.

It doesn't make sense.
Bill Corcoran, editor, CORKSPHERE.

In Afghan region, U.S. spreads the cash to fight the Taliban

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff WriterMonday, May 31, 2010; A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/30/AR2010053003722.html?hpid=topnews

NAWA, AFGHANISTAN -- In this patch of southern Afghanistan, the U.S. strategy to keep the Taliban at bay involves an economic stimulus.

Thousands of men, wielding hoes and standing in knee-deep muck, are getting paid to clean reed-infested irrigation canals.

Farmers are receiving seeds and fertilizer for a fraction of their retail cost, and many are riding around on shiny new red tractors. Over the summer, dozens of gravel roads and grain-storage facilities will be constructed -- all of it funded by the U.S. government.

Pumping reconstruction dollars into war zones has long been part of the U.S. counterinsurgency playbook, but the carpet bombing of Nawa with cash has resulted in far more money getting into local hands, far more quickly, than in any other part of Afghanistan.

The U.S. Agency for International Development's agriculture program aims to spend upward of $30 million within nine months in this rural district of mud-walled homes and small farms. Other U.S. initiatives aim to bring millions more dollars to the area over the next year.

Because aid is so plentiful in Nawa -- seemingly everyone who wants a job has one -- many young men have opted to stop serving as the Taliban's guns for hire. Unlike neighboring Marja, where insurgent attacks remain a daily occurrence, the central parts of Nawa have been largely violence-free the past six months.

But the cash surge has also unleashed unintended and potentially troubling consequences. It is sparking new tension and rivalries within the community, and it is prompting concern that the nearly free seeds and gushing canals will result in more crops than farmers will be able to sell. It is also raising public expectations for handouts that the Afghan government will not be able to sustain once U.S. contributions ebb.

Continue reading here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/30/AR2010053003722.html?hpid=topnews