Afghanistan may indeed be a hopeless case. But: a certain amount of its current hopelessness traces back to the 80's proxy war we fought with the Soviets. Which dragged on, with our support, long after the Soviets withdrew.
Anyway, as is sometimes my fashion, I went rooting around for articles and found this old one at the Atlantic: theatlantic.com
A random bit:
A strong argument certainly exists for radical change in Afghanistan. The per capita gross national product is about $150 a year. To say simply that this figure places Afghanistan among the poorest countries in the world is misleading. In most of the other $150-a-year economies the weather is warm and one can live comfortably on relatively little. Last year, the purchase of a $55 million DC-10 tripled the country's usual trade with the United States. Normally, the bulk of the $20 million worth of American imports consists of used clothing, which one sees piled high in the bazaars. The Salvation Army is the Brooks Brothers of Afghanistan.
So, per capita gdp is now up to $400, allegedly. Somewhat astonishingly, Wikipedia shows the population currently at around 28 million, versus 13 million in the 1979 census. Given the ballpark $1 million per US soldier per year figure that's been floated lately, we are allegedly in line to pour about 9 times Afghanistan's GNP into the military effort there for the next few years. I guess that would make say, the AIG bailout look super cost effective by comparison.
P. S. Do I have the honor of the first post to Bluestocking? I was amused that the literal definition seems somewhat less pejorative than my understanding of the term. |
